[Open-education] OER Digest - January 13th 2017

Fri Jan 13 21:18:10 UTC 2017

>From Katie Steen and Ethan Senack, USPIRG | Volume 22 | January 13th, 2017

With help from Brady Yano

THE OER DIGEST

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

BC OPEN TEXT HITS 3: The BCcampus Open Textbook Project has saved students
at British Columbia post-secondary institutions $3 million. In total,
25,571 BC students have been impacted by the project. Congratulations to
the team at BCcampus! Read more>>
<https://open.bccampus.ca/open-textbook-stats/>

CENGAGE LAUNCHES MINDTAP ACE: Yesterday Cengage launched MindTap ACE
<http://solutions.cengage.com/video-mindtap-ace/>, a digital solution that
blends curated Open Educational Resources (OER) with Cengage content.
MindTap ACE is aiming to address the student learning outcomes and
affordability challenges by including OER alongside Cengage's best-in-class
content. MindTap ACE is now available as a pilot program for Introduction
to Psychology, Introduction to Computing, World History I, Public Speaking
and Non-Majors Biology. The product's pricing starts at $40. Read more>>
<https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cengage-launches-mindtap-ace-affordable-140000817.html>

HIGH PROFILE BOARD ADDITIONS: The Institute for the Study of Knowledge
Management in Education (ISKME) announced the appointment of two Silicon
Valley executives, Alex Fielding and Jason Goecke, to its board of
directors. "As open educational resources begin to make significant inroads
into K-12 and higher education classrooms, ISKME has brought on key leaders
to our board who have made a difference in shaping and sharing quality
online products and services," said ISKME founder and CEO Lisa Petrides.
Alex Fielding is CEO of Ripcord, a high-tech startup funded by Kleiner
Perkins, Lux, and Lenovo and Jason Goecke is a Vice President and General
Manager at Cisco responsible for Spark Call, Hybrid Calling Services,
Tropo, and Spark for Developers. Read more>>
<http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3200943>

GVSU PROFESSOR RECOGNIZED: Grand Valley State University (GVSU) mathematics
professor Ted Sundstrom is to receive the inaugural Daniel Solow Author's
Award from the Mathematical Association of America, in recognition of
Mathematical
Reasoning: Writing and Proof <http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/books/9/>, an
OER published through the institution’s ScholarWorks at GVSU
<http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/> repository platform. The award celebrates
authors whose materials have had a positive impact on undergraduate
mathematics education. Dr. Sundstrom's textbook has been formally adopted
at 47 universities, while the digital editions in ScholarWorks were
downloaded more than 22,000 times in 2016 alone! Read more>>
<http://www.gvsu.edu/gvnow/article-index.htm?articleId=8AD202A2-91A8-7C65-A628328C9AFAAEF8>

THE YEAR AHEAD

A special section featuring OER insiders’ thoughts on the biggest changes,
developments, and opportunities expected in 2017

Reg Leichty, Foresight Law + Policy: The coming year may be consequential
for public education generally and for open educational resources champions
specifically. As education policy decision-making shifts increasingly to
states and school districts - both as a result of passage of the Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the transition to nearly complete
Republican control of federal policy levers - the open educational
resources community must act strategically to build on existing
OER-friendly federal policies and state and district trends. [Read the full
comment here. <https://oerdigest.wordpress.com/?p=274&preview=true#reg>]

Layla Bonnot, CCSSO: In 2017, CCSSO will continue to support #GoOpen states
in meeting their commitments and will continue to support all states
interested in the adoption and implementation of OER. I personally predict
additional interest from states beyond the current cohort of 19 states and
CCSSO is working on improving the search and discovery of resources via
common metadata tagging and support for the Learning Registry. In 2017, I
also predict greater coordination between states and districts around OER.
[Read the full comment here.
<https://oerdigest.wordpress.com/?p=274&preview=true#layla>]

Marilyn Moody, Portland State University: I anticipate a dramatic increase
in the creation, adoption, and use of open textbooks and other OER as
course materials at the university level. Open textbooks and course
materials have been promoted and used in individual institutions and higher
education systems, but not in a ubiquitous way. In 2017, I see the use of
open textbooks and course materials becoming a common and standard approach
for universities, particularly public universities. Open textbooks and
other open course materials will increasingly be used to support
institutional goals and strategic initiatives, especially in support of
student success and student retention. And their use will also be
recognized as an important way to reduce student costs and increase
educational affordability. [Read the full comment here.
<https://oerdigest.wordpress.com/?p=274&preview=true#marilyn>]

Rory McGrear, Athabasca University: Issues around Digital Rights Management
(DRM) or digital locks will become increasingly apparent this year as
people become more aware of the serious consequences of allowing companies
to control their devices and other products. Customers no longer own and
control their purchases, because their computers and other devices are now
being supervised and limited by the software vendors. For educators, with
the growing acceptance of E-textbooks, this has become problematic as the
students and teachers who use them are having their devices shackled by
DRM. [Read the full comment here.
<https://oerdigest.wordpress.com/?p=274&preview=true#rory>]

Jane Rosecrans, Reynolds Community College: Reynolds Community College was
the recipient of two Virginia Community College System OER grants between
2014-2016, so the biggest challenge for our college specifically is looking
for ways to continue to develop OER sections of courses and train faculty
to teach these sections without the incentive of grant money that has
underwritten this development in the past. In doing so, we need to revise
our approach to OER training, which has been patterned after faculty
training for online teaching and normally requires a multi-week training
course. [Read the full comment here.
<https://oerdigest.wordpress.com/?p=274&preview=true#jane>]

Preston Davis, Northern Virginia Community College: Higher education is
facing a period of transformation that has the potential to be unlike
anything experienced in the modern era. The long held belief that college
is a privilege is being questioned by a generation of young adults seeking
the opportunities of previous generations. The assertion that a college
education is a right, and as such should be made available and affordable
to all citizens, has certainly benefitted from the open movement. [Read the
full comment here.
<https://oerdigest.wordpress.com/?p=274&preview=true#preston>]

Think a listserv you’re on would like to get the OER Digest? Let us know at
oerdigest at gmail.com.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: BCcampus is hosting a one-hour Pressbooks Training Webinar on
January 24 ow.ly/x13s307lkju <https://t.co/tEmoS4yG4H>

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/

EVENT: The Creative Commons Global Summit will be taking place April 28-30.
The call for submissions close January 27.
https://docs.google.com/a/sparcopen.org/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezm8y2pheNlsP4Tserougy8ht1PITIyvT3GTBUJzDCb1ansg/viewform

JOB: Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is looking for a North America-based
Program Coordinator https://www.p2pu.org/en/jobs/

JOB: The University of Minnesota is looking for a Scholarly Communication
Librarian & Research Services Coordinator
https://www.myu.umn.edu/psp/psprd/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_APP_SCHJOB.GBL?Page=HRS_APP_JBPST&Action=U&SiteId=1&FOCUS=Applicant&JobOpeningId=315002&PostingSeq=1

JOB: BCcampus is looking for a new full-time Web Developer
https://bccampus.ca/web-developer-posting/

OPPORTUNITY: The Rebus Community is working to build an open and
collaborative model for making open textbooks. They are seeking
contributors for seven active open textbook projects.
https://forum.rebus.community/category/5/projects-active-open-textbook-projects

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: “We’re trying to raise awareness of the malpractice
of how [textbook] publishers stifle competition to protect profits, forcing
students to lose tons of money from an unnecessary update,” Nicholson said.
At the same time, UVSS is touting the financial benefits and the altruistic
teaching-learning concept of OER (by making people aware of sites such as
BC Open Campus (open.bccampus.ca). The UVSS projects that open textbooks
will save UVic students $100,000 in 2017. Read more>>
<http://www.saanichnews.com/news/410166795.html>

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA x2: Ryan McAllister, a second-year environmental
studies student at the college, has already felt the positive impacts from
using open textbooks in four of his courses. “The biggest perk of open
textbooks are the cost-savings. Saving money as a student will always come
first,” he said. Okanagan College ranked third in open textbook adoptions
out of 31 participating post-secondary institutions in BCcampus’s 2015/16
annual review of its Open Textbook Project. Read more>>
<http://www.revelstokereview.com/community/408514225.html>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Matt Salomone (@matthematician
<https://twitter.com/matthematician?refsrc=email&s=11>)

Or do what half my academic Twitter feed is doing: Go Open. #OER
<https://twitter.com/search?q=%23OER&src=hash> @actualham
<https://twitter.com/actualham> @Dan_Blick <https://twitter.com/Dan_Blick>
twitter.com/raulpacheco/st… <https://t.co/zPnCF1KIY7>

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads on Education and Open

5 questions to answer about OER use | eSchool News

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/01/06/5-questions-answer-oer-use/

Counting Down EdSurge’s Top Ten S’Cool Tools of 2016 | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-12-28-counting-down-edsurge-s-top-ten-s-cool-tools-of-2016

District leaders offer tips for embracing OER | Education Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/district-leaders-offer-tips-for-embracing-oer/433618/

Is a Creative Commons-Non Commercial License killing your project? |
Bold&Open

http://boldandopen.com/is-a-creative-commons-non-commercial-license-killing-your-project/

Online Learning and Training Trends for 2017 | EduMine

http://news.edumine.com/online-learning-and-training-trends-for-2017/

K-12 districts expand 'digital first' initiatives, skip textbooks |
Education Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/k-12-districts-expand-digital-first-initiatives-skip-textbooks/434019/

Have suggestions for the next edition?

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