OER Digest - October 27, 2022
Aishah Abdullah (SPARC) | Volume 164 | October 27, 2022
THE OER DIGEST
Your bi-weekly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders
OE GLOBAL AWARD WINNERS: Open Education Global (OEGlobal) is honored to announce the 2022 winners of the Open Education Awards for Excellence. The 12-member Open Education Awards Committee, comprised of educators and open education advocates from around the world, reviewed 89 nominations across 22 countries. These individuals and groups have shown a strong commitment to open education. Congratulations to the fifteen Open Education Awards for Excellence winners and you can read more about them here.
OPENED CONFERENCE BOARD ELECTION: The Open Education Conference has launched its annual election process for its Board of Directors. The election is to appoint six new community members to serve on the Board for a two-year term. Interested candidates are invited to review the requirements and self-nominate by November 6, 2022. For more details, visit the election page.
OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities
APPLY NOW (COLORADO): The 2022/23 Colorado Open Educational Resources Grant request for proposals opened this month. The Colorado OER Grant Program will fund $1 million toward open education in the cohort 5 grant cycle. The deadline for eligible institutions is Monday, December 19.
JOB OPENING: Touro University Libraries is seeking a highly motivated, enthusiastic, and creative scholarly communication librarian to lead and advance the scholarly communication services at Touro University. Apply here.
JOB OPENING: The University of Texas Austin is hiring for an Open Education Librarian to build on existing work and relationships to lead the planning, implementation, and assessment of the UT Austin open education program. Apply here.
STORIES FROM THE FIELD
Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted
FROM TEXAS: The University of Texas at El Paso implemented a new search tool for their spring 2023 semester. During registration, undergraduate and graduate students can search for courses on Goldmine that use free textbooks or require all books to total less than $40. The goal is to not only save students money but make it easier to do so. Lizbeth Flores shared, “I think this is a great tool to have, especially for new students who start at the University and don’t know how much money they will spend on books.” Read More >>
FROM PENNSYLVANIA: At Gettysburg College more than 80 instructors on campus have adopted open textbooks for their courses, impacting more than 5,000 students. This fall semester, OER reached a monumental milestone—students have saved a cumulative amount of $1 million on textbooks with professors switching to open textbooks. This change did not happen overnight. Janelle Wertzberger, the assistant dean and director of scholarly communications at Musselman Library, attended a conference in 2014 where she discovered OER. This led to 8 years of hard work in order to save students thousands of dollars. Read More >>
HOT OFF THE PRESS
Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource
The debut issue of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education (JOERHE), an open peer-reviewed journal, published by the University of Wyoming Libraries, just launched. JOERHE features eight peer-reviewed articles, two columns, and one resource review. The peer-reviewed literature is published alongside its review.
WEIGH IN
Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider
Great to Share >>
Interesting to Consider >>
OER Initiative Offers Tools to Expand Awareness of Digital Accessibility | Campus Technology
Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest.
The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.