Regular Edition

OER Digest – July 13th, 2017

From Katie Steen and Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 35 | July 13th, 2017

With updates from Ethan Senack and Amanda Coolidge

THE OER DIGEST

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

STATE LEG UPDATE: Recently, two bills related to OER were signed into law and a third is waiting to be signed.

In California, the legislature passed the budget for FY18 that appropriates an additional $5M over last year’s appropriation for community colleges to implement student equity plans. Services for high-need students can include development of OER and zero-textbook-cost degrees.
A bill in Connecticut signed by the governor was originally introduced to encourage the use of digital discounts in the state. The final bill language encourages institutions to establish guidelines that reduce the costs of textbook and educational resources.
In Oregon, HB 2729 establishes the “Oregon’s Open Educational Resources (OER) Program” and will require the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to regularly convene faculty, staff and librarians from public universities and colleges to coordinate OER efforts.
Correction: the vetoed Florida legislation referenced in the last Digest would have changed statute around community college management but would not have altered the state’s existing open textbook policy language.

OPENCON REPORT ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION: This week the OpenCon team released a new report entitled Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Learnings and Next Steps. The report includes relevant lessons learned in organizing the first three OpenCon global conferences, a conference planning checklist based on those learnings, and a self-assessment of OpenCon’s global meetings to date. In addition to the release of the report, the OpenCon team welcomes community feedback on the report through GitHub, where they have created an online version of the site. You can find the online version of the report here and details on contributing here.

CC FILES AMICUS BRIEF: Last week, Creative Commons asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for permission to file an amicus brief in litigation involving the BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

OER, CANADA: BCcampus announced its most recent set of open education grant recipients – including one for the first “zed creds” or zero-textbook cost degree programs in Canada. Three institutions have won funding to create their own Zed Cred programs, and all materials created through the grant will be licensed CC-BY.

OPEN SUNY HITS 20: Open SUNY Textbooks has just added their 19th and 20th open textbooks to their collection. You can check out their new titles here.

OPENSTAX PLATFORM: On Monday, OpenStax launched an online learning platform, OpenStax Tutor Beta. OpenStax Tutor will be available for 3 courses — Sociology, Biology, and College Physics — for Fall. Eventually, OpenStax plans to make Tutor Beta available in all subject areas where it publishes content. The new platform will cost $10 per student, combining existing OER with personalized assessment. OpenStax is working to integrate the new platform into learning management systems by Fall 2018.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Inside Higher Ed is hosting a webinar, sponsored by Cengage, on “The OER Moment” on July 18th at 2pm EDT. Click here to register.

EVENT: The Open Textbook Network and Rebus Community is hosting their July Office Hours on Wednesday July 26th, at 2pm EDT. The topic of the call is “Keeping Open Textbooks Up to Date”. Click here to RSVP.

EVENT: Apply now to attend OpenCon Nov 11-13 in Berlin, Germany. Travel scholarships are available. OpenCon is the conference to empower the next generation to advance Open Access, Open Education and Open Data.

EVENT: Registration for #OpenEd17 is now OPEN! The conference will be taking place Oct 11-13 in Anaheim, CA. Click here to register.

JOB: The Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC) is looking for a Director of Digital Services and Open Educational Resources. Click here to learn more.

OPPORTUNITY: Creative Commons USA is looking for resources around open licensing – open education, data, access, culture, and more. CC-USA will be hosting a “Partner Resources” page on their website and are looking for reports, fact sheets, tools, studies, data sets, search engines, etc to direct traffic to.

OPPORTUNITY: SPARC is working with a team of librarians to develop an OER Mythbusting Resource catered to a higher education faculty audience. Click here to provide your feedback on which myths are worth investigating!

SUBSCRIBE: If you haven’t already – subscribe to the OER Digest here.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM ILLINOIS: “The camp was an excellent opportunity for faculty to improve the quality of their courses by incorporating new technologies, digital resources and their own expert materials into courses,” said Julie Freelove, co-chairwoman of MCC’s textbook ad hoc committee. “These changes will not only improve course quality but reduce the cost of textbooks for MCC students.” Read more>>

FROM KANSAS: “No one will wait for their loans to buy the book or not buy the book and take academic risks in doing that or take fewer courses if their textbook is free,” said Josh Bolick, a scholarly communications librarian who has spearheaded the effort. Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Amanda Coolidge‏ @acoolidge

BCcampus is pleased to announce the 2017 Open Education Grant recipients https://bccampus.ca/2017/07/13/bccampus-is-pleased-to-announce-the-2017-open-education-grant-recipients/ … via @bccampus #oer #zedcred

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open

A Thumbs Up to Open Up for Delivering Free, Curriculum-Scale OER | THE Journal

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/07/11/a-thumbs-up-to-open-up.aspx

Follett Introduces New Tool to Bridge Gap Between OERs, Content and Technology | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/07/03/follett-unveils-new-tool-to-bridge-gap-between-oers-content-and-technology.aspx?admgarea=news

Free Foundations: Empowering Open Advocates at the HLLR Open Educational Resources (OER) Day | Open Shelf

http://www.open-shelf.ca/170701-ocula-free-foundations-open-educational-resources/

KU Partners with Open Textbook Program to Increase Affordability | The University Daily Kansan

http://www.kansan.com/news/ku-partners-with-open-textbook-program-to-increase-affordability/article_1f47cab0-6007-11e7-9198-278ab4390448.html

National Study Shows Open Education Resources Enjoys Strong Faculty Support | The Suburban Times

http://thesubtimes.com/2017/07/04/national-study-shows-open-education-resources-enjoys-strong-faculty-support/

New Pilot Project Encourages Faculty Members to Go Beyond the Textbook | U Today

https://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2017-07-05/new-pilot-project-encourages-faculty-members-go-beyond-textbook

2017 OER State Legislation Roundup | SPARC

https://sparcopen.org/news/2017/2017-oer-state-legislation-roundup/

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. You can join the open Google Group or check out the distribution list here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – June 29th, 2017

From Ethan Senack (Creative Commons USA) | Volume 34 | June 29th, 2017

With updates from Katie Steen, Brady Yano, Jennifer Wolfe, Richard Sebastian, David Wiley, Nicole Finkbeiner, and Erika Aparaka

THE OER DIGEST

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

ACHIEVING THE DREAM: Achieving the Dream released preliminary results from its 38-campus OER Degree Initiative in the report Launching OER Degree Pathways: An Early Snapshot of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative and Emerging Lessons. Per their press release, key findings include:

84% of faculty members said that students in the new OER courses had the same or a higher level of engagement with the learning materials as compared to courses they have taught using traditional course materials.
More than 7 in 10 instructors say that they are very or somewhat likely to promote use of OER to colleagues.
Early research also indicates that students saved, on average, about $134 per course or between 5 to 22 percent of annual student textbook costs in those colleges (with caveats).

UNIV OF MISSOURI: Last week, the University of Missouri System (Digest author Katie Steen’s alma mater) announced an initiative to drive OER development on four campuses serving 77,000 students. A working group of students, faculty, and staff across the System will implement and oversee the initiative with input from stakeholders at each campus. UM System President Choi – formerly an OER champion as provost at the University of Connecticut (Digest author Ethan Senack’s alma mater) – will offer incentives ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 to adapt and create OER.

STATE LEGISLATION: Texas SB810, which creates a state OER grant program, establishes protocols for OER course designations in course catalogs, and orders a statewide feasibility study – has been signed into law by the Governor. The Governor also signed a bill relating to use of OER in K-12 public schools. A substantial bill reorganizing community colleges in Florida that included a small provision around open textbooks was vetoed by the Governor. In Washington, their Governor signed legislation requiring schools to list textbook prices and inform students about OER use in classrooms during course registration.

ANNOUNCING: The Open Education Group – the interdisciplinary group of OER researchers – is launching a “Designing with OER” Fellow Programs with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The DOER Fellows Program invites instructional designers to partner with subject matter experts to apply for grants, supporting the creation of renewable assignments based on the principles of OER-Enabled Pedagogy and designed to be used with specific open educational resources. For more information, join the DOER Network listserv.

SNAPSHOT: From the Learning Accelerator comes a new report – TLA Snapshot: A New Tool to Personalize Learning with Open Educational Resources: The Middletown Learning Path. In their words: “The prevalence of high-cost, low-quality, and often out-of-date textbooks is a problem across U.S. school districts. This Snapshot highlights one strong example of how a district in New York is solving this problem by creating a new tool to facilitate the use Open Educational Resources, by making it easy for educators to adopt materials approved for both quality and copyright.”

SCI-HUB: A US court ruled that the widely-used research-sharing site, Sci-Hub, violated US copyright law, and has awarded publishing giant Elsevier $15 million in damages. Owners of the site, which hosts over 62 million academic papers, said that they see more than 200,000 requests per day. Questions remain, however, on whether or not the ruling will impact the site, which has no assets in the US.

OPENSTAX NEWS: On the heels of announcing their new list of OER Institutional Partners, OpenStax is now announcing that their 2016 Institutional Partners are expected to save students over $8 million in textbook costs. That announcement and the list of 2016 partners here, along with the list of their new 2017 partners.

Flashback: One interesting name on the list – Cal State Fullerton, which made headlines last year after a professor’s unapproved use of OER resulted in his censure.

ALSO INTERESTING: Three of these topics (Sci-Hub, OpenStax’ Institutional Partnership Program, and Cal-State Fullerton) appeared together in the OER Digest on May 12th, 2016.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Registration for #OpenEd17 is now OPEN! The conference will be taking place Oct 11-13 in Anaheim, CA. Click here to register.

EVENT: Registration for the iNACOL Summit on October 23-25th closes in just over two weeks. Click here to register.

SUBSCRIBE: If you haven’t already – subscribe to the OER Digest here!

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM WASHINGTON: “Stambaugh, a prime sponsor of Open Education Resource Legislation for the past three years said she is a fierce advocate of expanding open education resources. She said she has been communicating with Pierce College and other two- and four-year institutions to learn of their current open education resource options, how they are being implemented and where they can expand. “The first two years, the model that I used was based off the University of Massachusetts Amherst that funded faculty grants for them to develop open education resource,” she said about the bill she sponsored.” Read more >

FROM CALIFORNIA: “At COC, 75 percent of students stated that the cost of books and supplies are the top barrier to them achieving their educational goals, according to the agenda item. The college also found that 70 percent of students said the cost of textbooks and supplies influences their enrollment choices and 67 percent of students said they were concerned their grades would suffer if they do not buy textbooks.” Read more >

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Barbara Illowsky‏ @DrBSI: See the latest research on how #OER help #students learn in this special issue of #IRRODL:http://bit.ly/2rJtskF @johnhiltoniii @cccoer

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open

Collaborating to Scale OER | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/06/28/maricopa-millions-scales-oer-across-11-arizona-community

Free textbooks for first-year university students could help improve retention rate | The Conversation CA

http://theconversation.com/free-textbooks-for-first-year-university-students-could-help-improve-retention-rates-77786

Textbooks in the Digital World | The Conversation US

http://theconversation.com/textbooks-in-the-digital-world-78299

What Happened to Amazon Inspire, the Tech Giant’s Education Marketplace? | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-06-26-what-happened-to-amazon-inspire-the-tech-giant-s-education-marketplace

Districts Work to Close Digital Equity Gap | Ed Tech Magazine

https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2017/06/iste-2017-districts-work-close-digital-equity-gap

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. You can join the open Google Group or check out the distribution list here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – June 15th, 2017

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 33 | June 15, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

ONTARIO’S OT LIBRARY: Last week, eCampusOntario announced the launch of a new virtual Open Textbook Library established to offer students a repository of resources which are licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. The library will host 180 faculty reviewed OER, sourced from the BCcampus collection. The Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development also announced $1 million which will be put towards developing new OER.

NE OER SUMMIT RECAP: Earlier this week, the University of Massachusetts Amherst hosted the first Northeast Regional OER Summit. The main event brought together over 260 attendees from across the Northeast region (and beyond!) for a day focused on strategies and best practices for implementing OER on campus. Many of these attendees also attended an OER Leadership Day the day before. David Wiley of Lumen Learning and Marilyn Billings of UMass Amherst’s Open Education Initiative keynoted the event. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #NEOERsummit17.

DMAPS UPDATE: The Digital Instructional Materials Acquisition Policies for States (DMAPS,) an online database, initially launched by SETDA, has recently been updated. The online database that details states’ policies for digital instruction, shows state-by-state comparisons, which now includes filtering options such as “Open Educational Resources – Recommended/Endorsed by the State” and “Open Education Resources Materials Developed by State”. Read more>>

OER FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION: The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has announced a new call for applications to establish and operate a center that will “design, develop, and disseminate digital open educational tools and resources to build the capacity of educators to use practices supported by evidence and improve results for students with disabilities.”

SAVINGS AT TCC: Tacoma Community College has officially saved students $2 million since to adoption of their Z-Degree Program in 2011! Congratulations to the team at TCC!

OPEN ED ADVISORS: The Open Education team at BCcampus has just announced the addition of two new Open Education Advisers, Lucas Wright and Rajiv Jhangiani! As Open Education Advisors, they will support open education projects, including the new Zed Cred degrees, OER grants, advocate for open education in B.C., and work with all B.C. post-secondary institutions to advance open education initiatives. Congratulations to Lucas and Rajiv!

FINALIST ONCE MORE: For the second year in a row, Curriki, has been named a 2017 SIIA CODiE Award finalist in the Digital Aggregation & Sharing Solution category. Curriki which hosts a free library of 265,000+ educator-vetted OER spanning all K-12 subject areas. The SIIA CODiE Awards are the premier awards for the software and information industries. Curriki has been honored as one of 160 finalists across the 34 education technology categories.

THANK YOU TJ BLISS: On behalf of the OER Digest team, we would like to take a moment to recognize TJ Bliss who as of yesterday has officially concluded his time at the Hewlett Foundation. Thank you for your support in making projects like the OER Digest possible, and for your insight shared during your time at Hewlett. We look forward to working with you in your new capacity at the Wiki Education Foundation!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Cengage will be hosting a webcast entitled the Journey to OER on June 28th at 3 EDT. Click here to register.

EVENT: Registration for #OpenEd17 is now OPEN! The conference will be taking place Oct 11-13 in Anaheim, CA. Click here to register.

JOB: Open Up Resources is looking for a new Associate to join their team, based out of New York or Seattle. Click here to view the posting.

OPPORTUNITY: The Hewlett Foundation is looking for your feedback on its OER Metrics and Targets. All feedback is welcome here.

OPPORTUNITY: The Commonwealth of Learning is looking for your feedback on its Regional Consultations on Open Educational Resources: Stakeholder Survey. Click here to get started.

RESOURCE: Recordings of the keynotes from the University System of New Hampshire ATI 2017 have been made available here.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM IOWA: “Perhaps to you can relate to the struggle in finding the ‘right’ textbook for your course. My office bookshelf is littered with my attempts. The ongoing search for a better book left me frustrated,” says Kirkwood Community College, Assistant Professor, Emily S. Logan. “The more frequently I taught the courses, the more I brought in ‘supplemental’ readings, outside of the required textbook. From these experiences, I wondered if relying solely on open educational resources, as well as other non-copyrighted sources, would be a better alternative.” Read more>>

FROM UTAH: “Mower, who is an advocate of free open educational resources (OER), said there was a movement on campus led by librarians to get faculty to implement OER in their courses, but that many instructors were skeptical and balked at the idea. “If it hasn’t come through the publishing industry, it lacks peer review,” Archer recalled some Utah faculty members saying about OER. Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

TJ Bliss‏ @tjbliss

Well…I just approved my last grant as a #Hewlett Program Officer (you’re welcome, @lpetrides @ISKME). It’s been a great ride, ya’ll. #OER

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open

Challenges in Curation: Successfully Integrating Open Educational Resources in the Classroom | Digital Promise

http://digitalpromise.org/2017/06/08/challenges-curation-successfully-integrating-open-educational-resources-classroom/

From Open to Action: Open Textbook Summit 2017 | BCcampus

https://bccampus.ca/2017/06/06/from-open-to-action-open-textbook-summit-2017/

OER Researchers Don’t Disaggregate Data on Diverse Students. Here’s Why They Should | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-06-09-oer-researchers-don-t-disaggregate-data-on-diverse-students-here-s-why-they-should

Open Educational Resources Fill Gap for Underserved Students | EdWeek

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/06/07/open-educational-resources-fill-gap-for-underserved.html

Opening the Framework: Connecting Open Education Practices and Information Literacy | Open Oregon

http://openoregon.org/opening-the-framework/

Supporting the Full Life-Cycle for OER-Based Lessons is Critically Important | THE Journal

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/06/05/supporting-the-full-life-cycle.aspx

UC Irvine Secures Global Partnership with IEEE Computer Society | MarketWired

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/uci-division-continuing-education-secures-global-partnership-with-ieee-computer-society-2221892.htm

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – June 1st, 2017

From Ethan Senack, Creative Commons USA | Volume 32 | June 1st, 2017
With help from Brady Yano (SPARC) and Katie Steen (SPARC)

THE OER DIGEST

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

OPEN LICENSING RULE: After numerous delays, the Department of Education’s Open Licensing Rule has gone into effect starting on May 22nd. The rule, finalized earlier this year, ensures that educational resources and other copyrightable works created with Department discretionary grant funds are openly licensed. A number of organizations wrote comments in support of implementing the rule, including this coalition letter.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATES: In Connecticut, the Senate passed SB948, which grants the state Office of Higher Education the authority to establish guidelines that encourage public and private colleges and universities to implement programs that reduce the cost of textbooks and other educational resources for students. In Maryland, Governor Hogan signed SB424, which provides a $100,000 grant to the University System of Maryland for their open textbook initiative. In Texas, SB810 – which creates a state OER grant program, establishes protocols for OER course designations in course catalogs, and orders a statewide feasibility study – has been sent to the Governor for his signature.

ACROSS THE POND: More than 60 civil society and trade organizations are calling for the European Union to get copyright reform efforts back on track. From the letter: “Deliver a reform that is fit for purpose in the digital environment and that upholds and strengthens fundamental principles such as the rights of citizens to freedom of communication and access to knowledge”

B&N + UNIZIN: Barnes and Noble recently announced a partnership with the campus education consortium Unizin, to provide LoudCloud – their OER-based learning management system and learning analytics tools – to Unizin’s 22 member schools, including Penn State, Colorado State University, University of Michigan and Ohio State University.

REPORTING BACK: On May 24th-25th BCcampus hosted the 5th Annual Open Textbook Summit at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC. The Summit had more than 25 sessions with participation from a variety of Open Education advocates including faculty, student leaders, university administrators, librarians, government officials, and nonprofit policy staff. Ryan Merkley of Creative Commons and Kory Wilson of Aboriginal Initiatives and Partnerships, British Columbia Institute of Technology keynoted the Summit. Check out #OTSummit17 to see more photos and tweets from the Summit!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: The Rebus Community will be discussing accessibility and open textbooks during their June Office Hours taking place on June 5th at 3pm EDT. To RSVP, click here.

EVENT: The UMass Amherst Libraries will host the Northeast Regional OER Summit June 13-14. Registration is required and can be done here.

OPPORTUNITY: The OER Hub is looking for a few more participants to complete their survey on different models of Open, Online, Flexible and Technology Enhanced Learning in higher education. To participate, click here.

RESOURCE: Recordings from the Alberta OER Summit that took place on May 11th are available here.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM NEW YORK: “The college has an enrollment of almost 27,000 students, half of whom have household incomes under $20,000 and 4,000 of whom have taken one of the classes using OER. Now the school intends to expand the use of no-cost materials and generate cumulative savings of a million dollars.” Read More >

FROM GEORGIA: “Keeping college education affordable is a guiding principle at Dalton State, and one key way faculty members contribute is by collaborating to create open educational resources for their students allowing them to avoid buying costly textbooks for some classes. So far, 10 teams of Dalton State faculty and staff members have sought Affordable Learning Georgia grants to develop course materials, the second most such projects in the University System of Georgia. They have received more than $122 thousand in ALG grant funding to develop materials; cost savings to students over a three-year period could top $1 million.” Read More >

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Rajiv Jhangiani‏ @thatpsychprof

Even the commercial publishers predict that use of #OER as primary materials will TRIPLE within 5 years #USNHShare https://assets.cengage.com/pdf/wp_oer-evolving-higher-ed-landscape.pdf

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open

OER Pioneer Predicts Community Colleges Will Dump Traditional Textbooks By 2024 | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-05-23-oer-pioneer-david-wiley-predicts-all-community-colleges-will-dump-traditional-textbooks-by-2024

OER, Vertical and Horizontal | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/oer-vertical-and-horizontal

Tech and Costs | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/tech-and-costs

Cengage Continues to Show Strong Digital Growth | MENA Financial Network

http://menafn.com/1095527657/Cengage-Continues-to-Show-Strong-Digital-Growth-Underscoring-Companys-Commitment-to-Affordable-and-Effective-Learning-Options

Why Pearson shares ‘aren’t good value’ | What Investment

http://www.whatinvestment.co.uk/pearson-shares-arent-good-value-2553687/

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – May 18th, 2017

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 31 | May 18th, 2017

With help from Apurva Ashok

THE OER DIGEST

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

#GOOPEN BLOG POST: The U.S. Department of Education published a blog post highlighting the momentum behind the #GoOpen movement, and its interest in collaborating with civil society organizations moving forward.

“Openly licensed educational resources can be powerful tools for transforming learning and providing educational opportunities for all students. When implemented strategically, these resources can help states, districts, schools, and students and their families reinvent approaches to learning and collaboration, shrink long-standing equity and accessibility gaps, and adapt learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.”

#GoOpen is more than just a hashtag and we look forward to seeing its successes continue with support from the community.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OTN: The Open Textbook Network recently celebrated its 5th birthday! There’s a lot to celebrate at the OTN, including the Open Textbook Library being visited an average of 65,000 times per month and the library celebrating its 1,000th textbook review. On behalf of the OER Digest team, happy birthday OTN!

MORE SAVINGS AT OU: The University of Oklahoma Libraries just announced their fourth year of the Alternative Textbook grant. This year 18 full-time faculty members have received grants to adopt an OER for their course. Students at OU are projected to save an additional $116,000 in a single semester!

COLORADO OER COUNCIL: Colorado has passed S.B. 258, a bill which is set to create an OER Council the in the Department of Higher Education. The Department will evaluate the existing use of OER by public institutions of higher education and consider the options for and obstacles to increasing the use of OER.

PEER REVIEW: The Rebus Community recently formed a working group to assess and develop clear, transparent and effective standards for peer review in Open Textbooks. Following the group’s first call, Rebus is now looking for collaborators to join one of five groups that will explore different topic areas including different types of review over the life of a textbook, how to communicate the types of review a textbook has undergone and develop inga system to recognize the contributions of reviewers.

ECAMPUS ONTARIO LAUNCH: eCampus Ontario will be launching their Open Textbook Library in June! Working in partnership with BCcampus, the new library will offer Ontario post-secondary students access to a repository of over 180 OER.

OPENCON 2017: The annual student and early career professional conference, OpenCon will be taking place November 11-13 in Berlin, Germany. Applications open June 27th!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Education Week will be hosting a webinar today at 1pm EDT entitled Powering Student Engagement With a Successful OER Strategy. Click here to register.

EVENT: Future Ready will be hosting a webinar on May 24th at 2pm EDT exploring the topic of knowing if OER materials are of high quality. Registration is required. http://all4ed.org/webinar-event/may-24-2017/

EVENT: The UMass Amherst Libraries will host the Northeast Regional OER Summit June 13-14. Registration is required. https://www.library.umass.edu/services/teaching-and-learning/oer/northeast-oer-summit

EVENT: Saylor Academy will be hosting their Higher Education Summit June 21-22 in Washington D.C. https://summit.saylor.org/

JOB: The San Diego Community College District is looking for an Assistant Professor, Collection Development / Open Educational Resource Librarian. See the job description here.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM PENNSYLVANIA: “Professor Serrano is helping to transform education at Penn State,” said Jennifer Sparrow, senior director of TLT. “By providing her students with the OER textbook, she is not only advancing affordability, she is ensuring that all students have access to the course materials the first day of classes. We know that many students will wait to purchase their textbooks until later in the semester. Research has shown that when students have access on day one of their courses, their success in those courses rises dramatically.” Read more>>

FROM UTAH: Ph.D. student Tarah Ikahihifo has been working with BYU’s Open Education Group for a year. Ultimately, she hopes, “OER could revolutionize higher education and provide better opportunities for people who might otherwise drop out. If you can alleviate one source of stress or tension, maybe that’s the relief they need to be motivated to keep going.” Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Sharon Leu‏ @thesharonleu

The greatest impact of #GoOpen will come from long-term and transformative impact on systems. @OfficeofEdTech

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

5 Ways OER Empower Teachers To Choose Their Own Classroom Adventure | Getting Smart

http://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/05/5-ways-oer-empowers-teachers-to-choose-their-own-classroom-adventure/

Fiddler: The Cost of Textbooks Is a Huge Obstacle for Poor Students. Here’s a Solution | The 74

https://www.the74million.org/article/fiddler-the-cost-of-textbooks-are-a-huge-obstacle-for-poor-students-heres-a-solution

Open Season On Learning | Albany Democrat-Herald

http://democratherald.com/news/local/education/open-season-on-learning/article_68026c4a-5a5e-5f2b-9916-b9d64524efa6.html

Say Goodbye to School Textbooks. Wake County Moving To Free Online Materials | The News&Observer

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article148374489.html#storylink=cpy

Strengthening Democracy Through Open Education | University World News

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20170502124125567

Under Trump, Ed-Tech Leadership Is Big Question Mark | Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/05/10/under-trump-ed-tech-leadership-is-big-question.html

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Regular Edition

OER Digest – May 4th, 2017

From Ethan Senack (Creative Commons USA) | Volume 30 | May 4th, 2017

With help from Brady Yano (SPARC) and Cable Green (Creative Commons)

THE OER DIGEST

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

AUTHOR’S NOTE (ES): As you may have heard, Digest co-author Katie Steen (USPIRG) is moving onto a summer campaign for the next few months and will be away from her email, so I’m temporarily returning to the Digest team to help Brady Yano (SPARC) bring you consistent updates from the OER field. I’m thrilled to come back and see how much the Digest community has grown, and I look forward to sharing your updates and ideas.

REPORTING BACK: This past week saw a ton of OER and open advocates in Toronto, Canada, for the Creative Commons Global Summit. More than 400 practitioners, lawyers, and advocates gathered to discuss the direction of the CC network and licenses. Two major updates – the release of Made with CC, Creative Commons’ kickstarter-funded book on open business models around the world that will be available to the public on May 5th at https://creativecommons.org/made-with-cc/, and the release of the 2016 State of the Commons report, which shows over 1.2 billion CC-licensed works at https://stateof.creativecommons.org/.

STATE LEG UPDATE: A Texas bill (SB810) creating a $200,000 state OER grant program, establishing protocols for “OER course designations” in course catalogs, and ordering a statewide feasibility study has passed the Senate and moved to the House there. In Washington state, the Governor signed legislation (SB5449) that included a provision to “to identify and develop additional open educational resources to support digital citizenship, media literacy, and internet safety in schools.

FINAL COMMENT: A coalition letter signed by 18 organizations urging the Department of Education to move ahead with their Open Licensing Rule, finalized this January but delayed until May 22nd, has been posted. In the weeks ahead, the Department will be reviewing the comments submitted – many of which were positive toward OER – and will make a decision about whether or not to delay the rule any longer. The letter, here>>

PEARSON’S PARTNERSHIP: Publishing giant Pearson announced a partnership with indiCo, a subsidiary of the National Association of College Stores (NACS), to list their digital “rental-only” textbooks in over 1,500 campus bookstores. All of the titles will be rentable for less than $100.

PANOPEN X LEARNOSITY: Last week, panOpen and Learnosity announced that they have partnered to integrate Learnosity’s assessment and homework capabilities into panOpen’s OER-based learning platform. They pitch it as the “First OER Platform with Commercial-Quality Assessments and Homework.” Read more>>

CAMPUS ACTION: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville recently announced that five of their faculty are set to receive up to $33,000 as part of a new grant program encouraging faculty to use OER. The first set of UA grants have been awarded to faculty teaching introductory or core classes and are expected to impact more than 1,000 students. Houston Community College also announced that they’ve received a $300,000 grant to develop a Z-Degree, or zero-textbook cost degree, in Business Administration and General Studies. They plan to pilot it with 100 students starting this fall.

A DIFFERENT TAKE: The Drexel student newspaper reported these interesting findings from the Green Press Initiative last week: “Each year, approximately 30 million trees are used to make books sold in the United States — 1,153 times the number of trees in New York City’s Central Park. Many of these trees are sourced from endangered forests with devastating impacts on the people and wildlife that rely on them. So, by making the switch to digital, we can minimize the impact our actions have on forests and wildlife.”

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: bepress will be hosting a webinar entitled Supporting Student Success with Open Educational Resources on May 9th from 11-12 PDT. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4275264429721961986

EVENT: Registration for the Open Textbook Summit 2017, is still open! BCcampus’ annual event will be taking place May 24-25 in Vancouver, BC. https://bccampus.ca/otsummit-2017/

EVENT: The Rebus Community will be hosting their June Office Hour event on June 5th at 3 EDT/ 12 PDT. The topic of the call will be Accessibility in Open Textbooks. RSVP here.

OPPORTUNITY: OpenStax announced that they’re accepting a new round of applications for their Institutional Partnership Program. https://openstax.org/impact

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM PENNSYLVANIA: “To keep her course content relevant, Serrano used to spend time making copies, writing exercises, and tailoring resources to her students’ needs. With her digital textbook, she provides current resources that can be continually updated in the online environment. Serrano used her e-book for the first time this semester, and her 25 Spanish I students collectively saved approximately $8,440.” Read More>>

FROM TEXAS: “In fall 2017, the Z-Degree pilot program will start offering an Associate of Arts in business Administration and an Associate of Arts in General Studies. Both degree tracks will be completely free of jaw-dropping textbook price tags.“In these times of increasing educational costs, it’s essential that HCC does everything that it possibly can to help reduce costs for student and help make a college education more affordable for our students,” said Steve Levey, HCC’s Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Instruction.” Read More>>

FROM CANADA: A deep dive on eCampus Ontario, BCcampus, what their leaders are up to, and more. Read the article>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

@LaylaBonnot: @Alanis we rewrote iconic ‘Ironic’ around our open licensing and #oer work! #nerds #oer17 @creativecommons @txtbks

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

A New Value Proposition for Open Textbooks | Inside Higher Ed

Blackboard Launches K–12 Cloud-Based Digital Learning Environment | THE Journal

eCampusOntario Launches Open Textbook Library to Address Student Affordability | On the Go Toronto

OER, on the Ground | Inside Higher Ed

Open Educational Resources Movement Welcomes Growing Pains | The Chronicle

Open on Whose Terms? | The Chronicle

What Would Happen if Learning Materials Were Available Day One? | Education Week

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – April 20th, 2017

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 29 | April 20th, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

“MEAN AMOUNT OF $$”: The CUNY and SUNY systems are set to receive $8 million to drastically increase the use of OER on their campuses. The funding was announced as part of Governor Cuomo’s historic zero-tuition cost announcement, and has been called “a mean amount of money.” Recognizing that both systems will have an influx of low-income students, the $4 million allotment for each system is aimed at providing open educational resources, including ebooks, to students at SUNY and CUNY colleges. A portion of that funding is set to be directed to SUNY OER Services. Read more>>

Inside Higher Education also published an article featuring a number of leaders from the OER and publisher communities commenting on whether or not this move is a “turning point” for OER. Read more>>

FOLLETT + LUMEN: Earlier this week, the major bookstore company Follett and Lumen Learning announced a partnership, where Follett will offer Lumen Learning’s OER solutions to more than 1,200 colleges and universities where Follett manages course materials delivery. Through the partnership, Lumen Learning’s OER courseware will be made available to institutions through Follett’s infrastructure. Follett has also become one of Lumen Learning’s investors. The partnership has been received with mixed responses from the OER community. Read more>>

To address some of the questions and concerns that have been raised, David Wiley has provided further analysis on his blog. Read more>>

ANOTHER PARTNERSHIP: The California State University (CSU) system and VitalSource Technologies also announced a collaboration to offer OER content from MERLOT, SkillsCommons and COOL4Ed on VitalSource’s platform, which also serves 1,000 commercial publishers. Read more>>

MARYLAND’S 21 GRANTS: Twenty-one faculty members from 12 state universities and community colleges are set to receive a mini-grant from the University System of Maryland to help expand OER use and mitigate student fees. The grants ranging in amounts of $500 – $2500 are expected to save students enrolled in these courses $1.3 million in textbook costs for the fall 2017 semester. Read more>>

300 ADOPTIONS: As of today, there are 300 entries on the Open Oregon Resources page. This milestone represents a lot of hard work on the part of Oregon’s community college instructors and support staff, and a tremendous savings for students. Congratulations to all of those involved!

NEW BOOKS AT BCCAMPUS: The BC Open Textbook Collection has five new additions: A First Course in Linear Algebra; Macroeconomics: Theory, Models, and Policy; Microeconomics: Markets, Methods, and Models; Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics. Two materials in the collection Introduction to Financial Accounting – Second Edition and Calculus: Early Transcendentals have new editions.

#OPENEDUCATIONWK RECAP: The numbers are in! During Open Education Week 2017, there were a total of 156 events hosted around the world! This includes 48 webinars, 86 local events and 22 events that took place outside of the official week. Thank you to everyone that hosted or sponsored an activity during Open Education Week 2017.

ON THE ROAD: The Digest team will be attending the Hewlett OER grantees meeting and Creative Commons Global Summit in Toronto next week. Hope to see many of you there!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: The Rebus Community will be hosting their May Office Hour event on May 1st at 3 EDT/ 12 PDT. The topic of the call will be OER Production Workflows. RSVP here.

EVENT: SPARC’s next Libraries & OER Monthly Meeting will be taking place on May 2nd at 1 EDT/ 10 PDT. Click here to join e-mail discussion list via Google Groups to receive call-in details.

EVENT: Registration for the Open Textbook Summit 2017, is still open! BCcampus’ annual event will be taking place May 24-25 in Vancouver, BC.

OPPORTUNITY: The Open Education Group is looking for students and early career researchers in the United States and Canada to become an OER Research Fellow.

OPPORTUNITY: The Rebus Community is looking for individuals to join a working group aimed at investigating approaches for open textbook peer review.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM CALIFORNIA: “It’s not just tuition price that is climbing; it’s transportation, housings, textbooks, all of that are the cost problems that our students are facing” PCC’s spokesperson Alex Boekelheide said. “We are trying our best to help students face the cost of college, and anything that we can do to address that is very helpful.” Read more>>

FROM MASSACHUSETTS: Munroe said textbook prices have increased by 88 percent in the last 10 years. MASSPIRG has launched the Open Textbook Initiative campaign to combat rising prices by encouraging professors to provide an alternative to traditional textbooks and other material for their classes. Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

EdSurge‏ @EdSurge

A helpful FAQ on Open Educational Resources, courtesy of #edtech industry veteran @DougLevin http://bit.ly/2oQRzJA #OER

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

4 Education Technology Trends That Are Redefining K–12 | T.H.E. Journal

Alt-Textbooks at UAS | Whalesong

Celebrating Open Education Week 2017 | Syracuse University Libraries

District Tech Leaders’ Purchasing Influence Slowly Grows | Education Week Market Brief

New Washington State Bill Seeks to Increase OER Use and Development | EdTech Magazine: Focus on Higher Education

‘Open Educational Resources’ Have Great Potential | Education Week

Piloting Open Learning (podcast) | Sandbox CoLABorative

Survey Ranks 10 Key Trends for K-12 Tech Leaders | EdSurge

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – April 6th, 2017

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 28 | April 6th, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

THAT’S A WRAP, #OPENEDUCATIONWK: Last week the world celebrated the 5th annual Open Education Week. While the official statistics have not yet been announced, we think participation and engagement were high!

EXPLORING ENGAGENY: A new study conducted by the Rand Corporation exploring the use of EngageNY sheds light on the ways in which OER can better support teachers and the implementation of state standards. Engage NY is one of the first efforts to create standards-aligned OER curriculum materials. Key findings:

EngageNY is among the most commonly used curriculum materials for mathematics and English language arts (ELA).
High use of EngageNY was at least partly driven by educators’ desire to help students meet state standards.
EngageNY gives students more opportunities to engage in standards-aligned practices compared with other materials.

HOT OFF THE PRESS: Last week a new book entitled “Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science” was launched. Written in collaboration between a number of open leaders, the book covers open education, open access and open science and was published by Ubiquity Press (CC-BY). The material was edited by Rajiv Jhangiani and Robert Biswas-Deiner and is available both online and in print. Congratulations to all those involved!

NEW AUTHORING GUIDE: The Open Textbook Network has created a new guide for faculty authors, librarians, project managers and others who are involved in the production of open textbooks in higher education and at the K-12 level. Content includes a checklist for getting started, publishing program case studies, textbook organization and elements, writing resources and an overview of useful tools.

FUNDING BOOST FOR BCCAMPUS: Last week the province’s Minister of Advanced Education announced $250,000 in funding for BCcampus’ Open Textbook Project. The funding is welcomed by BCcampus who currently boasts a collection of 180 open textbooks and has saved BC students $4 million to date.

RPT CHANGES AT UBC: During a regular revision of the institution’s Guide to Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure Procedures, faculty pursuing the Educational Leadership Stream at UBC can now be evaluated for their contributions to “open education repositories/resources”.

COOL4ED STUDY: A new study exploring the instructor and student experiences of open textbook use at higher education institutions in California was published last month. The study entitled “Instructor and student experiences with open textbooks, from the California open online library for education (Cool4Ed)” was conducted by Ozgur Ozdemir and Christina Hendricks.

MORE MILLIONS SAVED: The Maricopa Millions OER project has saved Maricopa Community College students over 9 million dollars in its first four years. The project which was projected to save students 5 million dollars in five year’s has already surpassed that initial goal and the cost savings are set to continue.

ED OPEN LICENSING POLICY: Two months ago the Department of Education formally adopted its Open Licensing rule for grant programs. Two weeks ago, the Department published a notice that it would be delaying the effective date of the rule by 60 days as an extension of the Administration’s regulatory freeze, and it will now go into effect until May 22. The Department has opened up a public comment period about the delay, and we encourage the community to comment prior to the April 20th deadline.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Registration for the Open Textbook Summit 2017, is now open! BCcampus’ annual event will be taking place May 24-25 in Vancouver, BC. https://bccampus.ca/otsummit-2017/

OPPORTUNITY: The Open Textbook Network is seeking your feedback to help their library grow. What is a new open textbook (or two!) that you would like to see in the Open Textbook Library? http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/Submit.aspx

OPPORTUNITY: The Year of Open is looking for your thoughts on how they can improve this effort! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/yearofopen

OPPORTUNITY: The rightcopyright.eu Campaign for Education could use your help! Sign the petition here www.rightcopyright.eu

OPPORTUNITY: The Rebus Community is looking for individuals interested in taking part in their Peer Review Working Group. https://forum.rebus.community/topic/130/review-peer-review-for-open-textbooks

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM ALBERTA: “The undergraduate Students’ Union has been a strong advocate for OERs, and Alicia Lunz, current vice-president academic of the SU has been a driving force behind this initiative. “This pilot program is the culmination of a lot of hard work between Dr. Lynn Taylor and myself. The program will allow professors to enhance their knowledge of open education resources and in turn, make them more available to students. As I leave my role in the Students’ Union, I look forward to seeing the impact this will have on the student experience and on the financial barriers that persist in post-secondary education,” she says.” Read more>>

FROM WASHINGTON: The goal for faculty, administration and student government is helping students finish their degrees on time and with as little cost as possible. Sacrificing textbooks to pay bills doesn’t help accomplish that. For Troy, the move toward OER is an obvious one, despite the challenges. “Affordable textbooks will increase student success, help students be more engaged in the classroom, and when students have access to the materials they need, they will be more successful overall,” Troy said. “It’s going to be a game-changer.” Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Rajiv Jhangiani‏ @thatpsychprof March 27

It’s out!!! Our new edited book (CC-BY) about Open #oep #oer #oa #openscience from @ubiquitypress Pls share widely! http://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/10.5334/bbc/ …

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

A Defender of Impoverished Students, and a Scholar of Their Struggles | The Chronicle of Higher Education

http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Defender-of-Impoverished/239610?cid=cp102

Annie Gaines | Movers & Shakers 2017 – Advocates | Library Journal

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2017/03/people/movers-shakers-2017/annie-gaines-movers-shakers-2017-advocates/#_

April Open Perspective: What is Open Pedagogy? | The Year of Open

https://www.yearofopen.org/april-open-perspective-what-is-open-pedagogy/

At SLCC ‘Open Education Resources’ Lowering Cost of College | benzinga

https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/17/03/p9233902/at-slcc-open-education-resources-lowering-cost-of-college

Campaign Spotlights Global Open Education Movement | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/03/22/campaign-spotlights-global-open-education-movement.aspx

E-ffordability Summit Looks at Textbook Costs | WIproud.com

http://www.wiproud.com/news/e-ffordability-summit-looks-at-textbook-costs/683672724

International Projects Category: Award Winner and Runners Up | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/mar/30/international-projects-category-award-winner-and-runners-up

Open Educational Resources Movement Scales Up | Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/03/29/open-educational-resources-movement-scales-up-oer.html?cmp=eml-eb-sr-curriculum-03292017&M=57878022&U=1607442

‘Open’ Ed. Provider Steps Into English/Language Arts Market | EdWeek Market Brief

https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/open-ed-provider-steps-englishlanguage-arts-market/

Proposed Cap On Textbook Costs in Peril After Colleges Object | Columbus Business First

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2017/03/27/proposed-cap-on-textbook-costs-in-peril-after.html

Schools Shift to Free Public Domain Curricula | Wall Street Journal

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-shift-to-free-public-domain-textbooks-1490897412

The Open Educational Resources Movement is Redefining the Concept of Online Textbooks | University Affairs

http://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/open-educational-resources-movement-redefining-concept-online-textbooks/

Trial and Error: Cutting Textbook Costs | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/03/29/trial-and-error-cutting-textbook-costs

Vancouver Pilots Comprehensive Open Math Curriculum | Getting Smart

http://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/10/vancouver-pilots-comprehensive-open-math-curriculum/?utm_content=bufferde33f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

What is OER? 5 Questions About Open Educational Resources | Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/03/29/what-is-oer-5-questions-about-open-oer.html

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – March 23rd, 2017

From Katie Steen (USPIRG) and Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 27 | March 23rd, 2017

With help from Erika Aparaka (CCSSO)

THE OER DIGEST

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

HAPPY EARLY OPEN ED WEEK: On behalf of the OER Digest team, we wish everyone a happy 5th Open Education Week! Congratulations to everyone on their successes from this past year and we look forward to celebrating the week with you both online and in person. Follow all the events by searching #OpenEducationWk on Twitter.

ACRL OER PRECONFERNCE: Yesterday SPARC’s Nicole Allen and Open Textbook Network’s Sarah Cohen hosted an ACRL Preconference entitled “Running Effective OER and Open Textbook Initiatives in Your Academic Library.” The event had more than 70 participants in attendance who left the day long workshop ready to take action on their campuses! Check out the highlights on Twitter by searching #LibOER.

RECAP OF OE GLOBAL: OEGlobal 2017 featured over 111 sessions including 80 presentations, 14 action labs, 7 panel discussions, 1 flipped presentation and 9 poster presentations. The conference had a global reach with attendees from 38 countries. Presentations from the event are available here.

CANADIAN COLLABORATION: Recognizing the many benefits of collaboration in this space, Canadian organizations BCcampus and eCampusOntario are coming together to better support faculty and by extension students in the province of Ontario. Read more>>

STATE LEGISLATION UPDATE: A number of bills are moving through state legislatures across the country related to OER. A bill in Virginia was sent to the Governor that creates the Online Virginia Network Authority and requires the reduction of program costs through open access. Another bill was recently introduced in New Jersey requiring institutions of higher education to offer open textbooks.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: In recognition of Open Education Week, SPARC is hosting a special webcast entitled “Successful OER Adoption Models: Academic Libraries Leading the Way” on March 29th from 2-3 EDT. https://sparcopen.org/event/successful-oer-adoption-models-academic-libraries-leading-way/

EVENT: BCcampus’ webinar series Open Education Stories from across B.C. continues with its third event, on March 29th, from 10-11 PST. https://open.bccampus.ca/2017/02/28/webinar-series-open-education-stories-from-across-b-c-unbc/

EVENT: Join Northern Virginia Community College’s Extended Learning Institute’s virtual conference NOVA Opens Up, March 27 – 31, 2017. https://www.openeducationweek.org/events/nova-opens-up

EVENT: Registration for #OER17: The Politics of Open closes soon! The conference will take place April 5-6 in London, UK https://oer17.oerconf.org/#gref

JOB: BCcampus is seeking an energetic and collaborative Open Education Advisor. Deadline to apply is March 29th. https://bccampus.ca/advisor-open-education/

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM DC: “The costs of textbooks are unreal,” said Sydney Eskin. “GW is already interested in this, but it is our responsibility as student leaders to push it further. A lot of people don’t realize it’s an option.” Eskin added that while it may take some time to adjust, professors will be able to adapt and review textbooks for their students. Read more>>

FROM OKLAHOMA: “This is something I’ve had interest in recently,” SGA President Johnson said. “People at the library are interested in making this happen too, so hopefully a pilot program will be happening next year.” Johnson encouraged senators to contact him if they want to be involved in his meetings at the library because he will graduate before the program becomes a reality. “This really is a great cause, so I don’t just want to see it die when I graduate,” Johnson said. Read more>>

FROM IDAHO: “Advocating for our students is a natural role for librarians,” says Gaines. “In many cases, faculty members are unaware of just how expensive the books they select are…or how much of an impact a $200 book can have on an average student. Open educational resources…[n]ot only alleviate the financial burden on students but…provide flexibility and freedom for faculty.” Gaines’s passion for OER combines her belief in open access (OA) and her commitment to making education more affordable for all. Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

delonger‏ @delonger Mar 21

Textbook petting zoo today @NMC_library to show how $$$ books cost. Using #OER NMC faculty have saved student 481K so far! @OpenStax

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Campaign Spotlights Global Open Education Movement | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/03/22/campaign-spotlights-global-open-education-movement.aspx?admgarea=new

Considering OER? Here’s What You Need To Know | eSchool News http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/03/10/oer-6-things-know/

Lessons learned in accessibility through the BC Open Textbook Project | BCcampus

https://open.bccampus.ca/2017/03/08/lessons-learned-in-accessibility-through-the-bc-open-textbook-project/

Open Educational Resources and School Librarians – The Right Fit! | Journal of the American Association of School Librarians

http://knowledgequest.aasl.org/open-educational-resources-school-librarians-right-fit/

Open Source Textbooks Could Save Students a Bundle | Southern Maryland Online

http://somd.com/news/headlines/2017/21753.php

Student Senate: Body will discuss opposing proposed textbook initiative | The Post

http://www.thepostathens.com/article/2017/03/student-senate-propsed-textbook-initiative

Textbooks Could Be History As Schools Switch To Free Online Learning | philly.com

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/History-books-could-soon-be-history-as-schools-switch-to-free-online-learning.html

What Trump’s Budget Outline Would Mean for Higher Ed | The Chronicle of Higher Education

http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Trump-s-Budget-Outline/239511

USG’s textbook resolution passes in University Senate | thelantern

http://thelantern.com/2017/03/usgs-textbook-resolution-passes-in-university-senate/

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

Regular Edition

OER Digest – March 9th, 2017

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 26 | March 9th, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

OE GLOBAL 2017: The OE Global Conference is currently underway in Cape Town, South Africa. Each year the conference brings together leaders in open education from across the world and is organized by the Open Education Consortium. Tonight, the winners of the Open Education Awards for Excellence were also announced. Prior to this year’s event, there was also a workshop marking the 10-year anniversary of the Cape Town Declaration. Follow the conference on Twitter using the #OEglobal.

OER + IR: A new article titled Open Educational Resources and Institutional Repositories by Christine L Ferguson explores the ways in which libraries create and store open educational resources (OER) in institutional repositories (IR). The article addresses issues such as preservation and versioning of OER content, copyright and licensing, funding, and staffing and features interviews and literature from institutions such as the University of Minnesota, the University of Kansas, and Grand Valley State University.

MOTION DISMISSED: In the litigation of Great Minds and FedEx Office, the court has issued an order granting FedEx Office’s motion to dismiss. This litigation centered around the interpretation of the CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license, known as BY-NC-SA. In this case, Great Minds claims that FedEx Office violated the terms of the BY-NC-SA license Great Minds applied to educational materials when FedEx Office copied material at the direction of school districts for non commercial use in classrooms. Read more>>

NEW OPINION PIECE: A new article written by nine school district superintendents from nine states explores some common misunderstandings about OER. Published in The Hechinger Report, the article features experiences from #GoOpen districts. Read more>>

IWD 2017: In recognition of International Women’s Day, the OER Digest team congratulates and thanks all of the amazing female OER leaders we are so fortunate to have in this movement. Kudos to you all for your continued dedication in championing open education initiatives around the world!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Open Oregon Educational Resources is hosting a webinar on effective strategies for OER initiatives, featuring Openstax’s Nicole Finkbeiner on March 13th from 12-1pm PST. http://openoregon.org/events/event/effectively-encouraging-the-use-of-oer-on-your-campus/

EVENT: BCcampus is hosting a one-hour Pressbooks Training Webinar on March 14th from 10-11am PST. https://bccampus.ca/event/one-hour-pressbooks-training-march/

EVENT: OpenStax and OER Commons will be hosting a webinar on Additional Faculty OER Resources on March 16th from 3-4 CDT. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2184505684117689345

EVENT: The 14th Annual Open Education Conference will be taking place from October 11-13th.The call for proposals closes March 31st. https://openedconference.org/2017/call/

EVENT: In celebration of Open Education Week, SPARC will be hosting a webcast titled Successful OER Adoption Models: Academic Libraries Leading the Way on March 29, 2-3 EDT. RSVP to attend! https://sparcopen.org/event/successful-oer-adoption-models-academic-libraries-leading-way/

EVENT: Registration for #OER17: The Politics of Open closes soon! The conference will take place April 5-6 in London, UK. https://oer17.oerconf.org/#gref

JOB: Yale University Library is looking for a Digital Scholarship Project Manager. https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWebHost/jobdetails.aspx?jobId=1006023&partnerid=25053&siteid=5248

JOB: BCcampus is seeking an energetic and collaborative Open Education Advisor. Deadline to apply is March 23rd. https://bccampus.ca/advisor-open-education/

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: Undergraduate students in Dr. Wyeth Wasserman’s cancer genetics class had a unique assignment: to write their own e-textbook for their course. “Textbooks cost too much and students should have high quality, free materials,” says Dr. Wasserman, who led the project. He is executive director of BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia and a senior scientist with the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics. Read more>>

FROM GEORGIA: The college’s faculty have been working since fall 2015 to expand Open Education Resources courses each semester. Almost half a million dollars’ worth of student savings was yielded the first semester alone. To date, GHC has saved students $3.8 million in textbook costs. OER course conversions are aided by the University System of Georgia’s Affordable Learning Georgia initiative, which promotes student success by providing cost-free alternatives to expensive textbooks. Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

James GlapaGrossklag‏ @JGlapaGrossklag

Students perceive profs who use #OER as more kind, creative & encouraging. @johnhiltoniii #oeglobal 1/2

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

A Growing (But Controversial) Idea in Open-Access Textbooks: Let Students Help Write Them | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-02-08-a-growing-but-controversial-idea-in-open-access-textbooks-let-students-help-write-them

Cashing In On Textbook Rentals | Barron’s Next

http://www.barrons.com/articles/cashing-in-on-textbook-rentals-1488410596

Districts ‘Go Open’ For Instructional Resources | The Dispatch

http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=56503

Education Publisher Pearson Reports Biggest Loss In Its History | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/24/education-publisher-pearson-loss-us-penguin-random-house

Franklin U Expands Digital Textbook Project | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/02/23/franklin-u-expands-digital-textbook-project.aspx

Free Psychology Textbook Available For Students | Campus Current

http://www.thecampuscurrent.com/3549/showcase/online-textbooks-resourceful-to-students/

Ministers, Experts Urge Inclusive Access And Quality Education Through Open Educational Resources | UNESCO

http://en.unesco.org/news/ministers-experts-urge-inclusive-access-and-quality-education-through-open-educational

New Solutions—Not Just New Winners—In the Curriculum Marketplace | New America

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/new-solutionsnot-just-new-winners-curriculum-marketplace/

Opinion: Textbooks Are Criminally Overpriced | The Sentinel

http://ksusentinel.com/2017/02/27/opinion-textbooks-are-criminally-overpriced/

Rutgers, NJPIRG Helping to Reduce Textbook Costs | Daily Record

http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/news/2017/02/27/rutgers-njpirg-helping-reduce-textbook-costs/98474304/

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