OER Digest – July 28th, 2017
From Brady Yano and Katie Steen (SPARC) | Volume 36 | July 28th, 2017
With an update from Lisa Petrides
THE OER DIGEST
Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders
#NAACP108: This week, over 10,000 people gathered in Baltimore, MD for the NAACP’s 108th Annual Convention. OER advocates organized by ISKME, including, OpenStax, SPARC, Creative Commons-USA., and Foresight Law & Policy, staffed a booth for the entirety of the conference discussing how equity and inclusion can be achieved through OER with NAACP state chapter members. ISKME is working to connect the larger OER community and NAACP state education chairs to help put into practice the resolution that was passed in 2016 that urged NAACP members to support the use and adoption of OER in their states and districts.
AMAZON INSPIRE: Amazon recently opened the beta version of Amazon Inspire, a repository of K-12 learning materials, after nearly a year of invitation-only access. However, the controversial share feature has not yet been made available. All materials submitted to the platform hold either a Amazon Inspire Custom License or Creative Commons license. Read more here.
GROWING COLLECTION: BCcampus announced last week the addition of five new open textbooks to their collection. The new textbooks cover the disciplines of film studies, financial accounting, history and academic success.
OPEN OREGON UPDATE: The Open Oregon Educational Resources 2016-17 OER grant projects are complete – congratulations grantees! 8,370 students at 21 institutions have saved over $1,000,000 to date. Check out more of the details here.
ALG GOES CC BY: Affordable Learning Georgia has just opened their RFP process for this year’s Textbook Transformation Grants. The changes accompanying this grant cycle include the licensing of all newly-created grant resources as CC BY, emphasis on core curriculum courses to maximize impact, as well as grant funding for OER revision and ancillary resource creation.
OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities
EVENT: Less than one week left to apply to attend OpenCon Nov 11-13 in Berlin, Germany! Click here to apply now!
EVENT: The Rebus Community and Open Textbook Network is hosting their August Office Hours on Wednesday August 30th at 2pm EDT. The topic is Metadata and Open Textbooks. Click here to RSVP.
JOB: The Open Education Consortium is looking for a new Executive Director. Check out the job description here.
SUBSCRIBE: If you haven’t already – subscribe to the OER Digest here.
STORIES FROM THE FIELD
A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most impacted
FROM GEORGIA: “I have the fortune to work with faculty who are very progressive and not afraid of change,” said Vargas, who has been teaching college-level math for 13 years. “Once they heard the narrative behind all this — ‘Are we going to help students to be able to stop paying $250 or $350 for textbooks?’ — they were all on board.” Read more>>
FROM MICHIGAN: Prystowsky and Kelland say Lansing’s initiative is moving forward quickly because of Gong’s tenacity. “The barrier is that faculty say they don’t have time to look for OER,” Gong said. “Since I am managing it … I can help them. I can find five [open] books for them to review. I can’t mandate, but I can say that this is a good candidate for a replacement,” she added. “That’s the most effective approach.” Read more>>
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Just read initial report showing that the presence of #OER decreased Drop Fail Withdrawal rate by 25.1% compared to non-OER courses.
SYLLABUS
Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open
Campus launches new research support website | The Daily Californian
http://www.dailycal.org/2017/07/21/campus-launches-new-research-support-website/
CCC to Offer New Online Degree Program | Press Republican
Language Open Education Brings Teachers Around the Country to UT | The Daily Texan
Open Ed. Provider Appealing Decision in Closely Watched Lawsuit | EdWeek
‘Precision Education’ Hopes to Apply Big Data to Lift Diverse Student Groups | EdSurge
Report: K-12 educators more confident about technology use | EdScoop
http://edscoop.com/report-educators-more-confident-about-technology-use
What About the Bookstore? | College & Research Libraries News
http://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/16700/18183
Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.
