[Open-education] OER Digest – April 20th, 2017

Thu Apr 20 20:11:54 UTC 2017

>From Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 29 | April 20th, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

“MEAN AMOUNT OF $$”: The CUNY and SUNY systems are set to receive $8
million to drastically increase the use of OER on their campuses. The
funding was announced as part of Governor Cuomo’s historic zero-tuition
cost announcement
<https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/10/new-york-state-reaches-deal-provide-free-tuition-suny-and-cuny-students>,
and has been called “a mean amount of money.” Recognizing that both systems
will have an influx of low-income students, the $4 million allotment for
each system is aimed at providing open educational resources, including
ebooks, to students at SUNY and CUNY colleges. A portion of that funding is
set to be directed to SUNY OER Services
<http://textbooks.opensuny.org/suny-oer-services/>. Read more>>
<https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/14/cuny-suny-plan-major-expansion-oer-efforts>

Inside Higher Education also published an article featuring a number of
leaders from the OER and publisher communities commenting on whether or not
this move is a “turning point” for OER. Read more>>
<https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/04/19/new-yorks-decision-spend-8-million-oer-turning-point>

FOLLETT + LUMEN: Earlier this week, the major bookstore company Follett and
Lumen Learning announced
<http://lumenlearning.com/announcements/2017-04-17/> a partnership, where
Follett will offer Lumen Learning’s OER solutions to more than 1,200
colleges and universities where Follett manages course materials delivery.
Through the partnership, Lumen Learning’s OER courseware
<https://www.lumenlearning.com/what/> will be made available to
institutions through Follett’s infrastructure. Follett has also become one
of Lumen Learning’s investors. The partnership has been received with mixed
responses from the OER community. Read more>>
<https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/18/follett-lumen-learning-announce-oer-partnership>

To address some of the questions and concerns that have been raised, David
Wiley has provided further analysis on his blog. Read more>>
<https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4972>

ANOTHER PARTNERSHIP: The California State University <http://calstate.edu/>
(CSU) system and VitalSource Technologies <http://www.vitalsource.com/>
 also announced a collaboration to offer OER content from MERLOT,
SkillsCommons and COOL4Ed on VitalSource’s platform, which also serves
1,000 commercial publishers.  Read more>>
<https://press.vitalsource.com/oer-adoption-made-easy-through-vitalsource-and-california-state-university>

MARYLAND’S 21 GRANTS: Twenty-one faculty members from 12 state universities
and community colleges are set to receive a mini-grant from the University
System of Maryland to help expand OER use and mitigate student fees. The
grants ranging in amounts of $500 - $2500 are expected to save students
enrolled in these courses $1.3 million in textbook costs for the fall 2017
semester. Read more>> <http://www.usmd.edu/newsroom/news/1717>

300 ADOPTIONS: As of today, there are 300 entries on the Open Oregon
Resources page <http://openoregon.org/resources/>. This milestone
represents a lot of hard work on the part of Oregon's community college
instructors and support staff, and a tremendous savings for students.
Congratulations to all of those involved!

NEW BOOKS AT BCCAMPUS: The BC Open Textbook Collection
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/> has five new additions: A
First Course in Linear Algebra; Macroeconomics: Theory, Models, and Policy;
Microeconomics: Markets, Methods, and Models; Principles of Microeconomics
and Principles of Macroeconomics. Two materials in the collection Introduction
to Financial Accounting - Second Edition
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=0370418e-be7d-4541-b0d1-cf8a0fa0596f&contributor=&keyword=&subject=>
and Calculus: Early Transcendentals
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=662054ef-3b43-4e62-a509-44ec78e5d8c1&contributor=&keyword=&subject=Math/Statistics>
have new editions.

#OPENEDUCATIONWK RECAP: The numbers are in! During Open Education Week
2017, there were a total of 156 events hosted around the world! This
includes 48 webinars, 86 local events and 22 events that took place outside
of the official week. Thank you to everyone that hosted or sponsored an
activity during Open Education Week 2017.

ON THE ROAD: The Digest team will be attending the Hewlett OER grantees
meeting and Creative Commons Global Summit
<https://summit.creativecommons.org/> in Toronto next week. Hope to see
many of you there!

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: The Rebus Community will be hosting their May Office Hour event on
May 1st at 3 EDT/ 12 PDT. The topic of the call will be OER Production
Workflows. RSVP here.
https://docs.google.com/a/sparcopen.org/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeF6gsdCWMWcdixbFjgn6L-GCqvsXTEb4a8UCTI7qHFkWQrLg/viewform

EVENT: SPARC’s next Libraries & OER Monthly Meeting will be taking place on
May 2nd at 1 EDT/ 10 PDT. Click here to join e-mail discussion list via
Google Groups
<https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/forum/#!forum/sparc-liboer> to receive
call-in details.

EVENT: Registration for the Open Textbook Summit 2017, is still open!
BCcampus’ annual event will be taking place May 24-25 in Vancouver, BC.
https://bccampus.ca/otsummit-2017/

OPPORTUNITY: The Open Education Group is looking for students and early
career researchers in the United States and Canada to become an OER
Research Fellow. https://www.formpl.us/form/6223128298520576

OPPORTUNITY: The Rebus Community is looking for individuals to join a
working group aimed at investigating approaches for open textbook peer
review.
https://forum.rebus.community/topic/130/review-peer-review-for-open-textbooks

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM CALIFORNIA: “It’s not just tuition price that is climbing; it’s
transportation, housings, textbooks, all of that are the cost problems that
our students are facing” PCC’s spokesperson Alex Boekelheide said. “We are
trying our best to help students face the cost of college, and anything
that we can do to address that is very helpful.” Read more>>
<http://www.pcccourier.com/news/textbook-affordability-act-supports-facultys-use-of-oer.html>

FROM MASSACHUSETTS: Munroe said textbook prices have increased by 88
percent in the last 10 years. MASSPIRG has launched the Open Textbook
Initiative campaign to combat rising prices by encouraging professors to
provide an alternative to traditional textbooks and other material for
their classes. Read more>>
<http://dailycollegian.com/2017/04/06/masspirg-holds-panel-to-discuss-solutions-for-high-textbook-prices/>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

EdSurge‏ @EdSurge <https://twitter.com/EdSurge>

A helpful FAQ on Open Educational Resources, courtesy of #edtech
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/edtech?src=hash> industry veteran @DougLevin
<https://twitter.com/douglevin> http://bit.ly/2oQRzJA
<https://t.co/a0lbUA42M4> #OER   <https://twitter.com/hashtag/OER?src=hash>

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

4 Education Technology Trends That Are Redefining K–12 | T.H.E. Journal

https://thejournal.com/Articles/2017/04/03/4-trends.aspx?Page=1

Alt-Textbooks at UAS | Whalesong

https://uaswhalesong.com/2017/04/06/alt-textbooks-at-uas/

Celebrating Open Education Week 2017 | Syracuse University Libraries

http://library-blog.syr.edu/drs/2017/04/10/celebrating-open-education-week-2017/

District Tech Leaders’ Purchasing Influence Slowly Grows | Education Week
Market Brief

https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/district-tech-leaders-purchasing-influence-slowly-grows/

New Washington State Bill Seeks to Increase OER Use and Development |
EdTech Magazine: Focus on Higher Education

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2017/04/new-washington-state-bill-seeks-increase-oer-use-and-development

'Open Educational Resources' Have Great Potential | Education Week

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2017/04/open_educational_resources_have_great_potential.html

Piloting Open Learning (podcast) | Sandbox CoLABorative

http://www.sandboxcollaborative.org/2017/04/19/piloting-open-learning/

Survey Ranks 10 Key Trends for K-12 Tech Leaders | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-04-04-survey-ranks-10-key-trends-for-k-12-tech-leaders

Have suggestions for the next edition?

Let us know at oerdigest at gmail.com, or tweet us @OERdigest
<https://twitter.com/oerdigest>.

You can subscribe to the OER Digest here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsVwP-hgmvxYey_D1QbsKGAitjHhobvW6cX1vHGxSVWuq_sA/viewform>
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