[Open-education] OER Digest - October 5th, 2017

[OER Digest]

>From Ethan Senack, Creative Commons USA | Volume 41 | October 5th, 2017

With updates from Manuela Ekowo, Katie Steen and Brady Yano

THE OER DIGEST

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


TIME FLIES! This past week marks the two-year anniversary
<https://oerdigest.org/2015/10/01/oer-digest-october-1st-2015/> of the OER
Digest. What started as a project to reduce time spent on conference calls
has grown significantly since then. Today, we provide news and updates for
hundreds of advocates and educators around the country, and we’re the
primary source of OER news for more than a quarter of our readers. That’s
why - to better serve our community - we asked for your feedback, and we’ve
made some small changes. But don’t worry! The principle remains the same:
we’ll keep things short, focused, and useful.

TEXTBOOK ACT IS BACK: On September 26th, bicameral and now bi-partisan
legislation <https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1864>
to support the creation and adoption of OER was introduced
<https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-franken-king-introduce-legislation-to-help-make-college-textbooks-more-affordable>
in Congress by Senators Durbin (D-IL), Franken (D-MN), and King (I-ME), and
by Representatives Polis (D-CO) and Sinema (D-AZ). This is the fifth
<https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/fifth-times-charm-congress-reintroduces-college-textbook-bill/>
iteration of the bill, which creates a grant program at the U.S. Department
of Education for colleges and universities to develop pilot programs that
use OER to reduce the cost of textbooks for students. While the bill does
not have a strong chance of passing by itself, it does create groundwork
for OER to be included in reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.


   -

   Update: Congressmen Curbelo (FL) and Nolan (MN), as well as Senator Reed
   (RI) recently co-sponsored the bills.

OPEN GOVERNMENT: On Friday, September 29th, the White House Office of
Management and Budget hosted a workshop with civil society on the 4th Open
Government Partnership U.S. National Action Plan
<https://open.usa.gov/national-action-plan/4/>. The Open Government
Partnership <https://www.opengovpartnership.org/> is a multilateral
initiative to promote transparency, accountability, public participation,
and technology and innovation in governance. A number of advocates
submitted commitments <https://github.com/GSA/participate-nap4> on open
data, open science, and open education, which have been included in
previous National Action Plans. The 4th NAP will be published this month.

BIG MONEY: OER racked up some big dollar savings in the higher education
arena this week, as the state of RI announced
<https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/09/28/rhode-island-oer-celebrates-first-birthday-with-savings-of-870k.aspx?admgarea=news>
it had saved students $870,000 on textbooks in just one year, Santa Fe
College announced
<http://news.sfcollege.edu/2017/09/26/oer-saves-students-1-million-in-textbook-costs/>
$1 million in student savings from almost 300 course sections using OER,
and the University of North Dakota announced
<https://dakotastudent.com/10982/news/making-more-free-books-available-to-students/>
$3.7 million in savings over the last two years of their OER program.

OER REACH INCARCERATED YOUTH: Two tech companies are launching
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tech-companies-roll-out-digital-education-pilot-to_us_59cc401de4b028e6bb0a681f>
an initiative using open-source technology and open educational resources
to provide incarcerated youth the opportunity to continue learning and
building re-entry skills. The initiative will be piloted in 5 states -
Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Florida and Utah - and organizers say
they’re hoping to “dispel the myths, and shine a light on the value of
digital literacy in rehabilitating young offenders.”

SCHOOLOGY REPORT: A new survey
<https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/09/18/biggest-barriers-to-digital-learning.aspx?admgarea=pre>
of nearly 3,000 K-12 educators from LMS-provider Schoology attempts in
investigate barriers to digital learning in the classroom. Lack of teacher
time to incorporate technology into materials and inadequate access to
devices for students topped the list, followed quickly by ineffective
professional development.


   -

   Also in the survey: 95% of educators said that digital learning has
   positive impacts on students. 90% reported using ‘static’ digital resources
   like PDFs, and only 37% reported using OER by name.


GLOBAL RECOGNITION: The CU Boulder OER project, known as the PhET
Interactive Simulations <https://phet.colorado.edu/> was recognized with a 2017
World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Award
<http://www.wise-qatar.org/wise-awards-2017>. This prestigious
international award highlights innovative educational projects that address
challenges and bring transformative societal change. Since its inception,
PhET has been used more than 80 million times a year by students and
teachers across the educational spectrum.

OPEN CONFERENCES

Upcoming Events, Proposal and Registration Deadlines, Report-Backs

NEXT WEEK: is OpenEd 2017 <http://openedconference.org/>, and the full
Digest team will be in attendance. We’ll be putting together a special
video edition from Anaheim, so if you’re interested in having your
organization/project featured, please email us at oerdigest at gmail.com!

DEADLINE: The call for proposals for the Open Education Global 2018
Conference closes on October 23rd.
https://conference.oeconsortium.org/2018/call-for-proposals/

REGISTER: Enrollment is now open for the David Wiley/George Siemens EdX
MOOC on OER.
https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-open-education-utarlingtonx-link-oex

REPORTING BACK: Cable Green shares his thoughts and takeaways from the 2nd
World OER Congress.
https://creativecommons.org/2017/10/02/2nd-world-oer-congress-2017-ljubljana-oer-action-plan/



STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM ALABAMA: “Smith, a junior economics major, stressed the importance of
adopting [an OER] program... “I think the rising price of textbooks hurts a
lot of students’ ability to gain knowledge… and it restricts the free flow
of knowledge that college is supposed to foster,” Smith said. “There’s this
broken economic model. It’s not consumers and producers; there’s this third
external party, so there’s not any competition.” Read More >
<http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2017/09/textbooks-fill-backpacks-but-empty-wallets>

FROM MICHIGAN: “Bay College will hold its second “Free the Textbooks OER
Rally” on Tuesday, October 17, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., in the Student
Success Center (the “HUB”). The event, featuring free food, soft drinks,
and prizes, is being held to bring awareness and energy to Bay College’s
open educational resources (OER) degree initiative.” Read More >
<http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Bay-College-plans-Free-the-Textbooks-Rally-449271433.html>

FROM NEW BRUNSWICK: “It’s an issue that is not going unnoticed by the UNB
Student Union. In an effort to raise awareness on the issue of the high
textbook costs, the UNBSU is moving forward with a textbook pricing
campaign. According to Bempah, the Student Union wants UNB to “explicitly
support open education resources—and to promise that they’re going to work
on it and to ensure that it becomes a reality here at UNB.” Read more >
<http://thebruns.ca/2017/09/29/its-a-heavy-financial-burden-the-lowdown-on-textbook-sales-at-unb/>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

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

The Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges just released Perspectives:
An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology - an open access, peer-reviewed
cultural anthropology textbook. See the story of how it was created
<http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2017/09/25/perspectives/>, and
check out the resource here: http://perspectives.americananthro.org/


WEIGH IN

Interesting Discussions and Strategic Reads to Repost or Share

Great to Share >>

Top districts use savings from OER curriculum to invest in professional
learning | Education Dive
http://www.educationdive.com/news/administrators-consider-teachers-professional-learning-needs-in-using-digi/504588/


Interesting to Consider >>

How Machine Learning Is Easing OER Pain Points | Campus Technology

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/10/04/how-machine-learning-is-easing-oer-pain-points.aspx

How a $14 Billion Industry Robs Students and Professors | NDSU Spectrum

http://ndsuspectrum.com/textbook-scam-14-billion-industry-robs-students-professors/

Elsevier launches free science definitions service | Times Higher Education

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/elsevier-launches-free-science-definitions-service

How do you choose an open educational resource? | Education Dive

http://www.educationdive.com/news/how-do-you-choose-an-open-educational-resource/504110/

Leading Curriculum Reform Efforts Using Open Educational Resources | New
America

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/curriculum-reform-using-oer/



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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