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

Have suggestions for the next edition?

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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.

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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.

*** Think your colleagues or friends might like the Digest? Send them this link:http://bit.ly/get-the-oer-digest ***

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

OER Digest – April 14th, 2016

From Ethan Senack, Student PIRGs | Volume 12 | April 14th, 2016

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

PERVASIVE PIRATING: A new report from researcher Laura Czerniewicz at the University of Cape Town finds that only 20% of students get all their course materials legally. Of 1,000 students surveyed, more than 80% had either illegally downloaded digital files unawares, or intentionally done so when faced with high prices for the legal material. Interestingly, some students pointed ethical concerns back at publishers, for charging high prices for course materials. The study ultimately makes the case for more OER use in classrooms. Read more>

BIRTHDAY WISHES: MIT’s OpenCourseWare is celebrating 15 years of open publishing. Since they launched the project, they’ve had more than 175 million visitors, and boast materials for 2260 different courses. For a fascinating read, check out this New York Times story announcing the project back in 2001.

• KEY QUOTE: ” ‘I also suspect,” [ President Charles M. Vest] said, ”in this country and throughout the world, a lot of really bright, precocious high school students will find this a great playground.” And ultimately, he said, ”there will probably be a lot of uses that will really surprise us and that we can’t really predict.”

CONVERGING IN KRAKÓW: OER advocates, researchers, and educators from around the world are meeting in Poland this week for the Open Education Global conference. They’re discussing “new developments in open education, research results, innovative technology, policy development and implementation, and practical solutions to challenges facing education around the world.” If you’re not there, take part and experience Twitter envy>

EVER HIGHER: The College Board recently released their new “Average Estimated Undergraduate Student Budgets” for 2015-2016. No surprise, the recommended budget for textbooks and supplies increased over last year, hitting $1,298 for public 4-year schools and $1,364 for public 2-years.

COOL CONCEPT: The Student Government at Texas A & M University is working with the university to launch the “SGA Open Educational Materials Awards,” which will highlight educators that utilize and adopt OER in their classrooms. Bruce Herbert, a faculty partner on the project, says that the award will be highly prized by faculty, because the school considers teaching awards and student evaluations when considering professors for tenure and promotion. The first round of nominations are due on April 18th.

*** Think your colleagues or friends might like the Digest? Send them this link:http://bit.ly/get-the-oer-digest ***

It’s Thursday, April 14th. Here’s some fun trivia: tomorrow is Tax Day in the U.S – or at least, it usually is. Turns out that Washington, D.C. celebrates Emancipation Day on April 16th, but it was moved to April 15th this year since the 16th was a Saturday. That’s why the IRS extended the tax deadline to Monday, April 18th. But then, Maine and Massachusetts celebrate Patriot’s Day on April 18th, so the IRS gave them until the 19th. Profoundly useful information for procrastinators and profoundly useless for everyone else.

Don’t forget to send your OER tips, updates, opportunities, and feedback to esenack@pirg.org or @HigherEdPIRG.

OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conference, job, and other OER-related opportunities

CALL FOR PROPOSALS – OPEN ED: The 13th annual Open Education conference will be in Richmond, VA this November 2nd-4th. Workshops proposals are due TOMORROW.See the call>

CALL FOR PROPOSALS – ACRL: The Association of College & Research Libraries is hosting a conference in Baltimore, MD next year on March 22nd-25th. They’re very proactive – proposals are due May 6th of this year. See the call>

WEBINAR – OPEN OREGON: is offering a set of Webinars for faculty interested in implementing OER in their courses on May 9th & 10th. Check them out>

Have an opportunity you want featured? Email it to esenack@pirg.org.

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

FROM GEORGIA: Georgia Highlands College recently joined the Affordable Learning Georgia initiative. Here’s a great quote to sum up how that went: “Almost half a million dollars’ worth of student savings was yielded for fall 2015 with GHC’s recent introduction of Open Educational Resources (OER).” Not a bad start… Read More>

FROM MICHIGAN: Northwestern Michigan College recently kicked off an OER pilot program after securing a small $5,000 grant from the college’s foundation. Long story short? ” About 4,000 students attend NMC. Together they’ve saved nearly 60,000 dollars this semester alone.” Read More>

SYLLABUS
Interesting Reads on Education and Open

So, When During the School Day Should Teachers Create Curriculum? | T.H.E. Journal

Students Should Demand Their Colleges Produce Free Open Textbooks | HuffPost

Students request textbook affordable options | The Egalitarian

Nebraska Book Company and RedShelf Form Partnership around Digital Textbooks| BusinessWire

OER Digest – March 31st, 2016

From Ethan Senack, Student PIRGs | Volume 11 | March 31st, 2016

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

50 MILLION: the number of scholarly research articles posted online by a 27-year old graduate student from Kazakhstan. Drawing comparisons to the music-sharing site Napster, Alexandra Elbakyan published a searchable database of journal articles that “shatters the $10 billion-per-year paywall of academic publishers.” Modern day hero, or thief? You decide. Here’s a few reads to help you make up your mind:

• From the Washington Post
• From the Dean of Libraries at Duke University
• From LabNews in the UK

PEARSON PARTNERSHIP: Cincinnati State Technical and Community College recently announced a partnership with Pearson Education to take over a big chunk of their marketing, recruiting, and student services. The school says that they’re caught between a rock and a hard place – a 12% decrease in enrollment and a statewide mandated tuition freeze, so they’re looking for innovative solutions. It’s a ten year deal, with Pearson earning $500,000 from the school’s marketing budget each year and up to 20% of tuition revenue from new students. It’s a one-of-a-kind agreement, and while stakeholders on campus say they are cautiously optimistic, many others are just plain concerned. Read more>

REPORTING BACK: Creative Commons just wrapped up their second Institute for Open Leadership in South Africa. The Institute “is a training and peer-to-peer learning opportunity that brings together up-and-coming leaders to develop and implement an open licensing policy in their institution, province or nation.” This years fellows were a diverse group from around the world, including two from here in North America. Check out CC’s report back on the Institute and their next steps.

GETTING BIG WITH DIGITAL: A study from the Center for Digital Education and the National School Boards Assn marks an increase in the number of districts that have digital content and curriculum strategies on the books – from 49% last year to 62% this year. Another 33% of districts have plans under development. Even more relevant: “More than half of those existing strategies incorporate the use of open educational resources.”

CONFESSIONS OF A COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEAN: A very straightforward case for OER.

*** Think your colleagues or friends might like the Digest? Send them this link: http://bit.ly/get-the-oer-digest ***

It’s Thursday, March 31st. There will be no follow-up discussion about March Madness. It’s been a rough few weeks. On another front, there are an estimated 1.5 million tourists on their way to DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival, so….there’s that. Don’t forget to send tips, updates, opportunities, and feedback to esenack@pirg.org or @HigherEdPIRG.

OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conference, job, and other OER-related opportunities

CALL FOR PROPOSALS – OPEN ED: The 13th annual Open Education conference will be in Richmond, VA this November 2nd-4th. Workshops proposals are due April 15th. See the call>

REGISTRATION DEADLINE – OPEN EDUCATION GLOBAL: The last day to register for the conference is tomorrow, April 1st. Sign up here>

REGISTRATION DEADLINE – OPEN APEREO: The last day to early register for Apereo Foundation’s “Open for Education” conference is April 22nd. Sign up here>

Have an opportunity you want featured? Email it to esenack@pirg.org.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD
A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level

VIDEO BREAK: Open Washington recently released a new set of videos about open education. Here’s what they’re hoping to answer: “Everyone talks about OER Policy, but what does it mean? What do OER policies look like in practice? How do they impact OER initiatives? How does our government and our world perceive Open policy? Is policy always necessary in OER implementation?” Check out the videos for yourself>

SYLLABUS
Interesting Reads on Education and Open

McGraw-Hill Education Latest to Adopt Knovation | Ed Week

School Reading Unbound | Slate

Flat World CEO: Content, not tech, should be focus of CBE | Education Dive

SCC to study textbook costs | Mantako Free Press

OER Digest – March 17th, 2016

By Ethan Senack, Student PIRGs | Volume 10 | March 17th, 2016

With the help of Nicole Allen, Doug Levin, Cable Green, and Nicole Finkbeiner

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

STATE GOES OPEN: As part of Open Education Week, the U.S. State Department posted a blog on OER by Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan, a high ranking official. The post includes a clear affirmation that “open” is more than just “free,” discusses the steps that the administration has taken to support OER, and what’s coming up next.

• GREAT QUOTE: “Making more resources available is only the beginning.”
• TO RETWEET: https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/708435436897759233

SOURCING SOFTWARE: White House Chief Information Office Tony Scott published a blog last week on open source software, announcing a Federal Source Code Policy that they’re opening for public comment. As part of the Second Open Government Partnership National Action Plan, the WH policy would “require new software developed specifically for or by the Federal Government to be made available for sharing and re-use across Federal agencies.”

• SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: https://sourcecode.cio.gov/

TO BE CLEAR: From Doug Levin at EdTech Strategies, “Many of us have observed that recent media coverage of the U.S. Department of Education’s GoOpen initiative has included some unfortunate inaccuracies in characterizing what it means for a resource to be ‘open’ as opposed to being free or digital.” In response, a group of organizations have developed a basic fact sheet/FAQ on OER for K-12 educators. The FAQ (licensed CC BY) can be re-distributed to help clarify OER for educators, policymakers, members of the media, and other stakeholders. See it here.

CUSTOM STAX: OpenStax, the open textbook publisher, announced a partnership with NACSCORP and Dover Publications to allow faculty members to customize OpenStax books. The platform will show faculty the print cost of the book in real-time as they add or remove pages and make additional changes. Students will then be able to purchase print versions of the book their their campus store. Read the press release. And, if that weren’t enough, OpenStax also just released a new Calculus textbook and a host of supplementary materials.

SHARING IS CARING: The American Federation of Teachers just relauched their lesson plan and teaching material sharing site sharemylesson.com. The site has more than 900,000 registered users, and all submissions are either licensed as CC BY-NC-SA or CC BY-NC-ND. Originally launched by AFT and TES Global back in 2012, the site just got a big, shiny, new update.

SPEAKING OF: TES Global, the UK-based education company recently released a report saying that 3 in 4 faculty report using OER more than textbooks in their classrooms. Without seeing the questions or the methodology, it’s tough to interpret the extent to which ‘open’ was differentiated with ‘free and online,’ but in any case, the report shows significant growth of technology use in the classroom.

IOL: The Open Policy Network’s newest class of fellows in the Institute for Open Leadership are meeting in South Africa right now. For severe scenic jealousy, check out some of the photos with #IOL2.

*** Want your colleagues or friends to get the Digest? Send them this link: http://bit.ly/get-the-oer-digest ***

It’s Thursday, March 17th. It’s officially March Madness, and as a UConn alum, I’m contractually obligated to mention that we’ve won 2 Men’s and 3 Women’s tournaments in the past 5 years. Tweet me any bracket tips @HigherEdPIRG. Don’t forget to send tips, updates, opportunities, and feedback to esenack@pirg.org.

OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conference, job, and other OER-related opportunities

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: BCCAMPUS is hosting The Festival of Learning in the Vancouver area this coming June, and is looking for workshop proposals on open education and other edtech subjects. Proposals are due March 21st. See the call>

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: iNACOL is hosting their Blended and Online Learning Symposium in San Antonio, Texas, this October. Proposals are due March 23rd. See the call>

FELLOWSHIP: CCSSO is looking for an OER Fellow to conduct research, identify resources, and write original content for CCSSO’s OER Portal website. See the job description>

JOBS: CREATIVE COMMONS is looking to fill three positions; Director of Engineering, Communications Manager, and Development Manager. See the job descriptions>

Have an opportunity you want featured? Email it to esenack@pirg.org.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD:
Brief snapshots from the ground level

VIDEO BREAK: Affordable Learning Georgia is out with a new video, called I Am Affordable Learning Georgia. The 2-minute video features interviews with grantees about their work with OER. Here’s a great quote: “They do contribute to building a greater sense of community between students and each other, as well as students and the professor, by showing students that professors actually care about them.” Watch the video>

FROM ACROSS THE POND: From the Open Scotland blog – “As part of its ongoing commitment to open education, the University of Edinburgh has recently approved a new Open Educational Resources Policy, that encourages staff and students to use, create and publish OERs to enhance the quality of the student experience. The University is committed to supporting open and sustainable learning and teaching practices by encouraging engagement with OER within the curriculum, and supporting the development of digital literacies for both staff and students in their use of OERs. Read the Policy>

SYLLABUS:
Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Who Owns Digital Learning Resources Funded by Taxpayers? | Hal Plotkin

How to Go Textbook Free (the UMUC story) | Campus Technology

The Textbook Challenge: Two Sides of the Debate | The Pierce Pioneer

Print is NOT dead | The Fullerton College Hornet