[Open-education] OER Digest - November 8th, 2017

Thu Nov 9 17:09:20 UTC 2017

>From Brady Yano and Katie Steen (SPARC) | Volume 44 | November 9th, 2017

THE OER DIGEST

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

DISTRICT ADOPTION RATES: A new report
<http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/k12oer2017/whatweteach_2017.pdf>
by the Babson Survey Research Group investigates the process by which K-12
school districts select curricula materials in four critical subject areas:
Mathematics, English Language Arts, Science, and History and Social
Studies. The key findings while expansive include the following:

   -

   Over three-quarters of K-12 districts have made at least one full-course
   curricula adoption decision over the past three years, with the need to
   meet changing standards driving most of these decisions
   -

   Most districts make an adoption decision for Mathematics (59%), followed
   by English Language Arts (44%), Science (29%), and History and Social
   Studies (19%).
   -

   Districts with a high proportion of students in poverty have adopted
   open licensed full course curricula materials at twice the rate of
   districts with low rates of child poverty (22% as compared to 10%).

ON THE RISE?: Earlier this week, Inside Higher Ed published a story
<https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/07/inclusive-access-takes-model-college-textbook-sales>
on “inclusive access” highlighting the publishing industry’s move to new
business models. In the article, OER advocates Nicole Allen and Rajiv
Jhangiani cited concerns that these models allow publishers to control when
and how students access materials while restricting student choice. Catch
up on Nicole Allen’s tweetstorm on inclusive access models here.
<https://twitter.com/txtbks/status/928008532234031105>

ZED CRED: Last week, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and BCcampus announced
<http://www.kpu.ca/news/2017/11/01/kpu-unveils-sweet-suite-courses-no-cost-textbooks>
the release of Canada’s first Zed Cred! Students working towards a
Certificate of Arts at KPU can now choose from nearly 50 zero textbook cost
course offerings. As part of BCcampus’ Open Textbook Project anniversary
last month, they announced
<https://bccampus.ca/2017/10/24/bccampus-celebrates-b-c-open-textbooks-5th-anniversary/>
that KPU is their leading institutional adopter.

TEXTBOOK GAME: No, we’re not kidding! Staff from De Anza College developed
a new game aimed at showcasing how students struggle with college expenses,
especially textbooks. The game is licensed CC BY, and is available for
download and adaption here
<http://ccconlineed.org/faculty-resources/open-educational-resources/oer-tools-resources/oer-textbook-challenge-game/>
.

OER METAFINDER: Last month, George Mason University in collaboration with Deep
Web Technologies <https://www.deepwebtech.com/> released a new resource
<https://mason.deepwebaccess.com/mason__MasonLibrariesOpenEducationResources_5f4/desktop/en/search.html>
marketed as a one-stop search box for Open and Affordable Educational
Resources. The resource sources its findings from many popular OER
repositories and referatories such as MERLOT, OER Commons, and the Open
Textbook Library. You can learn more about the resource here
<https://www.deepwebtech.com/2017/10/george-mason-university-launches-search-engine-for-open-source-textbooks/>.

IT’S UP TO LIBRARIANS: Acknowledging the progress made in other states, a new
paper <http://palrap.org/ojs/index.php/palrap/article/view/166> written by
Steven Bell and Joseph Salem outlines a framework for how Pennsylvania’s
academic librarians can develop a statewide initiative to tackle the
challenge of textbook affordability.

OPEN CONFERENCES

Upcoming Events, Proposal and Registration Deadlines, Report-Backs

REGISTER: OpenCon Live will be taking place this weekend, November 11-13th.
Tune in for a few hours, or a few days, from wherever you are to become an
expert in different areas of Open, build your network, and get involved in
an Open project or two! http://www.opencon2017.org/opencon_2017_live

REGISTER: Michigan is hosting a #GoOpen Summit at three sites across the
state on December 5th.The program’s breakout sessions are designed for K-12
district administrators.
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/GoOpen_Summit_Flyer_600903_7.pdf

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: BCcampus’ Festival of Learning is set to return next
spring! The deadline to submit a proposal is December 11th.
https://bccampus.ca/festival-of-learning-2018/call-for-proposals/

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those
impacted

FROM ALBERTA: “The next steps are really looking at the longevity of the
OER pilot project, of its potential renewal and of the effectiveness of
this first go-around,” Miller said. “Ideally in the future, this pilot
project, if successful, gets expanded to impact more and more students,
especially lower-year classes, first-year and second-year students who have
especially expensive textbooks.” Read more>
<http://www.thegauntlet.ca/ten-u-of-c-classes-to-pilot-free-textbooks-through-open-educational-resources-grants/>

FROM CALIFORNIA: “A summer’s worth of research eventually led Harris into
his fall semester film documentary class with a big idea to find the answer
to the question: why are textbooks so expensive? So Harris along with
classmate Evan Waugh, a 28-year-old film major, decided to find out by
focusing on how students are affected by the inelasticity of the textbook
market in their short documentary.” Read more>
<http://www.coastreportonline.com/features/article_73e65dee-be93-11e7-99b7-c7807c9f56a7.html>

FROM SASKATCHEWAN: “King stressed that although textbook cost is very
important when he is assigning textbooks for his courses, the textbook must
meet his minimum standards. The textbook has to be peer reviewed and King
knew the reputation of the open textbook author, Dr. Timothy Taylor. King,
himself, has written for textbooks in the past and was looking for a
textbook that included instructor materials, such as powerpoints, solution
manuals, and testbanks.” Read more>
<https://www.uregina.ca/external/communications/feature-stories/current/2017/10-29.html>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Each edition, we’ll highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource

The Open Textbook Network has added a new title, Beginning Japanese for
Professionals: Book 2
<http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=501>. This
textbook is designed for beginning learners who want to learn basic
Japanese for the purpose of living and working in Japan.

WEIGH IN

Interesting Discussions and Strategic Reads to Repost or Share

Great to Share >>

OER: Bigger Than Affordability | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2017/11/01/oer-catalyst-national-conversation-about-public-higher-education

Interesting to Consider >>

Faculty Buy-in Builds, Bit by Bit: Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology
| Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/faculty-buy-builds-bit-bit-survey-faculty-attitudes-technology

How Two Virginia Colleges Are Reducing Costs and Accelerating Completion |
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-two-virginia-colleges-are-reducing-costs-and-accelerating-completion/2017/11/03/a763b7ce-b28c-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.8d207f63f880

Nonprofit Launching 2 New OER English Language Arts Curricula | THE Journal

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/11/02/nonprofit-launching-2-new-oer-english-language-arts-curricula.aspx

Pricey College 'Extras' Undercut Student Efforts to Graduate | Campus
Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/10/30/pricey-college-extras-undercut-student-efforts-to-graduate.aspx

States, Not Publishers, Driving Innovation in the Curriculum Marketplace |
New America

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/states-driving-curriculum-innovation/

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>.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-education/attachments/20171109/78a2bf6d/attachment-0002.html>