[Open-education] OER Digest - July 28th, 2017

Fri Jul 28 18:43:06 UTC 2017

>From Brady Yano and Katie Steen (SPARC) | Volume 36 | July 28th, 2017

With an update from Lisa Petrides

THE OER DIGEST

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

#NAACP108:This week, over 10,000 people gathered in Baltimore, MD for the
NAACP’s 108th Annual Convention. OER advocates organized by ISKME
<http://www.iskme.org/>, including, OpenStax, SPARC, Creative Commons-USA.,
and Foresight Law & Policy, staffed a booth for the entirety of the
conference discussing how equity and inclusion can be achieved through OER
with NAACP state chapter members. ISKME is working to connect the larger
OER community and NAACP state education chairs to help put into practice the
resolution
<http://www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/NAACPOERResolutionFinalRatified.pdf>
that was passed in 2016 that urged NAACP members to support the use and
adoption of OER in their states and districts.

AMAZON INSPIRE: Amazon recently opened the beta version of Amazon Inspire
<https://www.amazoninspire.com/>, a repository of K-12 learning materials,
after nearly a year of invitation-only access. However, the controversial
share feature has not yet been made available. All materials submitted to
the platform hold either a Amazon Inspire Custom License or Creative
Commons license. Read more here.
<https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-07-18-amazon-inspire-goes-live-but-without-controversial-share-feature>

GROWING COLLECTION: BCcampus announced last week the addition of five new
open textbooks to their collection. The new textbooks cover the disciplines
of film studies
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=19892992-ae43-48c4-a832-59faa1d7108b&contributor=&keyword=&subject=>,
financial accounting
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=9f29a3d9-db42-4c49-95bb-7c00faee2a42&contributor=&keyword=&subject=>,
history
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=68486c3a-53e8-472d-914e-1d1cd90396db&contributor=&keyword=&subject=>
and academic success
<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=a00b2496-dc06-40b4-aef2-d59b2b2a1090&contributor=&keyword=&subject=>
.

OPEN OREGON UPDATE: The Open Oregon Educational Resources 2016-17 OER grant
projects are complete – congratulations grantees! 8,370 students at 21
institutions have saved over $1,000,000 to date. Check out more of the
details here. <http://openoregon.org/2016-17-grant-projects-complete/>

ALG GOES CC BY: Affordable Learning Georgia has just opened their RFP
process <http://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/about/rfp_r1011> for this
year’s Textbook Transformation Grants. The changes accompanying this grant
cycle include the licensing of all newly-created grant resources as CC BY,
emphasis on core curriculum courses to maximize impact, as well as grant
funding for OER revision and ancillary resource creation.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

EVENT: Less than one week left to apply to attend OpenCon Nov 11-13 in
Berlin, Germany! Click here
<https://apply.opencon2017.org/referral/oerdigest> to apply now!

EVENT: The Rebus Community and Open Textbook Network is hosting their
August Office Hours on Wednesday August 30th at 2pm EDT. The topic is
Metadata and Open Textbooks. Click here
<https://forum.rebus.community/topic/179/office-hours-metadata-for-open-textbooks-aug-30-2017?utm_source=July+Office+Hours+With+the+Rebus+Community&utm_campaign=aea6b3e31e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_44122258a7-aea6b3e31e-83742885>
to RSVP.

JOB: The Open Education Consortium is looking for a new Executive Director.
Check out the job description here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sWd9UjIyUMWdh4NpeJh57vHGqBNJPdcB2uKVG0esThA/edit>.

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 GEORGIA: “I have the fortune to work with faculty who are very
progressive and not afraid of change,” said Vargas, who has been teaching
college-level math for 13 years. “Once they heard the narrative behind all
this -- ‘Are we going to help students to be able to stop paying $250 or
$350 for textbooks?’ -- they were all on board.” Read more>>
<https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/07/12/german-vargas-crisscrosses-georgia-advocating-oer>

FROM MICHIGAN: Prystowsky and Kelland say Lansing’s initiative is moving
forward quickly because of Gong’s tenacity. “The barrier is that faculty
say they don’t have time to look for OER,” Gong said. “Since I am managing
it … I can help them. I can find five [open] books for them to review. I
can’t mandate, but I can say that this is a good candidate for a
replacement,” she added. “That’s the most effective approach.” Read more>>
<https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/07/26/midwest-community-college-pushes-widespread-use-oer>

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Daniel Williamson‏ @new_edu <https://twitter.com/new_edu>

Just read initial report showing that the presence of #OER
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/OER?src=hash> decreased Drop Fail Withdrawal
rate by 25.1% compared to non-OER courses.

SYLLABUS

Interesting Reads Relating to Education and Open

Campus launches new research support website | The Daily Californian

http://www.dailycal.org/2017/07/21/campus-launches-new-research-support-website/

CCC to Offer New Online Degree Program | Press Republican

http://www.pressrepublican.com/news/local_news/ccc-to-offer-new-online-degree-program/article_5186427b-1da4-5cf3-8066-e5d4840132e0.html

Language Open Education Brings Teachers Around the Country to UT | The
Daily Texan

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2017/07/25/language-open-education-brings-teachers-around-the-country-to-ut-0

Open Ed. Provider Appealing Decision in Closely Watched Lawsuit | EdWeek

https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/open-ed-provider-appealing-decision-in-closely-watched-lawsuit/

‘Precision Education’ Hopes to Apply Big Data to Lift Diverse Student Groups
| EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-07-19-precision-education-hopes-to-apply-big-data-to-lift-diverse-student-groups

Report: K-12 educators more confident about technology use | EdScoop

http://edscoop.com/report-educators-more-confident-about-technology-use

What About the Bookstore? | College & Research Libraries News

http://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/16700/18183

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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