Yemmireddy, Veerachandra K.

English

Scholarworks@UTRGV Univ. of Texas RioGrande Valley

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley ScholarWorks @ UTRGV Open Educational Resources - Reviews 12-21-2022 Review of Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience Veerachandra K. Yemmireddy The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, veerachandra.yemmireddy@utrgv.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/oer_reviews Recommended Citation Yemmireddy, V. (2022). [Review of Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience, by H. Ahern]. Open Textbook Reviews. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/reviews/34319 ; https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/oer_reviews/40 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks @ UTRGV. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Educational Resources - Reviews by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UTRGV. For more information, please contact william.flores01@utrgv.edu.                                                     Review of Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience The UTRGV Library hosts Open Reviews authored by UTRGV faculty as part of the Open Education Network initiative, promoting affordable, high-quality educational materials. These reviews evaluate resources based on criteria such as accuracy, clarity, relevance, and cultural inclusivity, providing valuable insights to help educators make informed decisions about adopting open education resources. This initiative aligns with UTRGV’s mission to promote academic excellence and enhance student success, particularly for its diverse, Hispanic-majority, first-generation student body. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Veerachandra Yemmireddy The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley College of Sciences School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences veerachandra.yemmireddy@utrgv.edu  These reviews evaluate resources based on criteria such as accuracy, clarity, and relevance, providing valuable insights that help educators make informed decisions about adopting open educational resources. COMPREHENSIVENESS Rating: 3/5  “Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience” is designed as a comprehensive laboratory manual for undergraduate students in microbiology and allied disciplines. This manual covered topics such as general introduction, microscopy, bacterial culture methods, staining techniques, biochemical tests, antimicrobial susceptibility tests. It also included a chapter consisting of guided activities focusing on human skin microbiome. In addition, topics such as microbial food safety, epidemiology and public health were also discussed. Although this book covered different topics in microbiology, I felt this book could have provided users with a more comprehensive understanding of microbiology concepts in a more structured and systematic approach. I felt this manual is too focused on a few topics and some of the activities suggested could be more useful for clinical microbiology students. CONTENT ACCURACY Rating: 4/5  I did not see any errors in terms of accuracy in the content provided. However, certain generalized statements in certain parts of the manual should be revisited with the current scientific understanding to ensure the accuracy of the content. RELEVANCE/LONGETIVITY Rating: 3/5  The contents of the manual are relevant to the field. Certain fundamental concepts such as adjusting the microscope to get better images, difference between magnification and resolution, various biochemical tests and their significance in clinical context are well discussed and useful to students. CLARITY Rating: 3/5  I found the manual is simple to follow and use but it is text-heavy. Users should spend a significant amount of time reading the content in the text format. This could be improved by adding more figures, images and flow diagrams, etc. CONSISTENCY Rating: 3/5  Yes! This manual has used consistent terminology. However, providing definitions of the terminology when first used in the manual would help students to better understand the content. MODULARITY Rating: 2/5  As mentioned, I found this manual requires user to spend reading the text-heavy portion of the content. This limits the user to navigate through different sections at will to make them self-explanatory and standalone topics. ORGANIZATION/STRUCTURE/FLOW Rating: 2/5  Organization of topics in this manual can be improved. Terminologies such as gram staining technique and all are used in the beginning chapters without introducing these concepts earlier. This way of organizing content makes it difficult for the students to follow the content. INTERFACE Rating: 1/5  The quality of images and figures are not good.  GRAMMATICAL ERRORS Rating: 4/5  None. CULTURAL RELEVANCE Rating: 5/5  N/A COMMENTS Overall, this laboratory manual is a useful reference for undergraduate students in microbiology and allied fields. The quality of this manual can be improved with better organization, structure, good quality images and figures, and flow diagrams.        OER INFORMATION Ti t le :  Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience Author :  Holly Ahern, SUNY Adirondack Publ i sher :   Milne Open Textbooks Condi t ions o f  Use /L icense :  At t r ibu t ion -NonCommerc ia l -ShareA l ike  CC BY-NC -SA  ISBN :  9781942341543  URL o f  Rev iew :  https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/oer_reviews/40 CITE THIS BOOK REVIEW Yemmireddy, V. (2022). [Review of Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience, by H. Ahern]. Open Textbook Reviews. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/reviews/34319     REVIEWED ON 21 December 2022 COPYRIGHT © The Author. This review is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.   

Review of Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience

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Review of Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience

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