OER Digest – September 10, 2020

From Mo Nyamweya | Volume 113 | September 10, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

OPENSTAX MILESTONE: OpenStax has officially surpassed $1 billion in student savings since publishing their first open textbook in 2012. In just under a decade of operation, OpenStax has had a massive impact on teaching and learning, serving over 14 million students worldwide. They’ve also just announced that they have plans to double their library of open textbooks with $12.5 million in grant support from various national foundations, marking the largest investment in OER to date.

OER PROJECT PARTNERSHIP: The Nevada Department of Education announced the OER Project’s collaboration with the state on two new history courses. The Big History Project focuses on foundational skills and concepts for students to help prepare them for high school-level work, while the World History Project focuses on preparing students for Advanced Placement coursework. The courses will allow teachers to adapt lesson plans and materials to the needs of their middle and high school students. 

COLLABORATION IN BC: Science and geography faculty from post-secondary institutions in British Columbia collaborated on developing an open resource that will be introduced this fall. In three months, they developed a 22-assignment lab manual for students in first year geography courses. The project was conceptualized as a result of the sudden shift to online learning necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

REGISTER NOW: The 2020 Open Education Global Conference (November 16-20) has opened registration. 

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Renton Technical College – located in Renton, Washington – is hiring an OER and Instruction Librarian. Applications received by Wednesday, October 7th will receive priority consideration, but the position is open until filled.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted

FROM KENTUCKY: The Eastern Kentucky Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Open Textbook Resources is awarding a $23,000 grant funding courses with zero textbook costs. As a result of this first round of funding, approximately 4,500 EKU students will save an estimated $333,000 each year. “It provides a huge return on investment in terms of the impact it will have for EKU student success,” said EKU librarian Kelly Smith. “For some students, it could mean the difference between passing and failing a class.” Read more >>

FROM ARKANSAS: The University of Arkansas Library’s new course development project resulted in savings of over $50,000 for students who take the required core curriculum two semester sequence in American history during the 2020-21 academic year. “As a third of our first-year students from Arkansas are Pell eligible, this project further reduces the barriers students face to access our undergraduate courses,” said James Gigantino, professor and chair of the Department of History. Read more >>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource

The University of San Francisco has published “A Way of Proceeding: Ethical Decision-Making for Management Students at Jesuit Colleges”, a resource including assignments, suggested readings and lectures for a 7 week course on ethical decision making.

University of Iowa instructor Brandon Myers created a new resource titled “Guided Inquiry Activities for Programming Language Concepts”, a collection of open resources intended to support the use of POGIL in intermediate level undergraduate computer science courses on functional programming and the implementation of programming languages.

WEIGH IN

Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider

Great to Share >> 

Fall Update: Meeting Student Basic Needs During COVID-19  | U.S. PIRG

Three strategies to manage any classroom environment this year brings | OpenStax

Interesting to Consider >> 

Textbook Affordability in the Time of COVID-19 | Taylor & Francis Online

Instructors prepared for fully online semester | The Connection

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest. 

The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.

OER DIGEST – August 13, 2020

From Bilan Jama  (CC USA)  | Volume 112 | August 13th, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

NEW FACULTY SURVEY: Bay View Analytics has released a new survey in partnership with the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET). The survey found that initiatives to raise awareness of OER are having a measurable impact on the number of faculty members using OER in their classrooms. Faculty members who are aware of one or more OER initiatives are much more likely to be adopters of OER. This is true regardless of the instructors’ type of institution, the level of course they teach, or where they are located in the U.S. “If you’re aware of an OER initiative, you’re much more aware of OER in general, much more likely to adopt, and if you haven’t adopted, you’re much more likely to say that you will adopt in the future,'” said Jeff Seaman, director at Bay View Analytics. A total of 4,399 faculty and 1,431 chairpersons responded to the survey, which took place in the fall of 2019. The results do not capture the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on OER awareness and decisions, but OER proponents told Inside Higher Ed that they have seen a notable increase in interest since March.

NEW PUBLICATION SERIES: The National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education has announced the creation of new publication series focused on OER and open educational practices. The widespread interest in the National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit, published in June 2019, and accompanying webinar, ‘Introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Licensing’, prompted the National Forum to establish a series of guides and associated webinars focused on the topic of OER/OEP. The second guide in the series, ‘How to Choose an Open Licence’, has now been published.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The call for proposals is now open for #OpenEd20. The conference will be held virtually on November 9-13, 2020. Proposals are due September 1, 2020. Learn more and submit your proposal here.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is seeking submissions for its 8th annual Library Publishing Directory. They are surveying the landscape of scholarly publishing in libraries across the globe, and invite you to share information about your library’s scholarly publishing activities. The call for entries will close on Monday, September 14, 2020.  Learn more here.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The call for chapter proposals is now open for the forthcoming book from ACRL Press, Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice. Email an abstract (up to 500 words, submitted as a Word document) and author(s) CV to OERsocialjustice@protonmail.com. The deadline to submit is October 30, 2020. 

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted

FROM ALBERTA: University of Alberta Libraries and other post-secondary institutions across the province are collaborating to provide students and instructors with the ability to access and create digital learning materials for free. The service, Open Education Alberta, is a platform that enables the adaptation, creation and use of open education resources (OERs) in post-secondary courses. As universities move to online learning in the wake of COVID-19, “Faculty [members] are already looking at ways to revisit how they’re going to deliver their courses for the fall, and OERs might solve some of the problems that they’re encountering in terms of student access to learning materials,” said project co-lead Cari Merkley, a librarian at Mount Royal University. Read more >>

FROM NEW JERSEY: Rutgers University Libraries have created a program that incentivizes faculty to use free or low-cost learning materials that save students money. The Open and Affordable Textbooks (OAT) program is projected to save over 16,400 students a total of more than $2.1 million in the cost of textbooks and other course materials over the next year.“With the ongoing pandemic putting financial pressures on so many families, it is more important than ever to do what we can to keep our students’ education affordable,” said Krisellen Maloney, vice president for information services and university librarian. “I’m proud that the Libraries can offer a program like OAT that not only helps relieve financial burdens for our students but can also help foster their academic success.” Read more >>

FROM TEXAS: DigiTex has launched Texas Learn OER, a set of ten peer-reviewed, openly licensed, self-paced modules for faculty, staff, and administrators. The modules include information on understanding OER; open licensing, including Creative Commons; finding and evaluating OER; accessibility; adapting, creating, and sharing OER; and OER in Texas.  DigiTex has worked with Carrie Gits, Head Librarian and Library Services OER Team Leader at Austin Community College, to adapt for a wider audience modules she created for ACC as a part of her capstone project for the 2018-19 SPARC Open Education Leadership Program. Read more >>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource

A new memoir published on the CUNY Manifold platform My Slipper Floated Away has been released. My Slipper Floated Away is an anthology of fresh, compelling essays written by students at Lehman College in the Bronx. The writers are immigrants or the children of immigrants and/or POC.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University recently published Doing Research, an open textbook that highlights a modules-based approach to learning research skills that emphasizes the reflective nature of information discovery, the contextual basis for evaluating that information, and a recognition that information has value.

WEIGH IN

Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider

Great to Share >> 

Why It’s So Hard to Lower the Cost of Textbooks | EdSurge

How to Make Lessons Cohesive When Teaching Both Remote and In-Person Classes | Education Week

Back to School Resources for Distance Education | Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

Interesting to Consider >> 

Colleges’ Pivot to Remote Education Has Some Upsides, Too | The Chronicle of Higher Education

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.

OER Digest – July 30, 2020

From Mo Nyamweya, SPARC | Volume 111 | July 30, 2020

With updates from Nicole Allen, SPARC

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

SUPPORT OER: The Steering Committee of DOERS3, a collective of 23 higher education systems and state/province-wide OER initiatives in the U.S. and Canada, released a statement urging higher education institutions to accelerate their adoption of high-quality OER this summer and fall. The statement outlines the advantages of OER over traditional textbooks in the COVID-19 learning environment and calls on senior officials to take action by positioning OER as the “first option,” developing OER strategic plans, and providing financial support. 

RESEARCH METHODS: GO-GN, the Global OER Graduate Network, released a Research Methods Handbook aimed at newer open education researchers and those starting out on their doctoral projects. The Handbook presents an overview of scientific methodology for open research and features contributions by 28 network members who are doctoral or postdoctoral researchers working in the field of open education. GO-GN also hosted a webinar on research methods earlier this year.

HEY OPENED! It’s official – the 2020 Open Education Conference will take place as a virtual event on November 9 – 13, 2020. Organized through a community-driven planning process, the conference welcomes all who are interested in sharing and learning about OER, open pedagogy, and open education initiatives. More information on the save the date is available here, and stay tuned for more information on registration and the call for proposals. Follow along at #OpenEd20 and @HeyOpenEd.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

REGISTER NOW: The Student Government Resource Center, a project of the Student PIRGs, is holding a free workshop for student leaders focused on the basics of campaign planning and design. This workshop will use a case study of an open textbook initiative to illustrate key concepts. While targeted for student government leaders, the training is open to all students taking on a leadership role on campus. The first half of this two-part series will be held on Tuesday August 4th at 4:00 EST. Learn more and register here.

REGISTER NOW: The Open Education Conference Steering Committee will be having a conference community call Friday, August 21, 2020 at 1:00 EST. Please register here.

APPLY NOW: Atla has launched a new pilot program to support the creation of open educational resources (OER) for courses in theology and religious studies. Click here for more information. 

APPLY NOW: BCcampus is seeking proposals for grants to develop OER and open online courses. Click here for more information on eligibility and how to apply.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted

FROM CALIFORNIA: Humboldt State University (HSU) received a $15,000 grant to support their OER program. The grant will facilitate adoption and OER research while also supporting faculty and lecturer training. HSU’s OER program has already saved students $1 million in textbooks and over $1.3 million in various course materials. “Open Educational Resources, in addition to the HSU Library’s textbook rental program, helps students get the educational materials they need to succeed as well as their basic needs to thrive,” said Kyle Morgan, scholarly communications librarian. Read more >>

FROM PENNSYLVANIA: Penn State University’s OPEN.ED, a website hosting high-quality learning materials, saw a surge of interest in March as a result of the switch to remote learning. The website was created through Penn State’s OER initiative launched in 2007, and now offers more than 80 courses spanning over 1,715 topics. “We’ve always had great content, and we wanted to create a system that allows users from around the world to easily search and access that content,” said Jennifer Babb, a learning designer in the Dutton Institute who worked on the website. Read more >>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource

Chippewa Valley Technical College recently published Nursing Pharmacology, an open textbook designed for entry-level undergraduate nursing students. The material explains basic concepts of pharmacology and describes common medication classes. The book is available for download in multiple formats, but the online version is required for interaction with the adaptive learning activities included in each chapter.

WEIGH IN

Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider

Great to Share >> 

Grant allows instructors to create affordable class materials | The Daily Evergreen

Letter to the Editor: Open source textbooks | Coastal View

Interesting to Consider >> 

Opinion: Michigan community colleges are fighting injustice | The Detroit News

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.

OER DIGEST – July 2, 2020

From Bilan Jama  (CC USA)  | Volume 109 | July 2nd, 2020

With updates from Kaitlyn Vitez

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

NEW REPORTS:  The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) released their report by its Open Education Working Group (OEWG) that examines the landscape of regional and institutional post-secondary support for open education in Canada. The report illustrates the state of open education in Canada, and highlights regional variations, strengths and weaknesses of current approaches, as well as gaps and opportunities. The Open Education in European Libraries of Higher Education report was just released, which summarizes the results of a survey of European libraries on Open Education (OE) and Open Education Resources (OER) prepared by SPARC Europe in consultation with the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL). The survey was launched at the beginning of this year, and targeted academic libraries across Europe, garnering 146 responses from 29 countries. 

STATE BILLS: Several states are adopting new legislation relating to textbooks. In Florida,  SB 72 was signed by the governor, allowing Florida institutions to make “inclusive access” style automatic course material billing programs to be opt-out. Previously, the law had guaranteed students the right to opt-in. Meanwhile, Georgia adopted SR 87, which creates the “Senate Study Committee on Digital Education and Screen Time” in Georgia public schools. This bill requires the committee to undertake a study of the conditions, needs, and issues identified in this resolution, including the effect of “digital education” on academic effectiveness and its effect on student users. 

OPEN FL DEFUNDED: Also from Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis unexpectedly vetoed funding in the state budget for the program that houses the Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC). FALSC provides online journal subscriptions, e-books, and other resources for schools across the state, and FALSC’s Open Florida initiative provides training and support for institutions to switch to OER. Advocates have expressed opposition to the move, because it cuts off faculty and students from essential resources and advising during a crucial period of preparation for summer and fall classes, which are still largely remote. 

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

APPLY NOW: The Open Education Group is accepting applications for the 2020-2021 OER Research Fellows due July 10th. Click here for more information. 

APPLY NOW: OpenStax is accepting applications for its 2020-2021 institutional partnership program. The deadline has been extended to July 17th.

REGISTER NOW: The Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas is hosting a webinar on July 15 titled “Open Texas: State Initiatives to Support OER in Higher Education.” Click here for more information and registration. 

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The call for proposals for the Creative Commons Global Summit is live. The event will be virtual and free of cost, taking place October 19-24. Proposals are due July 17th. 

APPLY NOW: Open Oregon Educational Resources seeks a researcher to work on a contract basis to conduct research on the impact of the Equity and Open Education Faculty Cohort Model. Please submit your proposal by July 31, 2020, to hofera@linnbenton.edu.

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Umpqua Community College is hiring a library director. Learn more and apply for the position here.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted

FROM KENTUCKY: The University of Kentucky Libraries recently awarded 10 Alternative Textbook Grants to faculty who will replace traditional commercial textbooks with open educational resources, library-licensed materials or original content created by the faculty themselves. So far, the program has  saved nearly 9,000 students over $1.14 million. Each student who enrolled in a course taught with an alternative textbook saved approximately $129. “Having relied on my open source textbook has made my current start into the online teaching world due to COVID so much easier,” Regina Hannemann from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering said. Read more>> 

FROM NORTH CAROLINA: With remote learning becoming the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic, some groups have expressed concern that expensive access codes for online learning materials may pose a barrier for some college students. Last month, U.S. PIRG released a new study titled Fixing the Broken Textbook Market, Second Edition, highlighting the impact of textbook prices on college students. The survey received 121 responses from UNC students. “If they don’t buy the access code, students are being priced out of access to their homework, their exams, the materials they’ve been assigned and participation in a class they’ve already paid tuition for,” Nagle said. Read more>>

FROM UTAH: When Melissa Hardy took over a biology laboratory class at Salt Lake Community College, she inherited a commercial lab manual that was out of date and did not align with the structure of her course. The manual also cost each student $100, a price they couldn’t avoid by purchasing a used copy, since the book was designed to be written in. In response to this issue, Hardy and a colleague decided to create their own open access lab manual. They added activities that take advantage of resources in their region, and the lab manual is “super adaptable”, according to Hardy. “What I’ve long said about OER is, it really makes the instructor think differently about their teaching and their courses,” says Steve Greenlaw, a professor of economics at the University of Mary Washington . “It gives you the possibility of doing these revisions. Suddenly you think about stuff you never thought about before.” Read more>>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource

Oregon State University released State and Local Government and Politics: Prospects for Sustainability (2nd Ed.). Written by Christopher A. Simon, Brent S. Steel and Nicholas P. Lovrich, the textbook considers their decades’ long research, and the meaning of that research to both the broader society and to students of contemporary politics.

WEIGH IN

Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider

Great to Share >> 

Open textbooks, in more ways than one: Save money and increase educational diversity with high-quality, up-to-date, learning options | New York Daily News 

Interesting to Consider >> 

We’re All in This Together | Inside Higher Ed

Letter: Save our neighbors’ jobs | Pocono Record 

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.

OER Digest – June 18, 2020

From Mo Nyamweya, SPARC | Volume 108 | June 18, 2020

With updates from Nicole Allen

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

NEW REPORT: U.S. PIRG has released a new study titled Fixing the Broken Textbook Market, SecondEdition, a follow-up to their 2014 survey, which found that 65% of students skip buying textbooks because of their high cost. The new study, which is based on a survey of over 4,000 students across 83 college campuses, shows that despite the supposedly lower cost of access codes versus hard copy textbooks, students still report skipping buying textbooks at the same rate as 2014. In addition, nearly 1 in 5 students reports having skipped buying an access code.. 

OPEN HUMANITIES: The U.S. National Endowment for Humanities announced twelve awards through the inaugural round of the Fellowships Open Book Program, a special initiative for scholarly presses to make recent monographs freely available online under an open license. The books range from studies of literature and history to musicology and sociology, and each will receive $5,500 to support digitization, marketing, and a stipend for the author. Applications for the next round of awards are due August 17th.

LUMEN EXPANDS: Lumen Learning announced that it is expanding its work beyond OER and digital courseware with a new faculty professional development offering. Edsurge reports that the new cohort-based service is made possible by Lumen’s acquisition of the higher education assets of Faculty Guild, an instructor coaching company.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

READER SURVEY: The OER Digest team is collecting feedback from our readers – please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.

APPLY NOW: SPARC’s Open Education Leadership Program is accepting applications for the 2020-2021 cohort. Apply by tomorrow, June 19th, for priority review. The program is open to academic librarians and other professionals working on OER in U.S. and Canadian higher education.

REGISTER NOW: Library Juice Academy’s new certificate program, Introduction to Open Educational Resources, is an interactive six-week course structured around crafting a final proposal for an OER initiative. Click here for registration, costs, and more information.

REGISTER NOW: The National Association of College Stores’ Textbook Affordability Conference is taking place throughout the summer, with free “virtual experiences” starting on June 30th. 

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The call for proposals for the 2020 OE Global Conference is live. The event will be virtual, taking place November 16-20. Proposals are due June 30th. 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: The International Journal of Open Educational Resources is welcoming submissions for short blog articles on topics relating to OER, COVID-19, instructional design, online learning, and more. Ideas are due by Tuesday, June 30th. Submit ideas here. 

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted

FROM CALIFORNIA: Shasta College History professor Jesse Lynch has been collaborating with the OER Project on their latest effort, the World History Project, to develop, evaluate and apply a new set of open curriculum for his World Civilizations classes. “I remember the many hoops and hardships students face in becoming a student,” said Lynch. “I admire all my students and how they balance their lives while taking my intensive history courses and completing their degrees.” Read more >>

FROM PENNSYLVANIA: A new OER initiative at Central Pennsylvania Community College (HACC) has taken off, investing $36,000 in funding to develop open textbooks and other course materials. Nearly 2,300 students – about 13% of their student population – will benefit from the initiative, with an estimated cost savings of $196,000 in just the first semester of implementation. “In a time of so much turmoil and uncertainty, OER are one small way to create stability for students – not just at HACC but around the country. This small step has the potential to help level the academic playing field.” Read more >>

FROM IOWA: Forty Iowa colleges and universities have combined for a joint membership with the Open Textbook Network. The partnership will provide the colleges and universities involved with access to a repository of training materials, support in finding open materials, and future training and faculty development opportunities to expand the use of OER in Iowa. Before this expanded partnership, the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, the University of Northern Iowa and St. Ambrose University in Davenport were already individual members of the OTN. The expanded partnership is due in great part to the efforts of the Iowa Open Educational Resources Action Team. Read more>>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource

Pressbooks has released Ryerson Open Moments, a new open resource that describes the journeys of eight educators who came to discover open education through projects in which they developed open educational resources. Each of these stories recounts a different journey towards open and what open education has come to mean for each author.

WEIGH IN

Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider

Great to Share >> 

The pandemic presents an opportunity to rethink educational resources to better serve students | AMNY

Open Educational Resources: Questions Answered | New America

My Journey to Open | Digitex

Interesting to Consider >> 

Academic libraries will change in significant ways as a result of the pandemic (opinion) | Inside Higher Ed 

Improving the Digital Accessibility of OER | Open Oregon Educational Resources

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.

OER Digest – May 21st, 2020

From Bilan Jama  (CC USA)  | Volume 106 | May 21st, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

COVID-19: This edition, we’re highlighting some relevant upcoming webinars:

• The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law and Creative Commons USA are hosting a series of webinars on best practices in fair use, divided into two tracks. The next webinar “Working towards Antiracism and Culturally Responsive Teaching in Open Education” will be held tomorrow, May 22nd at 12 PM EST. Click here to register.
• New America is hosting a webinar on Thursday, June 4 from 3-4:30 PM EST on leveraging OER to meet student and institutional needs. Presenters will cover available resources and repositories of OER, how to identify high-quality resources, how to build institutional teams to support OER usage, and best practices for using OER in online or hybrid course environments. Click here to register and find more information. 

MERGER CANCELLED: College textbook publishers McGraw-Hill and Cengage called off their proposed merger this month in response to antitrust concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies. The companies cited hefty divestitures as the reason for abandoning the deal, as they would have had to sell off too many overlapping products to satisfy antitrust enforcers. From the beginning, the proposed merger was criticized by a wide range of higher ed stakeholders because it would further consolidate the textbook market, leaving students with fewer choices and higher prices. Read more “OER Digest – May 21st, 2020” →

OER Digest – April 30th, 2020

From Kaitlyn Vitez and Cailyn Nagle (USPIRG) | Volume 105 | April 30th, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders

COVID-19: This edition, we’re highlighting some relevant upcoming webinars:

• Join NC State’s library team for their Open Cafe workshops. Their Discovering Open Textbooks workshop on finding open resources is tomorrow, May 1st, at 12:30pm EST. Next week, their Making Your Online Course Even Better with OER workshop will feature a faculty member currently using open textbooks in her class. 
• The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law and Creative Commons USA are hosting a series of webinars on best practices in fair use, divided into two tracks. The next webinar of the series on creating teaching materials for Fall 2020 and beyond will be held tomorrow, May 1st, at noon EST for K-12 and 3:00pm EST for higher ed. Click here to register and find more information.
• Join CCCOER for their incredibly timely webinar “Open Education Resilience in Crisis and Beyond” on May 6th at noon PST. Learn more and register here.
• Join FLVC and USPIRG for their webinar “Responding to Publisher Course Materials Proposals,” on May 7th at 10am EST. Learn more and register here.

OPEN TEXTBOOK PILOT: Today, April 30th, is the last day to submit a public comment to the federal Open Textbook Pilot grant program. The U.S. Department of Education seeks comment from community members on the number and size of grants, the definition of open educational resources, grant deliverables and accomplishments, and other priorities. Community input will be vital to shaping the PIlot grant program to meet community needs. Comments will be reviewed over the summer, before a final version is announced and the application window opens. Read more “OER Digest – April 30th, 2020” →