OER DIGEST – August 13, 2020

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

THE OER DIGEST

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

NEW FACULTY SURVEY: Bay View Analytics has released a new survey in partnership with the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET). The survey found that initiatives to raise awareness of OER are having a measurable impact on the number of faculty members using OER in their classrooms. Faculty members who are aware of one or more OER initiatives are much more likely to be adopters of OER. This is true regardless of the instructors’ type of institution, the level of course they teach, or where they are located in the U.S. “If you’re aware of an OER initiative, you’re much more aware of OER in general, much more likely to adopt, and if you haven’t adopted, you’re much more likely to say that you will adopt in the future,'” said Jeff Seaman, director at Bay View Analytics. A total of 4,399 faculty and 1,431 chairpersons responded to the survey, which took place in the fall of 2019. The results do not capture the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on OER awareness and decisions, but OER proponents told Inside Higher Ed that they have seen a notable increase in interest since March. Read more “OER DIGEST – August 13, 2020” →

OER Digest – July 30, 2020

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

THE OER DIGEST

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

SUPPORT OER: The Steering Committee of DOERS3, a collective of 23 higher education systems and state/province-wide OER initiatives in the U.S. and Canada, released a statement urging higher education institutions to accelerate their adoption of high-quality OER this summer and fall. The statement outlines the advantages of OER over traditional textbooks in the COVID-19 learning environment and calls on senior officials to take action by positioning OER as the “first option,” developing OER strategic plans, and providing financial support.  Read more “OER Digest – July 30, 2020” →

OER DIGEST – July 2, 2020

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

With updates from Kaitlyn Vitez

THE OER DIGEST

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

NEW REPORTS:  The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) released their report by its Open Education Working Group (OEWG) that examines the landscape of regional and institutional post-secondary support for open education in Canada. The report illustrates the state of open education in Canada, and highlights regional variations, strengths and weaknesses of current approaches, as well as gaps and opportunities. The Open Education in European Libraries of Higher Education report was just released, which summarizes the results of a survey of European libraries on Open Education (OE) and Open Education Resources (OER) prepared by SPARC Europe in consultation with the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL). The survey was launched at the beginning of this year, and targeted academic libraries across Europe, garnering 146 responses from 29 countries.  Read more “OER DIGEST – July 2, 2020” →

OER Digest – June 18, 2020

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

With updates from Nicole Allen

THE OER DIGEST

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

NEW REPORT: U.S. PIRG has released a new study titled Fixing the Broken Textbook Market, SecondEdition, a follow-up to their 2014 survey, which found that 65% of students skip buying textbooks because of their high cost. The new study, which is based on a survey of over 4,000 students across 83 college campuses, shows that despite the supposedly lower cost of access codes versus hard copy textbooks, students still report skipping buying textbooks at the same rate as 2014. In addition, nearly 1 in 5 students reports having skipped buying an access code. Read more “OER Digest – June 18, 2020” →

OER Digest – June 4th, 2020

From Kaitlyn Vitez and Cailyn Nagle | Volume 107 | June 4th, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

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

BLACK LIVES MATTER: We stand in solidarity with those protesting the killing of George Floyd, those whose right to free speech and peaceful protest has been attacked, and with all victims of systemic violence against Black communities. We encourage you to check out resources at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and consider sharing a recent webinar on “Working Towards Antiracism and Culturally Responsive Teaching in Open Education” by Creative Commons USA and New America (to be posted to YouTube in the next few days) with educators on your campus. If you know of other openly-licensed anti-racism resources, please share them with our team at oerdigest@gmail.com so that we can include them in our next edition. Read more “OER Digest – June 4th, 2020” →

OER Digest – May 21st, 2020

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

THE OER DIGEST

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

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

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

Read more “OER Digest – May 21st, 2020” →

OER Digest – April 30th, 2020

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

THE OER DIGEST

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

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

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

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

OER Digest – April 16, 2020

From Mo Nyamweya | Volume 104 | April 15, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

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

#COVID19: We will continue to share some of our favorite, new links for planning, reading, and supporting our communities during this time:

• • Free Resources for Schools During COVID-19 Outbreak
  • Open in a Time of Crisis
  • MindEdge’s Practical Guide to Online Teaching and Learning
  • E-books During COVID-19 Crisis
  • Teaching with Digital Tools and Apps
  • Resources for Distance Learning

WEBINAR SERIES: As teachers are making an emergency shift to online education, one component of that struggle is navigating concerns around copyright when finding digital teaching materials. To help with this transition,The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law and Creative Commons USA are  hosting a series of webinars on best practices in fair use, divided into two tracks – one for K-12 education and another for higher education. The first webinar on educational fair use in the COVID-19 emergency will be held on April 17th at 12:00pm ET for K-12 and 3:00pm ET for higher ed. Click here to register and find more information. Read more “OER Digest – April 16, 2020” →

OER Digest – April 2nd, 2020

From Bilan Jama, Torrey Feldman, and Kennina Ip (CC USA)  | Volume 103 | April 2nd, 2020

THE OER DIGEST

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

#COVID19: We will continue to share some of our favorite, new links for planning, reading, and supporting our communities during this time:

• Reading Aloud: Fair Use Enables Translating Classroom Practices to Online Learning
• NPR’s All Things Considered shared a short exploration of the new learning reality for children across the country in a story entitled, The Biggest Distance-Learning Experiment In History: Week One.
• 50 Resources Schools & Teachers Can Use During COVID-19 Closures

Read more “OER Digest – April 2nd, 2020” →