[Open-education] The OER Digest - October 29, 2015

[Ethan Senack]

By Ethan Senack, Student PIRGs | Volume 3 | October 29, 2015
/With help from Hal Plotkin, Lisa Petrides, Nicole Allen, Timothy 
Vollmer, and others/


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


*LAUNCHING **THE 'DEPARTMENT OF OPEN': *Based on how focused they've 
been on OER this week, it might be time to rename the Department of 
Education. OER advocates were at the White House today for a symposium 
on open education, which featured the launch of the Department's "Go 
Open" 
<http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-launches-campaign-encourage-schools-goopen-educational-resources> 
campaign. As we celebrate some of their historic commitments to OER, 
here's a sampling of what's been going on.

  * The Department of Education is proposing a new policy that would
    ensure educational resources and other intellectual property created
    through its discretionary grant programs would be openly licensed.
    The proposal is the first major step that the Obama Administration
    has taken toward fulfilling a call made by more than 100
    organizations this summer for a government-wide policy to openly
    license federally funded educational materials.

  * A group of technology companies and civil society organizations have
    made commitments to support school districts who want to #GoOpen.
    Amazon, Microsoft and Edmodo have announced a set of tools that
    integrate with the Learning Registry, enabling schools, teachers and
    students to more effectively find and use OER. Creative Commons,
    ASCD and the Illinois Shared Learning Environment have pledged
    professional development and platform support.

  * A cohort of 10 K-12 school districts have committed to take the
    "#GoOpen challenge" and replace at least one traditional textbook
    with open resources. Six additional districts with experience
    successfully implementing OER have volunteered as ambassadors to
    provide mentorship and support for districts just starting out.

  * JOIN THE CONVERSATION and see some awesome reports from inside the
    White House event with #GoOpen <www.twitter.com/#goopen>

*
MORE OPEN GOVERNMENT ACTION:* Earlier this week, the White House 
released their third Open Government Partnership National Action Plan 
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/10/27/advancing-open-and-citizen-centered-government>. 
The plan, which includes dozens of commitments to transparency and 
openness by the government, also includes a strong commitment to open 
education and open access to research. The plan specifies three general 
activities the government will take to advance open education:

  * Openly license more Federal grant-supported education materials and
    resources,
  * Convene stakeholders to encourage further open education efforts,
  * Publish best practices and tools for agencies interested in
    developing grant-supported open licensing projects, detailing how
    they can integrate open licensing into projects

*FROM MEXICO CITY:* A number of OER advocates were south of the border 
for the Open Government Partnership Summit this week. The Open Education 
workshop there was cosponsored by the US and Slovakian Governments, 
Creative Commons US, and SPARC. Read more about it from CCUS' Hal 
Plotkin. 
<http://plotkin.com/making-open-education-history-in-mexico-at-the-2015-ogp-meeting/>
*
MORE COVERAGE FOR DURBIN BILL:* All told, the introduction of Senator 
Durbin's Affordable College Textbook Act generated more than 60 news 
articles about open textbooks and OER, including positive coverage from 
the traditionally skeptical Fox News 
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/23/lawmakers-push-bill-aimed-at-soaring-college-textbook-costs/>.**Congressman 
Grijalva (D-AZ) has been added as a cosponsor as well.
*
PARALLEL VICTORY ON OPEN ACCESS IN CALI:* Through a new Presidential 
Open Access Policy 
<http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/10/groundbreaking-presidential-oa-policy-covers-all-employees/>, 
the University of California is allowing their researchers, faculty, and 
others to grant rights to the University prior to any contracts with a 
publisher. The new policy means that, while researchers are free to 
publish in journals of their own choosing, this large body of research 
will be available to the public and liberated from paywalls.

  * DID YOU KNOW? The UC System is responsible for over 2% of the
    world's total research publications!
    <http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/10/groundbreaking-presidential-oa-policy-covers-all-employees/>

*BUT ALSO, OER TROUBLE: *A math professor at Cal State-Fullerton was 
reprimanded for assigning a different textbook than he was instructed to 
by his Department head. The course - one in a set of successive courses 
- was supposed to use the $180 textbook authored by Chair and Vice Chair 
of said Department. Instead, Professor Bourget assigned one textbook 
costing $75 and other openly licensed materials that he says teach the 
same content as the expensive textbook. His disciplinary case is 
currently before a faculty grievance committee - but is being closely 
watched by OER advocates as well. An underlying question: does academic 
freedom apply to individual faculty? or to departments and institutions?

  * READ MORE: on Inside Higher Ed,
    <https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/26/dispute-required-math-textbook-escalates-broader-debate-about-costs-and-academic>
    Fullerton News <http://news.fullerton.edu/2015fa/Faculty-Books.aspx>

*STUDENT DEBT HITS NEW HIGH: *A new report 
<http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data-2015#> from The Institute for 
College Access and Success (TICAS) sheds new light on affordability and 
access concerns in higher education. Their 10th annual report looks at 
state-by-state and national-level data. From the report:

  * "69% of seniors graduating from public and nonprofit colleges in
    2014 held student debt, at an average of $28,950 per borrower."
  * "Over the last decade, the share of graduates with student debt rose
    moderately (from 65% to 69%), while the average debt at graduation
    rose at more than twice the rate of inflation."

*SOME STABILITY AHEAD?: *Congress is only a few short steps away from 
reaching agreement on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and fund the 
government for _two full years_! Could this be brief respite from 
jumping from shutdown to shutdown? Budget stability means that Congress 
might - just might - be able to move on to reauthorizing the HEA, ESEA, 
and other education-related bills.


*It's Thursday, October 15th*. Ethan Senack here - so many updates this 
week! Halloween is just a couple days away, and I don't have a costume. 
I'm guessing that going as "Guy who forgot his costume" won't fly this 
year... Don't forget to send tips, updates, opportunities, and feedback 
to @HigherEdPIRG or esenack at pirg.org with the subject "OER DIGEST".


_STORIES FROM THE FIELD:_
/A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those 
most impacted /
_
_*A STUDENT EDITORIAL IN ILLINOIS:* " I didn’t receive enough financial 
aid to cover the cost of textbooks, and coming up with the money to pay 
for my textbooks was hard. I had to wait to buy a lot of my textbooks 
because I didn’t have enough money to buy them all right away... The 
cost of my textbooks was more than a biweekly paycheck, and it’s hard 
seeing the money I worked for going down the drain on textbooks — some 
of which have barely been used. One of my classes requires a textbook 
with Connect Plus that ended up being about $120. Because it had Connect 
Plus, I couldn’t buy it used. This class has been going on for eight 
weeks and we haven’t used the Connect Plus once... An open-source 
textbook program would make college less financially stressful than it 
already is." _Read More>_ 
<http://northernstar.info/opinion/infocus-should-niu-adopt-an-open-source-textbook-program/article_aa355e80-7643-11e5-8cd9-1fe1a17bb7d7.html>

*A STUDENT LETTER FROM MA.:* "My name is Thi Bui. I’m a freshman 
Biochemistry major. I came to school never having experienced the 
nightmare called “overpriced textbooks.” Then came my French class. I 
added it on the last day of add/drop. On the first day of class, the 
teacher handed out the syllabus. “Voila! + access code: $154” It hit me 
like a PVTA bus. I spent two hours that evening asking peer mentors and 
resident assistants for advice. Some told me to ask the teacher whether 
she could give me a free code. Some told me to quit the class since it 
didn’t fulfill any requirements. I even thought of sacrificing 10 
percent of my score and changing the course to pass/ fail. However, my 
RA, who is taking a Spanish class, told me that without the homework, I 
wouldn’t learn anything. In the end, I had to drop the class. My 
education is not the only one that is jeopardized because of 
ridiculously expensive textbooks. We, the students, desperately need 
more affordable textbook options." _Read More>_ 
<http://dailycollegian.com/2015/10/19/letter-open-source-textbooks-can-combat-rising-prices/>

/Have a story you'd like featured? Email it to esenack at pirg.org./


*READING SYLLABUS

Ed Source *| Free online content helps teachers meet Common Core demands
/(featuring ISKME)
http://edsource.org/2015/free-online-content-helps-teachers-meet-common-core-demands/88916
/ *
**Inside Higher Ed* | Getting There From Here: Confessions of a 
Community College Dean*
*/(a field perspective on OER adoption models)/
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/getting-there-here*

T.H.E. Journal *| The Promise (and Perils) of Digital Textbooks
/(an interesting read on digital and OER in K-12)/
https://thejournal.com/Articles/2015/10/28/The-Promise-and-Perils-of-Digital-Textbooks.aspx
*
Minnesota Daily *| As prices soar, U expands oasis of free textbooks
/(a local spotlight on the Open Textbook Network)/
http://www.mndaily.com/news/campus/2015/10/27/prices-soar-u-expands-oasis-free-textbooks

*Campus Technology* | Penn State Technology Allows Faculty and Students 
to Build Their Own Textbooks from OER
/(AI built textbooks?)
/https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/10/22/penn-state-technology-allows-faculty-and-students-to-build-their-own-textbooks-from-oer.aspx/

/*Chronicle of Higher Ed* | Campus Tech Leaders Report More Support for 
Free Educational Materials
/(latest from the Campus Computing Survey)
/http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/campus-tech-leaders-report-more-support-for-free-educational-materials/57551/
///*

*

-- 
Ethan Senack
Higher Education Advocate
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
www.uspirg.org
@HigherEdPIRG
(202) 546-9707 x321

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