Peer Review

A Primer of Evolution: An Introduction to Evolutionary Thought: Theory, Evidence, and Practice

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Reviewed:: May 5, 2026 by Biology

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

A Primer of Evolution is an open educational resource designed for a one-semester class on Evolutionary Biology. It provides a succinct introduction to evolutionary thought revolving around theory, evidence, and practice. It introduces some of the theoretical cornerstones and core concepts of modern evolutionary biology.

Type of Material:

Open Access (OER) Textbook

Recommended Uses:

In-class as primary or alternate textbook in an upper division Science class, a handy resource for researchers and students.

Homework: students can read and come prepared some units in classroom for discussions.

Technical Requirements:

The text can be read using any web browser. To complete the exercises in the book, installing of R and RStudio is required.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Students will learn what evolution is.
Students will be able to explore structure of a population.
Students will be able to apply the knowledge, concepts and skills to navigate through the evolutionary processes regulating organism development.
Students will be able to elaborate how to identify a role of a gene in controlling phenotype of an organism.
Students will understand the importance of scientific tools and techniques to evaluate human evolution.
Students will be able to articulate testable hypotheses that explain natural phenomena.

Target Student Population:

College Upper Division, Graduate School

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Familiarity with Biology vocabulary and some statistical knowledge of programming using R and RStudio

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

The information is an advanced survey of evolution with numerous examples and clear explanations
The text is has high quality accurate content
The text is current (last updated 2025-02-09)
Covers microevolution especially comprehensively
References are provided, which is unusual for a textbook

Concerns:

The text is biased towards animals
The title of this text includes the words "primer" and "introduction", however, the text is appropriate only for students with a sophisticated background in biology

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

The chapters are presented in a reasonable order so that the information builds sequentially
The text provides connections to helps students understand the relatedness various topics
A conceptual introduction to the topics are provided in each chapter
Provides hands-on practice on how statistical analysis supports the concepts
A basic tutorial on the R statistical program and how to install it helps students understand and extrapolate the data for broader understanding
The text is supported by images and videos - which can be used for case studies.
Reflection questions at the end of chapters are useful for in-classroom discussions and informal assessment

Concerns:

The largely conceptual introduction to the topics is not much supplemented with applications or examples (the text is intended to accompany a course and the author suggests the examples/applications will be covered in the class meetings)
The text is designed to be accessed online and would not be easy to print
There does not appear to be a mechanism for access off-line

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

Content is presented in a concise manner
The text has high readability
The text includes a table of contents that is hyperlinked to the text and a search function
Navigation is intuitive with a sidebar table of contents
Multimedia supplemental material is presented appropriately in logical places
Links seemed to all work
The tutorial on R enhances understanding of the visuals, graphs, and line drawings
The text has a creative commons share and share alike copyright
Accessibility elements are present, including text size, serif/sans, background color (white, sepia, night), and spacing adjustments

Concerns:

Additional ancillary materials such as multiple-choice questions, chapter summaries, key words/concepts would be useful for a textbook
The results of the search function can be difficult to access and there is no search button for the search window (enter works fine)

Other Issues and Comments:: This OER textbook will support a complete course and can be easily adopted and customized to meet the needs of the faculty and students.
Creative Commons: