[Open-education] OER Digest - September 22nd, 2016

Fri Sep 23 00:13:19 UTC 2016

>From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 15 | September 22nd, 2016

With help from Katie Steen, Nicole Allen and Ethan Senack

THE OER DIGEST

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

ACCESS DENIED: On Wednesday, the Student PIRGS released a groundbreaking
report revealing the new face of the textbook monopoly: access codes. Access
Denied <http://www.studentpirgs.org/reports/sp/access-denied> investigates
both the role of access codes in the market and the transition to access
codes from a student consumer perspective. The report comes as publishers
continue to shift their business models toward digital content suites. Key
Findings:

   -

   Across institutions and majors, 32% of courses included access codes as
   required materials.
   -

   At campus bookstores, the average cost of an access code alone was
   $100.24.
   -

   In bookstores, only 28% of access codes were offered in unbundled form.
   Even when acquired directly from the publisher, only 56% of all required
   access codes were offered without additional materials bundled in, despite
   federal law requiring materials to be sold separately.

Among other concerns, this shift eliminates a student’s ability to opt-out
and precludes other affordable alternatives like used and rented books.
Share it on Twitter
<https://twitter.com/HigherEdPIRG/status/778653779390529536> or via HuffPost
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-senack/the-new-face-of-the-textb_b_12123370.html>
>>

COLLEGE PROMISE CAMPAIGN: Last week, the Second Lady of the United States,
Dr. Jill Biden and former Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter held a
roundtable event with leaders in the Silicon Valley area to discuss the College
Promise Campaign <http://headsupamerica.us/collegepromise/> — an offshoot
of the America’s College Promise
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio>
initiative that President Obama announced in the 2015 state of the
union. Nicole
Allen (SPARC), Hal Plotkin, and Phil Kim (20 Million Minds) were present
and had the opportunity to speak for a few minutes on how OER fit into the
free college conversation. Look out for other roundtable events in the
coming months.

OER SHAPING CALIFORNIA K-12: A partnership between Open Up Resources
<http://openupresources.org/> and Illustrative Mathematics
<https://www.illustrativemathematics.org/about-us> has resulted in a large
scale mathematics OER pilot test spanning 30 middle schools across five
California school districts. The participating middle schools will be beta
testing Open Up Resources’ OER curricula as it becomes available during the
2016/17 and 2017/18 years. The complete curricula is set to save districts
up to 80 per cent of the costs associated with adopting materials from
traditional publishers while also providing extensive support to facilitate
district-wide adoption.

CA ADOPTS POLICY ON COLLEGE COURSE CATALOGS: The California State
Legislature announced
<http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1359>
last week that as of January 1, 2018 each campus of the California
Community Colleges and the California State University will be required to
disclose in course catalogues which courses are exclusively using OER. The
law will request that each campus of the University of California also
comply.

WA ADOPTS K-12 OPEN POLICY: The Office of Superintendent of Public
Instruction (OSPI) recently launched a new open policy
<https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WAOSPI/bulletins/1638bec>
requiring all copyrightable intellectual property created by OPSI
employees, contractors and grantees be openly licensed. In addition,
Washington is also the 17th state to join #GoOpen with State Superintendent
Randy Dorn noting that “We have been and will be extremely supportive of
open resources”.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

JOB: The State University of New York (SUNY) College at Geneseo is looking
for an Executive Director for Open Educational Resources. Applications will
be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.
https://jobs.geneseo.edu/postings/1259

JOB: Tidewater Community College is looking for an Open Educational
Resources Librarian. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until
the position is filled. https://jobs.tcc.edu/postings/2053

JOB: The Open Education Consortium is looking for a Communications Manager.
This is a part-time position and the closing date is October 10, 2016.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ZlUxiBMhzFPR4j3pq_EPfl0y2sEykPu1R2A7DX1ZPk/edit

EVENT: Open Education Week 2017 will be taking place March 27-31, 2017. For
more information on how to participate visit
https://www.openeducationweek.org/page/call-for-participation

EVENT: International Open Access Week is coming up next month, October
24-30. Events are happening around the world.
<https://www.openeducationweek.org/page/call-for-participation>
http://www.openaccessweek.org/

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM ALBERTA: “The underlying problem is the fact that a student’s right to
education is considered equal to a right to profit. When the right to
education is commodified, students are ultimately left behind. For many,
these unnecessary costs are a barrier to obtaining an education.” Read more>
<http://www.thegauntlet.ca/we-need-to-revalute-the-textbook-market/>

FROM ARIZONA: “Lieren Hefner, a speech language and hearing sciences
junior, spent $350 on textbooks this semester and didn’t even buy all of
them — she said that if she had, she would’ve paid more around $500. “We’re
already paying so much for tuition, and then books on top?” Hefner said. “I
feel like I need to get them before school starts and then we barely use
them. I’d rather go online anyways.” Read more>
<http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2016/09/n-ua-tries-to-combat-rising-prices-by-offering-students-free-textbooks>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

@HigherEdPIRG: Access Codes? More like #AccessDenied
<https://twitter.com/search?q=%23AccessDenied>. A new tactic from
publishers to continue profiting off students: bit.ly/access-denied
<https://t.co/kGTR9hi86u> pic.twitter.com/FZoX7lMvgx
<https://t.co/FZoX7lMvgx>

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

Open Educational Resources: Good for Affordability; Better for
Learning | Temple
University

https://teaching.temple.edu/edvice-exchange/2016/09/open-educational-resources-good-affordability-better-learning

UConn co-op to donate $250,000 to affordable textbook initiatives | the
Daily Campus

http://dailycampus.com/stories/2016/9/22/uconns-co-op-plans-to-donate-250000-to-affordable-textbook-initiatives

As schools move to the cloud, top drivers are instruction-related | Education
Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/as-schools-move-to-the-cloud-top-drivers-are-instruction-related/426740/

OER to be a Game-Changer in Higher Education | CIO Review

http://knowledgemanagement.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/open-educational-resources-oer-to-be-a-game-changer-in-higher-education-nid-18534-cid-132.html

Brookdale Gets $900K To Create Digital Content As Alternative To Textbooks |
Middleton Patch

http://patch.com/new-jersey/middletown-nj/brookdale-gets-900k-create-digital-content-replace-textbooks

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest at gmail.com,
or tweet us @OERdigest.

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