[Open-education] OER Digest - July 13th, 2017

Thu Jul 13 19:11:46 UTC 2017

>From Katie Steen and Brady Yano (SPARC) | Volume 35 | July 13th, 2017

With updates from Ethan Senack and Amanda Coolidge

THE OER DIGEST

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

STATE LEG UPDATE: Recently, two bills related to OER were signed into law
and a third is waiting to be signed.

   -

   In California, the legislature passed the budget for FY18
   <http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB97>
   that appropriates an additional $5M over last year’s appropriation for
   community colleges to implement student equity plans. Services for
   high-need students can include development of OER and zero-textbook-cost
   degrees.
   -

   A bill
   <https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which_year=2017&bill_num=948>
   in Connecticut signed by the governor was originally introduced to
   encourage the use of digital discounts in the state. The final bill
   language encourages institutions to establish guidelines that reduce the
   costs of textbook and educational resources.
   -

   In Oregon, HB 2729
   <https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2017R1/Measures/Overview/HB2729>
   establishes the “Oregon's Open Educational Resources (OER) Program” and
   will require the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to regularly
   convene faculty, staff and librarians from public universities and colleges
   to coordinate OER efforts.
   -

   Correction: the vetoed Florida legislation
   <https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2017/0374> referenced in the last
   Digest would have changed statute around community college management but
   would not have altered the state’s existing open textbook policy language.

OPENCON REPORT ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION: This week the OpenCon team
released a new report entitled Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Learnings
and Next Steps
<https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion-Report-July-10-V1-Release.pdf>.
The report includes relevant lessons learned in organizing the first three
OpenCon global conferences, a conference planning checklist based on those
learnings, and a self-assessment of OpenCon’s global meetings to date. In
addition to the release of the report, the OpenCon team welcomes community
feedback on the report through GitHub, where they have created an online
version of the site. You can find the online version of the report here
<https://sparcopen.github.io/opencon-dei-report/> and details on
contributing here
<https://github.com/sparcopen/opencon-dei-report/blob/master/Contributing.md>.

CC FILES AMICUS BRIEF: Last week, Creative Commons asked
<https://creativecommons.org/2017/07/06/cc-amicus-brief/>the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit for permission to file an amicus brief
<https://creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Great-Minds-Amicus-Brief.pdf>
in litigation involving the BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode>.

OER, CANADA: BCcampus announced
<https://bccampus.ca/2017/07/13/bccampus-is-pleased-to-announce-the-2017-open-education-grant-recipients/>
its most recent set of open education grant recipients - including one for
the first “zed creds” or zero-textbook cost degree programs in Canada.
Three institutions have won funding to create their own Zed Cred programs,
and all materials created through the grant will be licensed CC-BY.

OPEN SUNY HITS 20: Open SUNY Textbooks has just added their 19th and 20th
open textbooks to their collection. You can check out their new titles here
<https://textbooks.opensuny.org/category/available-now/>.

OPENSTAX PLATFORM: On Monday, OpenStax launched
<http://news.rice.edu/2017/07/10/openstax-launches-personalized-learning-tool-for-college-courses-2/>
an online learning platform, OpenStax Tutor Beta
<https://openstax.org/openstax-tutor>. OpenStax Tutor will be available for
3 courses — Sociology, Biology, and College Physics — for Fall. Eventually,
OpenStax plans to make Tutor Beta available in all subject areas where it
publishes content. The new platform will cost $10 per student, combining
existing OER with personalized assessment. OpenStax is working to integrate
the new platform into learning management systems by Fall 2018.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Inside Higher Ed is hosting a webinar, sponsored by Cengage, on “The
OER Moment” on July 18th at 2pm EDT. Click here
<https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&partnerref=E0B10&utm_source=Inside%2BHigher%2BEd&utm_campaign=ba2000a338-Webinar_oermoment_email2&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-ba2000a338-200201953&eventid=1449185&sessionid=1&key=3AF1CD0B1BC12C38AF4F527AAA058C6B&regTag=&sourcepage=register>
to register.

EVENT: The Open Textbook Network and Rebus Community is hosting their July
Office Hours on Wednesday July 26th, at 2pm EDT. The topic of the call is
“Keeping Open Textbooks Up to Date”. Click here
<https://forum.rebus.community/topic/186/office-hours-keeping-open-textbooks-up-to-date-july-26-2017?utm_source=Rebus+Community+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3b4107a1a3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c42869f96a-3b4107a1a3-77335437>
to RSVP.

EVENT: Apply now to attend OpenCon
<https://apply.opencon2017.org/referral/oerdigest> Nov 11-13 in Berlin,
Germany. Travel scholarships are available. OpenCon is the conference to
empower the next generation to advance Open Access, Open Education and Open
Data.

EVENT: Registration for #OpenEd17
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpenEd17?src=hash> is now OPEN! The conference
will be taking place Oct 11-13 in Anaheim, CA. Click here
<https://openedconference.org/2017/registration/> to register.

JOB: The Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC) is looking
for a Director of Digital Services and Open Educational Resources. Click
here <https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000375358-01> to learn more.

OPPORTUNITY: Creative Commons USA is looking for resources around open
licensing - open education, data, access, culture, and more. CC-USA will be
hosting a “Partner Resources” page on their website
<http://creativecommonsusa.org> and are looking for reports, fact sheets,
tools, studies, data sets, search engines, etc to direct traffic to.

OPPORTUNITY: SPARC is working with a team of librarians to develop an OER
Mythbusting Resource catered to a higher education faculty audience. Click
here
<https://docs.google.com/a/sparcopen.org/forms/d/1gF2VhhO4cYwe-jaI8yEehcDZyZUeRp8D6-b6cNsm3Nw/edit>
to provide your feedback on which myths are worth investigating!

SUBSCRIBE: If you haven’t already - subscribe to the OER Digest here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsVwP-hgmvxYey_D1QbsKGAitjHhobvW6cX1vHGxSVWuq_sA/viewform>
.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM ILLINOIS: “The camp was an excellent opportunity for faculty to
improve the quality of their courses by incorporating new technologies,
digital resources and their own expert materials into courses,” said Julie
Freelove, co-chairwoman of MCC’s textbook ad hoc committee. “These changes
will not only improve course quality but reduce the cost of textbooks for
MCC students.” Read more>>
<http://www.nwherald.com/2017/07/05/mchenry-county-college-faculty-meet-about-helping-students-save-money-on-textbooks/aadg0f9/>

FROM KANSAS: “No one will wait for their loans to buy the book or not buy
the book and take academic risks in doing that or take fewer courses if
their textbook is free,” said Josh Bolick, a scholarly communications
librarian who has spearheaded the effort. Read more>>
<http://www.kansan.com/news/ku-partners-with-open-textbook-program-to-increase-affordability/article_1f47cab0-6007-11e7-9198-278ab4390448.html>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Amanda Coolidge‏ @acoolidge <https://twitter.com/acoolidge>

BCcampus is pleased to announce the 2017 Open Education Grant recipients
https://bccampus.ca/2017/07/13/bccampus-is-pleased-to-announce-the-2017-open-education-grant-recipients/
… <https://t.co/DzeQcvH7nY> via @bccampus <https://twitter.com/BCcampus>
#oer <https://twitter.com/hashtag/oer?src=hash> #zedcred
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/zedcred?src=hash>

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open

A Thumbs Up to Open Up for Delivering Free, Curriculum-Scale OER | THE
Journal

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/07/11/a-thumbs-up-to-open-up.aspx

Follett Introduces New Tool to Bridge Gap Between OERs, Content and
Technology | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/07/03/follett-unveils-new-tool-to-bridge-gap-between-oers-content-and-technology.aspx?admgarea=news

Free Foundations: Empowering Open Advocates at the HLLR Open Educational
Resources (OER) Day | Open Shelf

http://www.open-shelf.ca/170701-ocula-free-foundations-open-educational-resources/

KU Partners with Open Textbook Program to Increase Affordability | The
University Daily Kansan

http://www.kansan.com/news/ku-partners-with-open-textbook-program-to-increase-affordability/article_1f47cab0-6007-11e7-9198-278ab4390448.html

National Study Shows Open Education Resources Enjoys Strong Faculty Support
| The Suburban Times

http://thesubtimes.com/2017/07/04/national-study-shows-open-education-resources-enjoys-strong-faculty-support/

New Pilot Project Encourages Faculty Members to Go Beyond the Textbook | U
Today

https://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2017-07-05/new-pilot-project-encourages-faculty-members-go-beyond-textbook

2017 OER State Legislation Roundup | SPARC

https://sparcopen.org/news/2017/2017-oer-state-legislation-roundup/

Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest at gmail.com,
or tweet us @OERdigest <https://twitter.com/oerdigest>.

The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of
stakeholders across the higher education community. You can join the open
Google Group or check out the distribution list here
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/oerdigest>.
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