OER Digest – February 9th, 2017

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 24 | February 9th, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

OPEN ONTARIO: Last month, eCampus Ontario announced funding for 24 open content projects. Of the projects that have received funding, nine are new OER, one is a university readiness resource, and 14 are course modules or full courses. All resources developed will be openly licensed and are intended to support both undergraduate and graduate level education. Read more>>

CONNECTICUT REPORT: Last month a Connecticut General Assembly Task Force released the Open Source Textbook Report. The Task Force (made up of faculty, student, and administrator representation from two and four year, public and private institutions) was established to study best practices with regard to Open Educational Resources (OER). The report provides an update of OER activities across the state and presents the findings of a statewide faculty survey. Key excerpts:

• When compared to the national data collected by the Babson Survey Research Group, Connecticut faculty rank much higher in awareness with only 22% of the respondents indicating that they were not aware of OERs vs. the national percentage of 65%.
• 92% of the respondents indicated a willingness to consider OER adoption over the next three years.
• OER resources were viewed as equal or superior to traditional educational resources by 70% of respondents.

PUBLISHER WATCH: Inside Higher Ed recently reported on how textbook publishers are increasingly pushing for all inclusive access deals for college textbooks. In this model, students pay a course fee that provides access to all digital course materials (unless students pay extra for a print-on-demand copy), which is automatically included in tuition or deducted from student accounts. While publishers promote this model as a cost-saving solution, OER advocates argue that it gives publishers an even greater stranglehold over prices and access to content. Read more>>

STATE LEGISLATION UPDATE: Washington State Representative Melanie Stambaugh, R-Puyallup, a member of the House Higher Education Committee has sponsored House Bill 1768 aimed to build upon and expand existing support for open educational resources. With the desire to replicate the model used at UMass Amherst, Stambaugh aims to save students at 4-year institutions in Washington $70,000 for every $10,000 invested. Read more>>

SECRETARY OF EDUCATION UPDATE: Earlier this week Betsy DeVos was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Education, after a contentious confirmation battle in the Senate. DeVos did not discuss OER during her confirmation hearing, however she did respond to a written question from Senator Patty Murray concerning college textbook costs and OER. DeVos’ response: “I will work with you and your colleagues to explore any remaining issues, including the question about the proliferation of ‘open textbooks’ during the HEA reauthorization.” Read more>>

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: OpenStax and OER Commons will be hosting a webinar on Additional Faculty OER Resources on February 10th from 3-4 CST. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6611168084846144769

EVENT: Lansing Community College will be hosting their 2nd OER Summit on February 24th from 8:30-4. The event is free for all Michigan educators. http://www.lcc.edu/provost/senate/oer-summit.aspx

EVENT: Apply to attend the Open Education Ontario Summit taking place on March 27th. Deadline to apply is February 28th. http://onoersummit.com/

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

OPPORTUNITY: Interested in contributing a chapter to the upcoming OA book, OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians? Proposals are due February 13th. https://docs.google.com/document/d/166POxN4vmdlz-Mb91qNMhdgdSNqavexQph_wGIWl8Hg/edit

JOB: The University of Washington is looking for a Scholarly Publishing Outreach Librarian. Applications are due February 17th. http://www.lib.washington.edu/about/employment/librarians/spol2017-01-09

JOB: The Ontario Colleges Library Services is seeking a consultant to build an OER toolkit for Ontario college faculty and library staff. Applications are due February 10th. https://www.ocls.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/RFQ-%20Consultant%20for%20Ontario%20College%20Libraries%20Open%20Educational%20Resources%20%28OER%29%20Toolkit_19Jan2017.pdf

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM VIRGINIA: “The cost of textbooks has outpaced just about every other consumer good, and it’s outpaced even the price of tuition [nationwide],” said Hillary Miller, scholarly communications outreach librarian with VCU Libraries. “We recognize that the cost of education is going up, and there’s not a lot that we can do about that. But one of the most direct ways that libraries and faculty can affect cost for students is through textbooks and course materials.” Read more>>

FROM MISSISSIPPI: “In his first board meeting, Hickman killed an expensive textbook adoption and made a commitment to #GoOpen. With savings from open educational resources, CMSD was able to invest in a digital learning ecosystem across the district–1:1 in high school with Macbooks, 2:1 in middle school, and 2:1 iPads in elementary.” Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

TJ Bliss‏ @tjbliss

What do #educators like about #OER? The #open content and up-to-date materials. Watch this video for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX0K0hb_xKE&feature=youtu.be

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Letter: Addressing High Textbook Costs | The Cavalier Daily

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/02/addressing-high-text-book-costs

Of OER and Platforms: Five Years Later | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-01-26-of-oer-and-platforms-five-years-later

More Colleges Use Open Educational Resources | Community College Daily

http://www.ccdaily.com/Pages/Academic-Programs/More-colleges-adopt-OER-degrees.aspx

Top Fears Shutting the Door on Open Education | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/02/01/top-fears-shutting-the-door-on-open-education.aspx

Digital And Open-source Options Have Advantages Over Books | La Crosse Tribune

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/digital-and-open-source-resources-open-la-crosse-classrooms-to/article_b986af61-2435-5900-9ed7-e15004aca51b.html

Textbook Costs Are Up, Pushing Academic Progress Down | Pensacola News Journal

http://www.pnj.com/story/news/education/2017/01/27/textbook-costs-up-pushing-academic-progress-down/97058418/

How The University of Hawaii Is Solving Today’s Higher Ed Problems | Opensource.com

https://opensource.com/article/17/2/interview-education-billy-meinke

When The Textbook You Need Hasn’t Been Written Yet | NCSU Libraries

https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stories/when-the-textbook-you-need-hasn%E2%80%99t-been-written-yet

Extreme Makeover: Pedagogy Edition | actualham

http://robinderosa.net/higher-ed/extreme-makeover-pedagogy-edition/

New Tool Arrives for Refining The OER Vetting Process | CCSSO

http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/OER_Home_/OER_Fellow_Blog.html

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OER Digest – January 26th, 2017

From Katie Steen (US PIRG) | Volume 23 | January 26th, 2017

With help from Brady Yano and Nicole Allen (SPARC)

THE OER DIGEST

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

PEARSON PROBLEMS: Stock prices for textbook publisher Pearson plummeted 30% last week, following information released by the company about poorer than expected 2016 results. Pearson cites lower performance in the North American higher education market as the major culprit, and has announced new steps including a cut to the price of e-books and a new print rental program. While Pearson has acknowledged OER as a player in the marketplace, it points to lower enrollments, inventory backlog and unpredictability in the market as the source of falling profits. This time last year, Pearson announced a major restructuring that eliminated 4,000 jobs. Read more>>

“Whereas we had previously anticipated a broadly stable North American higher         education courseware market in 2017, we now assume that many of these downward pressures will continue.”  — Pearson’s statement

OPEN LICENSING PLAYBOOK: The U.S. Department of State has published a new government “playbook” for federal programs to adopt open licensing policies for grant-funded resources. The playbook provides guidance to federal agencies and other funders interested in expanding the impact of their investments through open licensing of educational resources. While the playbook is primarily intended for the U.S. government, many of the topics and suggestions are applicable to grants at all levels. The playbook has been released into the public domain and can be downloaded here.

YEAR OF OPEN: Last week, the OE Consortium announced the Year of Open, an initiative aimed at celebrating openness in the fields of open access, open education, open data, open government and open source software. 2017 marks three important anniversaries for the open education movement, including the term open educational resources, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration and the Paris OER Declaration.

ONTARIO E-LEARNING FORUM: Last week eCampusOntario hosted the 2017 eLearning Seminar + Showcase in Downtown Toronto. In attendance was an array of elearning professionals from eCampusOntario member institutions, with guest speakers and industry experts on the agenda. The event provided college and university level faculty, instructional designers and administrators with a unique opportunity to network with their peers, showcase their latest achievements and work together to create the best online programs.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: The Rebus Community is hosting an Office Hours Webinar on January 31 at 2pm EST on Making Open Textbooks With Students. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CWGoZzcjikgRsYpxq7OODcPj4IuLH7JcTifCr-14C7A/viewform?edit_requested=true

EVENT: Registration for #OER17: The Politics of Open is now open! The conference will be taking place April 5-6 in London, UK https://oer17.oerconf.org/#gref

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM CALIFORNIA: ““UCR students come from less-privileged backgrounds, which means textbooks are a burden,” said Chikako Takeshita, a professor of gender and sexuality studies who organized the task force. “Students skip buying books because they can’t afford it. It’s harder to do well without textbooks.” The initiative is part of a trend among American colleges and universities. At UCR, the project has saved students an estimated $507,250 since fall 2015. Read more>>

FROM GEORGIA: “We knew from our first day that we wanted to focus on making college more affordable. It’s a huge objective, so we’ve found two key ways to tackle this issue: textbooks and student fees,” Gaines said. “Our goal is to transition large lecture classrooms that currently use expensive textbooks to Online Educational Resources.” Online Education Resources are typically at a free or reduced cost. Read more>>

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: “This semester, all of my profs have all of their resources online — I don’t have to buy one textbook,” said Fischer. “My back isn’t breaking as I’m walking to class and it’s also much more liberating because you feel like you aren’t spending an excessive amount of money on a course.” Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Will Cross @tceles_B_hsup

“When the Txtbook You Need Hasn’t Been Written Yet” going frm #textbookbroke to #openpedagogy w/ #OER @ncsulibraries https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stories/when-the-textbook-you-need-hasn%E2%80%99t-been-written-yet

https://twitter.com/tceles_B_hsup/status/824628420378292224

SYLLABUS

Of OER and Platforms: Five Years Later | David Wiley

https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4892

U.S. Dept. of Ed Launches Supplement to Technology Plan Focused on Higher Education | MIT

http://news.mit.edu/2017/department-of-education-launches-supplement-to-technology-plan-focused-on-higher-ed-0119

Students’ No. #1 Higher Education Obstacle May Surprise You | New America

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/students-no-1-higher-education-obstacle-may-surprise-you/

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OER Digest – January 13th, 2017

From Katie Steen and Ethan Senack (US PIRG) | Volume 22 | January 13th, 2017

With help from Brady Yano (SPARC)

THE OER DIGEST

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

BC OPEN TEXT HITS 3: The BCcampus Open Textbook Project has saved students at British Columbia post-secondary institutions $3 million. In total, 25,571 BC students have been impacted by the project. Congratulations to the team at BCcampus! Read more>>

CENGAGE LAUNCHES MINDTAP ACE: Yesterday Cengage launched MindTap ACE, a digital solution that blends curated Open Educational Resources (OER) with Cengage content. MindTap ACE is aiming to address the student learning outcomes and affordability challenges by including OER alongside Cengage’s best-in-class content. MindTap ACE is now available as a pilot program for Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Computing, World History I, Public Speaking and Non-Majors Biology. The product’s pricing starts at $40. Read more>>

HIGH PROFILE BOARD ADDITIONS: The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) announced the appointment of two Silicon Valley executives, Alex Fielding and Jason Goecke, to its board of directors. “As open educational resources begin to make significant inroads into K-12 and higher education classrooms, ISKME has brought on key leaders to our board who have made a difference in shaping and sharing quality online products and services,” said ISKME founder and CEO Lisa Petrides. Alex Fielding is CEO of Ripcord, a high-tech startup funded by Kleiner Perkins, Lux, and Lenovo and Jason Goecke is a Vice President and General Manager at Cisco responsible for Spark Call, Hybrid Calling Services, Tropo, and Spark for Developers. Read more>>

GVSU PROFESSOR RECOGNIZED: Grand Valley State University (GVSU) mathematics professor Ted Sundstrom is to receive the inaugural Daniel Solow Author’s Award from the Mathematical Association of America, in recognition of Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof, an OER published through the institution’s ScholarWorks@GVSU repository platform. The award celebrates authors whose materials have had a positive impact on undergraduate mathematics education. Dr. Sundstrom’s textbook has been formally adopted at 47 universities, while the digital editions in ScholarWorks were downloaded more than 22,000 times in 2016 alone! Read more>>

THE YEAR AHEAD

A special section featuring OER insiders’ thoughts on the biggest changes, developments, and opportunities expected in 2017

Reg Leichty, Foresight Law + Policy: The coming year may be consequential for public education generally and for open educational resources champions specifically. As education policy decision-making shifts increasingly to states and school districts – both as a result of passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the transition to nearly complete Republican control of federal policy levers – the open educational resources community must act strategically to build on existing OER-friendly federal policies and state and district trends. [Read the full comment here.]

Layla Bonnot, CCSSO: In 2017, CCSSO will continue to support #GoOpen states in meeting their commitments and will continue to support all states interested in the adoption and implementation of OER. I personally predict additional interest from states beyond the current cohort of 19 states and CCSSO is working on improving the search and discovery of resources via common metadata tagging and support for the Learning Registry. In 2017, I also predict greater coordination between states and districts around OER. [Read the full comment here.]

Marilyn Moody, Portland State University: I anticipate a dramatic increase in the creation, adoption, and use of open textbooks and other OER as course materials at the university level. Open textbooks and course materials have been promoted and used in individual institutions and higher education systems, but not in a ubiquitous way. In 2017, I see the use of open textbooks and course materials becoming a common and standard approach for universities, particularly public universities. Open textbooks and other open course materials will increasingly be used to support institutional goals and strategic initiatives, especially in support of student success and student retention. And their use will also be recognized as an important way to reduce student costs and increase educational affordability. [Read the full comment here.]

Rory McGreal, Athabasca University: Issues around Digital Rights Management (DRM) or digital locks will become increasingly apparent this year as people become more aware of the serious consequences of allowing companies to control their devices and other products. Customers no longer own and control their purchases, because their computers and other devices are now being supervised and limited by the software vendors. For educators, with the growing acceptance of E-textbooks, this has become problematic as the students and teachers who use them are having their devices shackled by DRM. [Read the full comment here.]

Jane Rosecrans, Reynolds Community College: Reynolds Community College was the recipient of two Virginia Community College System OER grants between 2014-2016, so the biggest challenge for our college specifically is looking for ways to continue to develop OER sections of courses and train faculty to teach these sections without the incentive of grant money that has underwritten this development in the past. In doing so, we need to revise our approach to OER training, which has been patterned after faculty training for online teaching and normally requires a multi-week training course. [Read the full comment here.]

Preston Davis, Northern Virginia Community College: Higher education is facing a period of transformation that has the potential to be unlike anything experienced in the modern era. The long held belief that college is a privilege is being questioned by a generation of young adults seeking the opportunities of previous generations. The assertion that a college education is a right, and as such should be made available and affordable to all citizens, has certainly benefitted from the open movement. [Read the full comment here.]

Think a listserv you’re on would like to get the OER Digest? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: BCcampus is hosting a one-hour Pressbooks Training Webinar on January 24 ow.ly/x13s307lkju

EVENT: BCcampus is hosting the 2017 Open Textbook Summit May 24-25 in Vancouver, B.C. The call for proposals close January 20th. https://open.bccampus.ca/open-textbook-summit-2017-call-for-proposals/

EVENT: The Creative Commons Global Summit will be taking place April 28-30. The call for submissions close January 27. https://docs.google.com/a/sparcopen.org/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezm8y2pheNlsP4Tserougy8ht1PITIyvT3GTBUJzDCb1ansg/viewform

JOB: Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is looking for a North America-based Program Coordinator https://www.p2pu.org/en/jobs/

JOB: The University of Minnesota is looking for a Scholarly Communication Librarian & Research Services Coordinator https://www.myu.umn.edu/psp/psprd/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_APP_SCHJOB.GBL?Page=HRS_APP_JBPST&Action=U&SiteId=1&FOCUS=Applicant&JobOpeningId=315002&PostingSeq=1

JOB: BCcampus is looking for a new full-time Web Developer https://bccampus.ca/web-developer-posting/

OPPORTUNITY: The Rebus Community is working to build an open and collaborative model for making open textbooks. They are seeking contributors for seven active open textbook projects. https://forum.rebus.community/category/5/projects-active-open-textbook-projects

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: “We’re trying to raise awareness of the malpractice of how [textbook] publishers stifle competition to protect profits, forcing students to lose tons of money from an unnecessary update,” Nicholson said. At the same time, UVSS is touting the financial benefits and the altruistic teaching-learning concept of OER (by making people aware of sites such as BC Open Campus (open.bccampus.ca). The UVSS projects that open textbooks will save UVic students $100,000 in 2017. Read more>>

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA x2: Ryan McAllister, a second-year environmental studies student at the college, has already felt the positive impacts from using open textbooks in four of his courses. “The biggest perk of open textbooks are the cost-savings. Saving money as a student will always come first,” he said. Okanagan College ranked third in open textbook adoptions out of 31 participating post-secondary institutions in BCcampus’s 2015/16 annual review of its Open Textbook Project. Read more>>    

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Matt Salomone (@matthematician)

Or do what half my academic Twitter feed is doing: Go Open. #OER @actualham @Dan_Blick twitter.com/raulpacheco/st…

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

5 questions to answer about OER use | eSchool News

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/01/06/5-questions-answer-oer-use/

Counting Down EdSurge’s Top Ten S’Cool Tools of 2016 | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-12-28-counting-down-edsurge-s-top-ten-s-cool-tools-of-2016

District leaders offer tips for embracing OER | Education Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/district-leaders-offer-tips-for-embracing-oer/433618/

Is a Creative Commons-Non Commercial License killing your project? | Bold&Open

http://boldandopen.com/is-a-creative-commons-non-commercial-license-killing-your-project/

Online Learning and Training Trends for 2017 | EduMine

http://news.edumine.com/online-learning-and-training-trends-for-2017/

K-12 districts expand ‘digital first’ initiatives, skip textbooks | Education Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/k-12-districts-expand-digital-first-initiatives-skip-textbooks/434019/

Have suggestions for the next edition?

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OER Digest – December 1st, 2016

From Katie Steen (USPIRG) | Volume 20 | December 1st, 2016

With help from Brady Yano (SPARC)

THE OER DIGEST

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

NEW RESOURCE ON ADAPTATION: The Open Textbook Network recently released Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know, a resource built for people who want to know what it takes to edit an open textbook and how to get started. This guide, an adaptation of Clint Lalonde’s original work, focuses on the fundamental aspects of editing open textbooks and will help users assess the effort, expertise and technical tools needed.

FELLOW OF THE YEAR: Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani has been named the Senior BCcampus Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellow for the 2017 year. Dr. Jhangiani will lead a team of three faculty researchers in the development of research related to the educational outcomes that take place when OER are substituted for traditional learning materials within B.C. For any B.C. faculty interested in applying to be one of the three Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellows, the deadline is December 19th.

OTN LANDS BIG FISH: OhioLINK, Ohio’s Academic Library Consortium, is joining the University of Minnesota’s Open Textbook Network. OhioLINK is a serves over 600,000 end users and is a member of the Ohio Technology Consortium of the Ohio Department of Higher Education. With OhioLINK’s membership, the Open Textbook Network now extends across more than 350 campuses. Get their newsletter

12 DISTRICTS RECOGNIZED: The Learning Counsel recognized 12 districts for improving student outcomes through personalizing instruction, open educational resources and digital tools for better collaboration. The 12 districts are in Washington, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida, North Dakota, Texas, Arizona and Georgia.

MATH STUDENTS SAVE $1M: The Math Department at the University of British Columbia has adopted OER in all first-year and most second-year courses. Over 7,000 are enrolled in these OER math courses this year and collectively they are saving between $608,000 and $1,024,000.

PREPARING A STEM WORKFORCE: The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) received federal grants to broaden pathways to STEM careers in fast-growing fields. Math instructors at BMCC are developing a comprehensive suite of Open Educational Resources for four gateway math courses. Resources include videos, supporting class materials and assignments from WeBWork, an open-source online homework system for math and science.

SECRETARY OF EDUCATION ANNOUNCEMENT: Last week U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. DeVos is known for being supportive of the school choice movement and currently holds a position on the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE). DeVos’ appointment is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: BCcampus is hosting an Accessibility for Open Textbooks Webinar on December 6th from 12:30-1:30 PST https://bccampus.ca/event/accessibility-for-open-textbooks/?instance_id=2436

EVENT: The Open Education Consortium is hosting a Planning for OER Professional Development webinar on December 7th at 10am PST/1pm EST http://www.oeconsortium.org/news/

JOB: The University of North Carolina Wilmington Randall Library is looking for a Digital Initiatives Librarian https://jobs.uncw.edu/postings/6544

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM ILLINOIS: Members of the Associated Student Government at Northwestern are gathering faculty and student support for Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) Affordable College Textbooks Act. The students hope to lobby for the bill with other students during the Big Ten on the Hill spring conference in D.C. “We’re hoping to build a coalition, so it’s not just Northwestern students supporting this, but it’s a bunch of schools supporting this.” Read More >>

FROM ILLINOIS X2: Heartland Community College (HCC) in Illinois is set to save students $204,000 next semester through OER adoption. This spring, there will be 32 faculty members at HCC using open textbooks in 89 sections. “I’m trying to meet them where they are,” Evans said. “Let the textbook fit into their lives in a seamless way.” Read More >>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Janice Ward @JaniceWard09 Nov 29

“5 Ways to Participate in the #GoOpen Movement” by @vifglobaled https://medium.com/@vifglobaled/5-ways-to-participate-in-the-goopen-movement-818a2ca1505b#.z8vitp96s

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

The College Bookstore, Disrupted | Publishers Weekly

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/72133-the-college-bookstore-disrupted.html

Digital Publishing and the World’s Largest Publishing Company | Digital Publishing Innovation Summit

http://memeburn.com/2016/11/digital-publishing-worlds-largest-education-company/

How Will the Presidential Election Results Influence Education Technology in Schools? | The Hechinger Report

http://hechingerreport.org/how-will-the-presidential-election-results-influence-education-technology-in-schools/

Digital Tools Provide Cost Savings, Flexibility | The Argus Observer

http://www.argusobserver.com/news/digital-tools-provide-cost-savings-flexibility/article_183cd824-acd8-11e6-a191-cf11e5616c34.html

Library Resources as Course Materials | Open Oregon

http://openoregon.org/library-resources-as-course-materials/

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You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

OER Digest – November 17th, 2016

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 19 | November 17th, 2016

THE OER DIGEST

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

THAT’S A WRAP – OPENCON 2016: OpenCon 2016 took place November 12-14 in Washington, DC, bringing together more than 200 early career and student leaders from 60 countries to learn, connect and catalyze action on Open Access, Open Education and Open Data. The event’s online presence included a free live webcast, more than 27,000 tweets, and 63 million impressions on the hashtag #OpenCon. Highlights from the event include a keynote from Brewster Kahle, Founder and Digital Librarian of Internet Archive, a panel on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Open Community, and an advocacy day where participants met policymakers across Washington, DC. The in-person participants were selected from more than 10,000 applicants. Conference recordings are available here.

STUDENT SAVINGS AT SCC: Scottsdale Community College (SCC) has become Arizona’s first college to launch a textbook-free degree program, offering students enrolled in a hybrid Associate of Art degree a cheaper way to learn. Modelled after the Z-Degree Program at Tidewater Community College, the SCC’s program is leveraging the increasing accessibility of high-quality OER. With SCC being a part of the “Maricopa Millions OER Project” launched in 2013, this degree program will significantly increase the nearly $6 million in savings that the project has accrued.

USG LEADING BY EXAMPLE: OpenStax recently named University System of Georgia (USG) the top system nationwide at saving students money through adoption of OpenStax free digital college textbooks in the 2015-16 academic school year. USG institutions helped nearly 36,000 students save $3.5 million. That same year, UGA helped save students over $986,500 through the use of OER. Read more>>

BARNES & NOBLE LAUNCH: Barnes & Noble recently launched the Barnes & Noble Education (BNED) Courseware, a service aimed at providing faculty with an easier way to use OER. Leveraging their presence on hundreds of US college campuses, BNED provides students and faculty with everything they need on day one. Currently providing service for 10 general education courses, OER are being used in the form of OpenStax materials, videos and slides. Previous volumes of the Digest have noted efforts by other sectors of the textbook industry, including publishers and online booksellers, to enter the OER space.

TENNESSEE GOES OPEN: Last week the Tennessee Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen announced the launch of the state’s commitment to the U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen initiative. Tennessee is the 19th state to commit to the initiative and has two Ambassador Districts, Tullahoma City Schools and Bristol City Schools. Read more>>

PRESIDENT-ELECT: Last week the United States elected Donald J. Trump as their next President. He is set to take office on January 20th. You can find information about the President-elect’s plans for education here.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

JOB: The Hewlett Foundation is looking for a Program Director in the foundation’s Education Program. http://www.hewlett.org/career/program-director-education-program/

JOB: The Indiana University Libraries is looking for a Scholarly Communications Librarian. Applications are being reviewed on a rolling basis. https://jobs.diglib.org/job/scholarly-communication-librarian/

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM CONNECTICUT: “Bringing open educational resources [to UConn] has been something that various organizations have wanted to do to fix what is a broken market,” UConnPIRG’s treasurer and senior finance major Saman Azimi said. “Hopefully in the next couple of months we can come to some really tangible policy recommendations to make open educational resources a reality for students across Connecticut,” Azimi said. Read more>>

FROM KANSAS:  A sample of 76 students at the University echoed the results when Josh Bolick, a scholarly communication librarian, asked students at Anschutz Library last fall to fill out cards about the cost and use of textbooks. Among the comments: “I don’t buy any of my required texts anymore. It’s too expensive.” “I’ve spent around $500 just this semester on textbooks, some that I rarely use.” Read more>>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Nicole Allen ‏@txtbks  Nov 14

Kicking off #OpenCon 2016! 200+ from 60 countries in the room, thousands more online working to catalyze action in #OA #OER #OpenData https://twitter.com/txtbks/status/797452929682771968

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Textbook Prices Reduce Course Accessibility | The Oberlin Review

http://oberlinreview.org/11578/opinions/textbook-prices-reduce-course-accessibility/

Not Too Big to Fail: Big Data in Higher Education | New America Weekly

http://www.newamerica.org/weekly/edition-141/not-too-big-fail-big-data-higher-education/

Converging Advances in Online Learning: OTT, OER and OEI | Psychology Today

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-media-psychology-effect/201611/converging-advances-in-online-learning-ott-oer-and-oei

3 Ways to Prove ROI in Open Educational Resources | EdTech

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2016/11/3-ways-prove-roi-open-educational-resources

Online Textbook Program Saves Criminal Justice Majors Thousands of Dollars | BMCC News

http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/news/news.jsp?id=13342

Valencia Finds Innovative Ways to Cut Textbook Costs; Down 38% in 5 Years | Valencia News

http://news.valenciacollege.edu/about-valencia/valencia-finds-innovative-ways-to-cut-textbook-costs-down-38-in-5-years/

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OER Digest – October 20th, 2016

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 17 | October 20th, 2016

With help from Ethan Senack, Richard Saunders, and Nicole Allen

THE OER DIGEST

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

FLORIDA VIRTUAL CAMPUS SURVEY: This week Florida Virtual Campus released it’s third report on textbook costs since 2010. The report investigates the impact textbook costs are having on college affordability, student actions to address cost, as well as college success and completion. This survey had more than 22,000 students from all of Florida’s public colleges and universities voluntarily participate in 2016 alone. The report identified recommendations for how the state could work toward building partnerships and a statewide infrastructure to support the use of OER. From the report:

The findings suggest that the cost of textbooks is negatively impacting student access to required materials (66.6% did not purchase the required textbook) and learning (37.6% earn a poor grade; 19.8% fail a course). Time to graduation and/or access is also impacted by cost. Students reported that they occasionally or frequently take fewer courses (47.6%); do not register for a course (45.5%); drop a course (26.1%), or withdraw from courses (20.7%).

NEW US NATIONAL STUDENT DEBT FIGURES: A new report from The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) reveals that students from the class of 2015 who took out loans to pay for college graduated with an average debt of $30,100. The figure, which is up 4 percent from the previous year, captures the average debt of students who received a bachelor’s degree from either a public or private nonprofit college. Nearly seven in 10 graduating seniors in 2015 used student loans to finance their education. These numbers underscore the importance of efforts to reduce college costs including OER.

#GOOPEN REGIONAL SUMMIT: On October 7th, the Vista Unified School District in Vista, CA hosted a #GoOpen Regional Summit for K-12 administrators, teachers, librarians, media techs, and the business community. “#GoOpen Regional summits are intended for new districts who have recently committed to become a #GoOpen Launch district or are curious about making a scalable transition to openly licensed educational resources. Read more>>

PARTNERSHIP FOR ANCILLARY MATERIALS: OpenStax and OER Commons announced they were partnering to provide online community hubs where instructors can freely share and modify syllabuses, homework, study guides and other open-copyright course materials that are made specifically for OpenStax textbooks. Read more>>

OPENSTAX GOES OUT OF THIS WORLD: OpenStax has also released its newest open textbook, Astronomy. Designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of one- or two-semester introductory astronomy courses, this is the first open textbook within the discipline.

ONTARIO STUDENT LEADERS GO OPEN: This week, eCampus Ontario hosted a Student Engagement Seminar, bringing together student leaders and staff from the province’s five largest student organizations to learn about OER. The event provided a rare opportunity for the various groups to meet with one another and engage in conversations about strategic approaches to OER advocacy and how OER can be used in learning. Brady Yano (SPARC) and Kelsey Wiens (Creative Commons) were present to help guide conversation throughout the day.

4th ANNIVERSARY: The B.C. Open Textbook Project marked its 4th anniversary, having saved students an estimated $2.3 million. The project is the first government-sponsored initiative of its kind in Canada. It is estimated that more than 18,000 students in B.C. have benefitted from using open textbooks since the project was first announced on Oct. 16, 2012. Read more>>

SEE YOU AT #OPENED16: Our next OER Digest will be put together at the 13th Annual Open Education Conference. With one of the community’s capstone events just around the corner, we recommend taking a minute to check out the awesome program. Looking forward to seeing you there!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: International Open Access Week is taking place next week, October 24-30. Events are happening around the world. http://www.openaccessweek.org/

EVENT: The University of North Dakota is hosting the Open Education Resources Summit 2016 on October 27. http://und.edu/calendar/index.php/view/event/detail/44967/open-education-resources-summit-2016

EVENT: The 13th Annual OpenEd conference is next month, November 2-4. http://openedconference.org/2016/

EVENT: RSVP now to attend OpenCon Live, the live webcast of OpenCon 2016 this November 12-14. http://www.opencon2016.org/opencon_2016_live

JOB: BCcampus is looking for one or more Freelance Writers for their news blog. The start date is October 26, 2016. https://bccampus.ca/rfp-for-freelance-writing/

OPPORTUNITY: Southern Utah University is beginning a peer-reviewed open digital publication titled Case Studies in Open Educational Resources. Submissions related to any field or level of education are invited. For more information contact csoer@suu.edu.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Students are just not purchasing their textbooks because of the costs of them,” said Erin Fields, flexible learning coordinator at the UBC Library. “If it’s a choice between being able to live and to have food, or spending thousands of dollars on textbooks for one term, the choice becomes really a simple one for a student to make.” Read more>

FROM MISSOURI: “We think that everyone should have access to scholarly information as cheaply as possible, ideally free.” MSA is currently in the process of creating two surveys they hope to implement by the end of the semester: one for the students, and one for faculty. By the end of the year, MSA plans to recognize the professors at MU who use OERs. Their long-term goal is to see the number of professors who use OERs rise to 15 percent in 10 years. Read more>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Giulia Forsythe ‏@giuliaforsythe: Advancing #OER in Ontario, #ecampusontario  Student Leadership prez by @bradyyano  #textbookbrokeBC http://bit.ly/2drcImi

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Pearson faces a textbook lesson in how markets wane | The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/17/pearson-faces-a-textbook-lesson-in-how-markets-wane/

A possible solution to one college cost problem: free books | The Hechinger Report

http://hechingerreport.org/a-possible-solution-to-one-college-cost-problem-free-books/

In this case publishers should root for the OER guys | BookBusiness

http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/post/case-publishers-root-oer-providers/

5 ways to participate in the #GoOpen movement | Getting Smart

http://gettingsmart.com/2016/10/5-ways-to-participate-in-goopen/

OER in K-12 Education – What does the research tell us? | CCSSO

http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/OER_Home_/OER_Blog_-_October_2016.html

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OER Digest- October 4th, 2016

From Ethan Senack, Student PIRGs | Volume 16 | October 4th, 2016

With help from Brady Yano and Austin Beck

THE OER DIGEST

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

SMALL STATE, BIG ACTION: Last week, Rhode Island became the latest state to launch an effort to address rising textbook costs through the use of OER. Governor Gina Raimondo announced a challenge for the state’s higher education institutions to save students $5 million over 5 years through the use of OER. The Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative includes support from 7 higher education institutions in the state. SPARC and the Open Textbook Network have both signed on as partners to support institutions as they work to meet the challenge through expanded OER adoption.

STAX OF CASH: The open textbook publisher OpenStax announced last week that more than 1.5 million students have used their free textbooks. The numbers? OpenStax founder Richard Baraniuk sums it up best: “More than 811,000 students are using our books this fall, which is a 106 percent increase over spring 2016, and the books are being used in over 4,500 courses at 2,688 universities, colleges and high schools.” The Rice-based publisher also announced that they expect students using their books to save a collective $70 million in the ‘16-’17 school year.  

NEW ENGLAND GOES OPEN: School leaders across the New England region went to Amazon’s Boston offices to attend the #GoOpen summit hosted by North Reading Public Schools on Sept. 23rd. They had a jam-packed day as they networked and learned about the #GoOpen campaign, the basics of OER, implementing OER in classrooms, and scaling OER across the district. OER community leaders led many of the sessions, and participants had the chance to meet with many different education vendors. Kristina Peters and Andrew Marcinek, current and former #GoOpen leaders at the Department of Education, also spoke.

RUTGERS GETS ROLLING: The new Open and Affordable Textbook Project at Rutgers University in New Jersey launched this week, with a goal of saving students $500,000 in its first year. $1,000 grants will be made available to 12 different groups at the three main Rutgers campuses and Biomedical branch, and more than 100 faculty have already expressed interest in the program. Librarians and students are leading the charge.

FULLERTON CONTROVERSY RESURFACES: OER advocates may remember the controversy around CalState Fullerton Professor Alain Bourget last school year, when he assigned a cheaper textbook and OER to his class in place of the Department-required book and was reprimanded by the university. Last week, the Orange County Weekly looks at the fallout in a feature-length story on Professor Bourget and the Cal State Fullerton Math Department and where they are now.

ACCESS MATTERS: A new study suggests a link between funding for K-12 textbooks and student performance. Conducted by a researcher at the American Institutes for Research, found that students at California schools with additional funding for textbooks tend to perform better on state reading and math tests than those at schools with less textbook funding. The study points to textbook shortages caused by lack of adequate funding in an era when prices are rising rapidly. These findings reinforce the opportunity to leverage OER to provide better materials to all students at a lower cost, and thereby reduce inequities caused by access to materials.

B.C. STRATEGIZES: BCcampus hosted an Open Education Strategy Forum this week, bringing together leaders from B.C. post-secondary institutions to engage in conversations about strategic approaches to integrate Open Education practices to improve quality of education.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

DEADLINE: The Call for Proposals for the Open Education Global 2017 Conference closes this month. Submissions are due Oct. 17th. http://conference.oeconsortium.org/2017/call-for-proposals/

EVENT: International Open Access Week is coming up later this month, October 24-30. Events are happening around the world http://www.openaccessweek.org 

EVENT: The 13th Annual OpenEd conference is next month, November 2-4. http://openedconference.org/2016/

EVENT: RSVP now to attend OpenCon Live, the live webcast of OpenCon 2016 this November 12-14. http://www.opencon2016.org/live

JOB: The Open Education Consortium is looking for a Communications Manager. This is a part-time position and the closing date is October 10, 2016. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ZlUxiBMhzFPR4j3pq_EPfl0y2sEykPu1R2A7DX1ZPk/edi

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Carson Varney’s responsibilities include a two-year-old son, with another child expected soon, and rent payments, all while attending Camosun College. It makes the $600 to $1,000 he saves in a year through British Columbia’s Open Textbook Project that much more important.” Read more>

FROM OKLAHOMA: “We can’t, as an academic institution, afford to have students foregoing access to information simply because a company has to turn a profit,” said Cody Taylor, an emerging technologies librarian who helps with the project. “OER is important because of the students who would otherwise, without it, go without access to that information. It’s just something we can’t afford to see happen.” Read more>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Rhode Island Governor @GinaRaimondo, Sep 27: You might have $1,200+ of books in your $40 backpack. This initiative will put $5 million back in students’ pockets http://bit.ly/2cIiaE0

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

The U of O should prioritize open textbooks | The Fulcrum

From Silos to Sharing: Why Are OER Still So Hard to Find? | EdSurge

Curriki Debuts New Tools to Help Teachers Find Open Resources | T.H.E. Journal

Pressing the Reset Button on OER | Education Week

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

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here.

OER Digest – September 22nd, 2016

From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 15 | September 22nd, 2016

With help from Katie Steen, Nicole Allen and Ethan Senack

THE OER DIGEST

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

ACCESS DENIED: On Wednesday, the Student PIRGS released a groundbreaking report revealing the new face of the textbook monopoly: access codes. Access Denied investigates both the role of access codes in the market and the transition to access codes from a student consumer perspective. The report comes as publishers continue to shift their business models toward digital content suites. Key Findings:

• Across institutions and majors, 32% of courses included access codes as required materials.
• At campus bookstores, the average cost of an access code alone was $100.24.
• In bookstores, only 28% of access codes were offered in unbundled form. Even when acquired directly from the publisher, only 56% of all required access codes were offered without additional materials bundled in, despite federal law requiring materials to be sold separately.

Among other concerns, this shift eliminates a student’s ability to opt-out and precludes other affordable alternatives like used and rented books. Share it on Twitter or via HuffPost>>

COLLEGE PROMISE CAMPAIGN: Last week, the Second Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden and former Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter held a roundtable event with leaders in the Silicon Valley area to discuss the College Promise Campaign — an offshoot of the America’s College Promise initiative that President Obama announced in the 2015 state of the union. Nicole Allen (SPARC), Hal Plotkin, and Phil Kim (20 Million Minds) were present and had the opportunity to speak for a few minutes on how OER fit into the free college conversation. Look out for other roundtable events in the coming months.

OER SHAPING CALIFORNIA K-12: A partnership between Open Up Resources and Illustrative Mathematics has resulted in a large scale mathematics OER pilot test spanning 30 middle schools across five California school districts. The participating middle schools will be beta testing Open Up Resources’ OER curricula as it becomes available during the 2016/17 and 2017/18 years. The complete curricula is set to save districts up to 80 per cent of the costs associated with adopting materials from traditional publishers while also providing extensive support to facilitate district-wide adoption.

CA ADOPTS POLICY ON COLLEGE COURSE CATALOGS: The California State Legislature announced last week that as of January 1, 2018 each campus of the California Community Colleges and the California State University will be required to disclose in course catalogues which courses are exclusively using OER. The law will request that each campus of the University of California also comply.

WA ADOPTS K-12 OPEN POLICY: The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) recently launched a new open policy requiring all copyrightable intellectual property created by OPSI employees, contractors and grantees be openly licensed. In addition, Washington is also the 17th state to join #GoOpen with State Superintendent Randy Dorn noting that “We have been and will be extremely supportive of open resources”.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

JOB: The State University of New York (SUNY) College at Geneseo is looking for an Executive Director for Open Educational Resources. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. https://jobs.geneseo.edu/postings/1259

JOB: Tidewater Community College is looking for an Open Educational Resources Librarian. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. https://jobs.tcc.edu/postings/2053

JOB: The Open Education Consortium is looking for a Communications Manager. This is a part-time position and the closing date is October 10, 2016. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ZlUxiBMhzFPR4j3pq_EPfl0y2sEykPu1R2A7DX1ZPk/edit

EVENT: Open Education Week 2017 will be taking place March 27-31, 2017. For more information on how to participate visit https://www.openeducationweek.org/page/call-for-participation

EVENT: International Open Access Week is coming up next month, October 24-30. Events are happening around the world. http://www.openaccessweek.org/

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM ALBERTA: “The underlying problem is the fact that a student’s right to education is considered equal to a right to profit. When the right to education is commodified, students are ultimately left behind. For many, these unnecessary costs are a barrier to obtaining an education.” Read more>

FROM ARIZONA: “Lieren Hefner, a speech language and hearing sciences junior, spent $350 on textbooks this semester and didn’t even buy all of them — she said that if she had, she would’ve paid more around $500. “We’re already paying so much for tuition, and then books on top?” Hefner said. “I feel like I need to get them before school starts and then we barely use them. I’d rather go online anyways.” Read more>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

@HigherEdPIRG: Access Codes? More like #AccessDenied. A new tactic from publishers to continue profiting off students: bit.ly/access-denied pic.twitter.com/FZoX7lMvgx

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Open Educational Resources: Good for Affordability; Better for Learning | Temple University

https://teaching.temple.edu/edvice-exchange/2016/09/open-educational-resources-good-affordability-better-learning

UConn co-op to donate $250,000 to affordable textbook initiatives | the Daily Campus

http://dailycampus.com/stories/2016/9/22/uconns-co-op-plans-to-donate-250000-to-affordable-textbook-initiatives

As schools move to the cloud, top drivers are instruction-related | Education Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/as-schools-move-to-the-cloud-top-drivers-are-instruction-related/426740/

OER to be a Game-Changer in Higher Education | CIO Review

http://knowledgemanagement.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/open-educational-resources-oer-to-be-a-game-changer-in-higher-education-nid-18534-cid-132.html

Brookdale Gets $900K To Create Digital Content As Alternative To Textbooks | Middleton Patch

http://patch.com/new-jersey/middletown-nj/brookdale-gets-900k-create-digital-content-replace-textbooks

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.

OER Digest – September 8th, 2016

From Ethan Senack (PIRG) and Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 14 | September 8th, 2016

With the help of Nicole Allen, Katie Steen, and Kasya O’Connor Grant

THE OER DIGEST

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

Welcome back to an improved OER Digest! After a hiatus this summer, we’ve made some changes to increase consistency and reliability, streamline our delivery system, and make the Digest more accessible to the community. You can now share event notices, policy updates, exciting milestones, and other open education stories directly to oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

BACK TO #TEXTBOOKBROKE: With school starting again, OER supporters, including Senators Durbin, Franken, and King, took to the twittersphere and Facebook to call out costly course materials and advocate for OER using #TextbookBroke. Senator Durbin shared infographics that show the impact of high prices on students, and highlighted steps forward like visiting the Open Textbook Library, or for students, joining the new Open Textbook Alliance. On Twitter alone, #TextbookBroke showed up on timelines over 9.5 million times in 26 hours. Check out the highlights>

UPDATED DATA: Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data on the increase in costs for college expenses. Over the past decade, tuition and fees have increased sixty-three percent, while there was only a twenty-one percent increase on items generally. The most drastic cost increase was, unsurprisingly, that of textbooks – which saw an eighty-eight percent increase in the past 10 years.

MAJOR MILESTONE: Last week, the Open Textbook Library received it’s 1 millionth visitor! Check out this great chart depicting their growth, and share the tweet to say congrats.

CENGAGE OER REPORT: Cengage recently released a report titled “Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape”, where they “interviewed industry experts and surveyed more than 500 OER primary adopters, supplemental adopters, and non-adopters”. The report has some interesting conclusions: About 78% of non-adopter faculty said they “expected to use OER or would consider using OER [in the next three years]”. It’s worth noting, however, that Cengage is a major textbook publisher and has pushed against OER policies in the past.

SUMMER IN REVIEW

Catching up on what happened while we were away

BIG BOOST FOR OER DEGREES: A newly-launched OER Degree Initiative coordinated by Achieving the Dream seeks to reduce financial barriers to community college, by expanding degree programs based around OER. Over the next three years, 38 community colleges across 13 states will work to build “Zero-Textbook-Cost-Degree” of their own.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: Shortly after the OER Degree initiative was announced, the California government approved $5 million in the state’s budget to fund the development of “Zero-Textbook-Cost Degrees”. The newly-approved state funds will be distributed as grants to California community colleges, where students are hardest-hit by textbook costs (a 2008 California State Auditor report found that on average textbooks cost more than tuition!) California has a track record of investing state resources in OER, including 2012 legislation to identify or create open textbooks for 50 high-enrollment courses.

FROM THE BAYOU STATE: The Louisiana legislature has passed a concurrent resolution to establish the Virtual Library Study Commission, which will make recommendations regarding the development of a statewide virtual library. Part of the study will explore the role of a statewide library in distributing OER to reduce textbook costs for students.

OREGON’S ANNOUNCEMENT: The State of Oregon has announced a grant opportunity in accordance with legislation passed last year, which allows the state’s public higher education institutions to apply for funding to develop OER in high enrollment courses.

DEPT OF ED RULE: June marked the six month anniversary of the public comment period for the Department of Education’s proposed open licensing rule. The Open Education community celebrated the Department’s proposed rule last fall as the first proposed Federal agency policy that would comprehensively ensure publicly funded educational resources would be openly licensed for the public. Since then the Department has continued to be a vocal advocate for OER through its K-12 #GoOpen campaign. The rule is currently under final review by the White House and could be issued as early as mid-September.

OER AWARENESS ON THE RISE: The Babson Survey Research Group released a new national report assessing faculty awareness and attitudes regarding OER in U.S. higher education. The report shows OER is gaining ground in U.S. higher education, but still faces barriers our community is working to address. Below are some of the key survey findings:

• Faculty awareness of OER has increased, with 25% of faculty reporting that they were “Aware” or “Very Aware” of open educational resources, up from 20% last year.
• Open textbooks have gained a market share around 5.3% of courses. Open textbooks published by OpenStax have a 10% adoption rate among large enrollment undergraduate introductory courses.
• The most common factor cited by faculty when selecting educational resources was the cost to the students. The next most common was the comprehensiveness of the resource, followed by how easy it was to find.
• The barriers to adopting OER most often cited by faculty are that “there are not enough resources for my subject” (49%), it is “too hard to find what I need” (48%) and “there is no comprehensive catalog of resources” (45%).

NIH ANNOUNCES OPEN GRANTS: The National Institutes for Health has launched a new round of grants for OER in conjunction with its Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program. The grant program, entitled BD2K Open Educational Resources for Skills Development in Biomedical Big Data Science, seeks to fund the creation of courses that can give scientists the skills to extract knowledge from biomedical Big Data; grantees are directed to release materials as OER.

AMAZON INSPIRED: In keeping with Amazon’s commitment to #GoOpen, the tech giant released a closed beta of their OER platform, Inspire, earlier this summer. The company is working with school districts to aggregate open materials and develop systems to review it. After some early hiccups, the company has also engaged OER advocates in an effort to improve the system.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conference, job, and other OER-related opportunities

JOB: The Open Education Group is searching for OER Research Fellows. The deadline for applications is a week away on September 16. https://www.formpl.us/form/5363738620198912

NOMINATIONS: The Open Education Consortium just opened their nominations call for the  “Open Education Awards for Excellence.” The deadline is December 18th. http://www.oeconsortium.org/2016/09/oe-awards-2017-call-for-nominations-now-open/

EVENT: International Open Access Week is coming up next month, October 24-30. Events are happening around the world. http://www.openaccessweek.org/

CONFERENCE: The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is happening next month from October 25th-28th, and will include multiple sessions on OER. https://events.educause.edu/annual-conference/agenda

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM VIRGINIA: “As college students, we are all here to better serve our societies once we have successfully completed our journeys of higher education. We only wish to order books that will get extensive and necessary use from them throughout the entire semester. As students, generic brands of food fill our pantries, and we work outside of class just to pay our rent or else we scrape together our student-loan money to last us months. Paying hundreds of dollars for textbooks that we will not be instructed to use more than a few times is not our idea of getting the most for our money or our time when it comes to our educational finances.” Read more>

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Some students in B.C. are taking to social media to show that they are #textbookbroke. The student societies at UVic, UBC and SFU are running awareness campaigns to show just how much of a student’s budget is now eaten up by purchasing textbooks. “Over the last 10 years, prices have risen four times the rate of inflation in the textbook industry,” said Maxwell Nicholson, the director of campaigns and community relations for the University of Victoria Student Society. UVSS is posting photos of students with their textbook bill on social media to draw attention to the issue.” Listen to the story>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin: Over the past 40 yrs, the price of college textbooks has tripled, even after adjusting for inflation #TextbookBroke   RETWEETS 145    LIKES 89

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Study: Open Educational Resources and Market Growth | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/09/08/study-open-educational-resources-and-market-growth

The Demise of the Textbook Mafia | Boston Magazine

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2016/08/28/textbook-publishing/

State Legislators Praise OER at UConn | The  Daily Campus http://dailycampus.com/stories/2016/9/7/bookstore-press-conference-uconn-open-source-textbooks

Contracts Pose No Roadblock to Alabama SGA Open Textbooks Bill | The Crimson White

http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2016/08/contracts-pose-no-roadblock-to-sga-open-textbooks-bill

Non-Profit Pilots Delivery of Offline OER for Prisoner Education | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/01/non-profit-pilots-delivery-of-offline-oer-for-prisoner-education.aspx

Something we missed? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.

OER Digest – May 12th, 2016

From Ethan Senack, Student PIRGs | Volume 13 | May 12th, 2016

THE OER DIGEST
Your tip sheet for U.S. OER updates, opportunities, and reminders

PRICEY PROMISE: The White House recently announced a $100 million “America’s Promise” grant program though the Department of Labor to help community colleges create tuition-free education and job training programs. The program will be funded by revenue from an existing fee that’s paid by employers who want hire skilled foreign workers. It’s a creative way for the administration to further their goals around free community college, while avoiding the gridlocked Congressional appropriations and authorization process. The initiative draws strong comparison to the $2 billion TAACCT program, but without further detail, it’s unclear whether or not any open licensing requirements would apply to these funds.

TECHNOLOGY GAINS: Non-profit Project Tomorrow released their annual Speak Upreport last week, an analysis of how digital tools are impacting K-12 classrooms and learning. This year’s survey of more than 500,000 students, teachers, and parents reveals some telling developments. Check out the full report for all their findings on digital learning tools, but here’s a few interesting conclusions:

• 78% of middle school students report using online videos for self-directed learning.
• 57% of school principals say the lack of teacher training on how to integrate digital content within instruction is their top barrier.
• 70% of teachers say they are reluctant to assign homework that requires Internet access because they are worried about students’ at-home connectivity.

MORE DATA ON DIGITAL: The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and OneDrive are also out with a report on digital textbooks and other content in K-12 classrooms. The results of their survey of school and district administrators are available here.

FRANKENS TIME: Senator Al Franken introduced the College Access Act of 2016 last month, which would create federal grant money for states that adopt a programs of reforms to increase access to higher education. The list isn’t short, but included in the potential uses of funds is a provision for: “creating programs to create and expand the use of open educational resources, including open textbooks.” Senator Franken is also the cosponsor of the Affordable College Textbook Act introduced last year, which focuses more heavily on OER. 

FLASHBACK TO FULLERTON: The Academic Senate at Cal State Fullerton is considering an revamp of their rules governing how course materials are assigned, after their policies gained national attention when a professor was reprimanded last year for refusing to assign a departmentally-chosen $180 textbook. Reviews are mixed – authors say that the rules establish clear procedures for selecting materials and improve systems to generate feedback, but critics say that the changes don’t allow enough room for dissension or go far enough to keep decisions in the hands of faculty teaching the courses. Lily Leung at the OC Register has a great piece here, and will be publishing a follow-up article once the vote happens.

SNEAKING A PEEK: Science Magazine looks at the server data from Sci-Hub creator Alexandra Elbakyan, and finds that the site is being used extensively by researchers around the world. In the 6 months between September 2015 and February 2016, the site received nearly 28 million download requests. The two most popular papers? An analysis of wind-turbine tests, and a genomic analysis of something beyond my limited genetics knowledge. The article also plots IP locations, and includes a fascinating interactive map of site usage.

STACKS ON STAX: OpenStax is launching a revamped Institutional Partnership Program to create cohorts of institutions that will work through and develop their OER strategic plans together. Read more here.

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It’s Thursday, May 12th. Ethan Senack here. DC is in what feels like our millionth straight day of rain; apparently, April showers didn’t quite get the message. It’s actually just 15 days, but we just set a record for dreary. Send your sunny vibes this way with any OER tips, updates, or opportunities to esenack@pirg.org or @HigherEdPIRG.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD
A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted

TEACHING TEACHERS: Associate Dean Kristen Munger of SUNY Oswego is the co-author and editor of Open SUNY’s new textbook on literary education. From Oswego News: “All children—and all teachers—need and deserve quality preparation, Munger said. Specially targeting students learning how to practice literacy education and current educators seeking to stay up to date, she said, each chapter is written in accessible language and includes a summary, questions and activities designed to reinforce the material. [Munger] expressed delight that educators around the world can access and use the book: “One of the biggest motivations for me was being able to publish this under a Creative Commons license and make it available for free.”

VIVA VIRGINIA: The Virtual Library of Virginia announced that they’re joining a growing list of schools in the Open Textbook Network this week. They’re bringing with them 72 institutions from the state of Virginia. Read more>

SYLLABUS
Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Vetting OER for the Common Core (an interview with Karl Nelson) | T.H.E. Journal
https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/04/27/vetting-oer-for-the-common-core.aspx

OER in Higher Ed: ‘Huge Awareness-Raising Effort Needed’ (an interview with Cable Green) | Campus Tech
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/04/21/oer-in-higher-ed-huge-awareness-raising-effort-needed.aspx

Challenging Openness & Innovation – Takeaways from #OER16 & #OLCInnovate | Chronicle of Higher Ed
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/challenging-openness-innovation-takeaways-from-oer16-olcinnovate/62072

(Pearson’s Paid Op-Ed) If OER is the answer, what is the question? | Education Dive
http://www.educationdive.com/news/op-ed-if-oer-is-the-answer-what-is-the-question/417887/

(and David Wiley’s great response) OER: Some Questions and Answers | Open Content Blog
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4529