[Open-education] OER Digest - December 16th 2016

[OER Digest]

>From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 21 | December 16th, 2016

With help from Austin Beck, Nicole Allen, Nicole Finkbeiner, Reg Leichty,
Julie Curtis and Katie Steen

THE OER DIGEST

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

WRAPPING UP: To commemorate the end of the calendar year, we are adding a
special section to today's volume, The Year In Review. The first volume of
2017 will also feature a special section, The Year Ahead. Please send your
thoughts, ideas, and predictions to oerdigest at gmail.com or tweet us at
@oerdigest. Thank you for your continued interest, feedback, and
contributions to this periodical. On behalf of the OER Digest team, happy
holidays and we look forward to connecting in the new year!

OER YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: This week the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO) published a series of YouTube videos
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJFrqQwDehRJt7YHe5n-Au0ngcMbuIA0>
that answer basic FAQs surrounding the use of open educational resources.
These videos were created to introduce OER to educators, school leaders,
and the community as a whole. The videos feature OER leaders from the
fields of education, nonprofit, and research sectors whom explore topics
such as: What is OER? How can OER help educators? and How can I find OER?

OGP SUMMIT: Open Education was a hot topic at the Open Government
Partnership Summit held last week in Paris, France. Several sessions
address education in the context of open government, including the
workshop Opening
up Science and Education in OGP Countries
<https://en.ogpsummit.org/osem/conference/ogp-summit/program/proposal/497>
organized by SPARC, which included speakers from the White House, Creative
Commons USA, and participants from more than 10 countries.

OPEN POLICY REPORT: Last week, the Open Policy Network released a report
<https://creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/StateofOpenPolicyFullReport_FINAL-1-1-1-1.pdf>
examining the state of open policy around the world. This report documents
global achievements with sections written by regional open policy experts.
It provides an overview of open policies in 38 countries, across four
sectors: education, science, data and heritage. The report also includes an
Open Policy Index and regional impact and local case studies from Africa,
the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Europe, and North America.


THE YEAR IN REVIEW

#GOOPEN REACHES 100: This week, the U.S. Department of Education’s K-12 #GoOpen
campaign <http://tech.ed.gov/open-education/> reached a historic milestone,
100 school districts from across the country committed to the use of openly
licensed educational materials. The initiative has also grown to include
commitments from 19 states. Check out the Office of Educational
Technology’s website for more information, including the #GoOpen District
Launch Packet <http://tech.ed.gov/open/districts/launch/> and district
innovation stories
<http://tech.ed.gov/stories/story_tag/openly-licensed-educational-resources/>
about using OER.

Z-DEGREE ON THE RISE: This year multiple commitments were made to
developing “Zero Textbook Cost Degree” programs across the country. The OER
Degree Initiative
<http://achievingthedream.org/resources/initiatives/open-educational-resources-oer-degree-initiative>
coordinated by Achieving the Dream seeks to establish programs at 38
community colleges across 13 states over the next three years. The California
government also approved $5 million
<https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-07-06-with-5-million-for-z-degrees-small-change-is-a-big-step-for-california-community-colleges>
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.

OPENSTAX: This year, Rice University’s OpenStax published four new titles,
Astronomy <https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy>, University
Physics (3 volumes) <https://openstax.org/subjects/science>, Microbiology,
<https://openstax.org/details/books/microbiology> and American Government
<https://openstax.org/details/books/american-government>! Openstax also
launched a successful partnership with OER Commons to create OpenStax
Community Hubs
<http://news.rice.edu/2016/10/11/openstax-oer-commons-partner-on-community-hubs-2/>,
an online space where faculty can share additional teaching and learning
resources to support fellow OpenStax adopters. The student impact of
OpenStax use also continues to grow. According to the 2016 Babson Survey,
OpenStax texts are used in 10% of U.S. introductory courses. According to
OpenStax’s calculations, over 1.6 million students have used OpenStax,
resulting in student savings of $155 million, including $77 million during
the 2016 - 2017 academic year.

OPEN TEXTBOOK NETWORK: With active membership at 350 campuses, the Open
Textbook Network has reached nearly 10% of higher education institutions in
the U.S. Today, OTN’s faculty workshops are making a real difference with
more than 40% of faculty adopting OER in their courses after participating
in an OTN workshop. Nine early OTN members have reported a $1.5M savings
<http://research.cehd.umn.edu/otn/impact-and-benefits/> in textbooks costs
to students.

BCCAMPUS: The Open Education team at BCcampus has had another successful
year, increasing their collection to 170 materials which have been adopted
by 790 course sections. In British Columbia, 22,000 students have been
impacted resulting in total cost savings of over $2.8 million. BCcampus has
also developed a number of new resources this year, including the OER
Policy Development Tool <http://policy.lumenlearning.com>, Student Toolkit
<https://opentextbc.ca/studenttoolkit/> and Pressbooks Guide
<https://opentextbc.ca/pressbooks/>.

LUMEN LEARNING: In its mission to improve student learning outcomes through
the use of OER, in 2016 Lumen Learning crossed the milestone mark of 100
colleges, universities and higher education systems teaching Lumen’s
supported OER courses. This year, Lumen released enriched OER courses
in College
Success <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/collegesuccess-lumen/>,
Microeconomics <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/microeconomics/>,
Macroeconomics <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/macroeconomics/>, Principles
of Marketing <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/marketing-spring2016/>, English
Composition I <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/engcomp1-wmopen/>,
Sociology <https://courses.lumenlearning.com/intro-to-sociology/>, Basic
Reading and Writing
<https://courses.lumenlearning.com/basicreadingandwriting/>, Introduction
to College Composition
<https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introtocollegecomp/>, and a
Developmental Math sequence. Learning data from Lumen’s 2016 Waymaker
courses, which combine OER with personalized learning tools, show that
Waymaker courses erased the performance gap for Pell-eligible students and
saw an increase of 5% amongst the number of students who completed and
passed the course.

BABSON REPORT: The Babson Survey Research Group released a national report
<http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/openingthetextbook2016.pdf>
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. Some of the
key survey findings were that 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 and that 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. Another finding was the most often cited barriers to
adopting OER 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%).

FLORIDA VIRTUAL CAMPUS: This year, Florida Virtual Campus released it’s third
report
<https://dlss.flvc.org/documents/210036/361552/2016+Student+Textbook+Survey.pdf/fa58795e-f2d3-4fc7-9f07-a7e1b31fbbcd>
on
textbook costs
<https://dlss.flvc.org/documents/210036/361552/2016+Student+Textbook+Survey.pdf/fa58795e-f2d3-4fc7-9f07-a7e1b31fbbcd>
since 2010. This survey had more than 22,000 students from all of Florida’s
public colleges and universities voluntarily participate in 2016 alone.
Some of they key survey findings were that the cost of textbooks is
negatively impacting student access to required materials (66.6% did not
purchase the required textbook) and student learning (37.6% earn a poor
grade; 19.8% fail a course). The report also found that cost impacts
graduation rates and course accessibility; 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%).

OER EFFICACY: This year, John Hilton lll released an important article
<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-016-9434-9> exploring the
efficacy and perceptions of OER. This article synthesizes the results of 16
studies that examine either the influence of OER on student learning
outcomes in higher education settings or the perceptions of college
students and instructors of OER. Results across multiple studies indicate
that students generally achieve the same learning outcomes when OER are
utilized and simultaneously save significant amounts of money. Studies
across a variety of settings indicate that both students and faculty are
generally positive regarding OER and find that they are comparable in terms
of quality to traditional learning resources. This begs the question, what
exactly is being purchased with that $1000?

FEDERAL K-12 POLICY: As the 114th Congress draws to a close, several
pending open educational resources issues will likely be put on hold until
2017. Congress is poised to delay final action until at least April on the
fiscal year 2017 appropriations process, including setting funding levels
for the Student Support an Academic Enrichment grant program established by
the Every Student Succeeds Act. The SSAE program permits state and school
investments in open educational resources, but like other new ESSA
initiatives, it has not yet received year one funding. In addition, we also
expect Congress to forgo final action on efforts to reauthorize the Perkins
Career and Technical Education Act.


OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: BCcampus is hosting the 2017 Open Textbook Summit May 24-25 in
Vancouver, B.C. The call for proposals close January 20th.
https://open.bccampus.ca/open-textbook-summit-2017-call-for-proposals/

OPPORTUNITY: BCcampus is looking for three B.C. faculty interested in
becoming Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellows. The deadline to
apply is December 19th.
https://open.bccampus.ca/call-for-proposals/faculty-fellows/

OPPORTUNITY: Interested in participating in a multi-institutional study
aimed at producing research based persuasive evidence for advocating for
OER. Contact Dr. Robin Donaldson (University of West Florida/ Florida
Virtual Campus) at rdonaldson at flvc.org for more details.


STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A brief snapshot of those making change on the ground level, and those most
impacted

FROM ARKANSAS: "We are empowering faculty to develop free and low-cost
access to textbooks and open educational resources for students at the U of
A," said Carolyn Henderson Allen, dean of University Libraries. A $3,000
stipend is available to faculty who adopt open access course materials by
incorporating previously published open access materials into their
classes, thereby eliminating the need for students to purchase textbooks or
other course materials. A $7,500 stipend is available to faculty who create
open access course materials. Read more>>
<http://news.uark.edu/articles/37405/u-of-a-offers-faculty-incentives-to-reduce-textbook-costs>

FROM OTTAWA: In order to accomplish this, CASA is making recommendations
such as the government dedicating $7 million per year to pilot an
open-educational resource program, investing $27 million per year to
establish six-month, interest-free grace periods on loans, and having the
Canadian government implement a training model similar to one used in
Quebec. Read more>>
<http://uwimprint.ca/article/canadian-alliance-of-students-launches-campaign-week-in-ottawa/>


TWEET OF THE WEEK

Office of Ed Tech ‏@OfficeofEdTech
<https://twitter.com/OfficeofEdTech> December
15

We've reached 100 #GoOpen <https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoOpen?src=hash>
districts!  #connected <https://twitter.com/hashtag/connected?src=hash> #oer
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/oer?src=hash>


SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

“It was really founded as a civil rights organization.” Katrina Stevens,
U.S. Department of Education, Discusses Accessibility and Connectivity in
Education
<https://edtechtimes.com/2016/12/04/interview-katrina-stevens-office-educational-technology/>
|
EdTech Times

https://edtechtimes.com/2016/12/04/interview-katrina-stevens-office-educational-technology/

Drop Out of Pearson While You Have The Chance, Despite 50pc Share Price Fall
| Yahoo Finance

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/questor-drop-pearson-while-chance-052100010.html

Education Technology and the Promise of 'Free' and 'Open' | Hack Education
http://hackeducation.com/2016/12/07/top-ed-tech-trends-free-open

Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2016 | Hack Education

http://2016trends.hackeducation.com/politics

Higher Learning Technologies is Putting Textbooks Into Apps | Silicon
Prairie News

http://siliconprairienews.com/2016/12/higher-learning-technologies-putting-textbooks-apps/


Have suggestions for the next edition?

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<https://twitter.com/oerdigest>.

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