[Open-education] OER Digest – November 21, 2018

Wed Nov 21 22:59:49 UTC 2018

>From Mo Nyamweya, SPARC | Volume 70 | November 21st, 2018

With updates from Tanya Spilovoy, Kaitlyn Vitez and Cailyn Nagle

THE OER DIGEST

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

NORTH DAKOTA AUDIT: According to a new report
<https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/media/2018%20NDUS%20-%20Performance%20Audit%20-%20Open%20Educational%20Resources.pdf>
from the state auditor’s office, North Dakota’s investment of $110,000 in
OER has saved students at least 10 times that, and likely much more.
Looking at the first two years of the initiative, the audit documented at
least 650 courses across the public higher education system that
exclusively used OER, affecting at least 15,000 students and saving between
$1.1 million and $2.4 million in textbook costs. State legislators released
an accompanying report
<https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/media/OERND.pdf>
with additional data from institutions that put savings related to the
initiative north of $10 million. Experts say
<https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/11/16/north-dakota-audit-reports-significant-cost-savings-after-oer>
that this is the first independent audit of a state OER initiative and that
it confirms the case advocates have made.

STUDENT HABITS: A newly published survey
<https://www.infodocket.com/2018/11/15/research-article-are-private-universities-exempt-from-student-concerns-about-textbook-costs-a-survey-of-students-at-american-university/>
conducted during the Fall 2015 semester at American University shows that
rising textbook prices affect students at expensive private universities
similarly as those attending less expensive, public institutions. Habits
including not purchasing textbooks, resorting to illegal downloads, and
poor study habits were all present within AU’s student population. OER
proves to be a promising solution to these issues.

OER COURSE SEARCH: Starting in Spring 2019 for some campuses and Fall 2019
for all campuses, University of Hawaii instructors will be able to give
their courses a “TXT0” attribute <http://oer.hawaii.edu/txt0-marking/> to
indicate that the course has adopted an open textbook or moved to using
only free materials. This implementation is meant to help students make
informed choices regarding their course selections. Meanwhile, commercial
provider Civitas Learning has launched
<https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/11/07/civitas-adds-oer-search-to-course-schedule-planner.aspx>
a new OER search tool within their academic planning platform, which has
been piloted by both California State University System and Grand Rapids
Community College in Michigan.

THANKS: To those celebrating this week, we’d like to wish you a happy
Thanksgiving from the OER Digest team! We are thankful for everyone out
there working to advance the vision of open education to benefit students,
and especially to those who take the time to share news about your work
with us. Help us build the Digest by sending in tips, news, or events to
oerdigest at gmail.com.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

SURVEY: The OCLC is collecting responses for their 2018 Open Access Content
Survey until early January. Click through
<http://www.marketingbackupsurveys.com/OCLC/2018OCLCOA.htm> to participate!

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The Cascadia Open Education Summit has made a call for
proposals
<https://bccampus.ca/events/cascadia-open-education-summit-2019/cascadia-open-education-summit-call-for-proposals/>.
The summit takes place April 17-18, 2019 and proposals are due January 25,
2019.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The call for proposals
<https://summit.creativecommons.org/proposals/> for the Creative Commons
Global Summit in Lisbon is now open. The Summit takes place May 9-11, 2019
and proposals are due on December 10, 2018.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The Library Publishing Coalition is hosting their
annual forum in May of next year; proposals are accepted here
<https://librarypublishing.org/program/>.

REGISTER: the first Arizona Regional OER Conference
<https://mcli.maricopa.edu/mcli-calendar/events/2019-az-regional-oer-conference-building-and>
will be held in Phoenix on Friday, February 22, 2019, followed by a
half-day OER Leadership Strategic Planning Summit
<https://mcli.maricopa.edu/mcli-calendar/events/leadership-summit-building-and-sustaining-an-open>on
Saturday, February 23, 2019.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM PENNSYLVANIA: “We decided, why not write our own materials 100
percent?”

At first, they considered building this new product on Canvas, a web portal
for enrolled students. However, Taub-Pervizpour—who’d helped other faculty
members explore the use of OERs in their classrooms—was “very convincing”
that the OER path was the right one, Leisawitz says. “It’s a matter of
equity,” he says. “It’s free and open to anyone who wants to use it. We’re
very happy if people outside Muhlenberg want to use it to learn Italian on
their own. Since we’re going through the trouble, why not make it available
to other people for free so they too can learn Italian?” Read More >
<https://www.muhlenberg.edu/news/2018/whenyourtextbookisfreethatsamore.html>

FROM UTAH: Salt Lake Community College’s mathematics department recently
won the Digital Learning Innovation award from the Online Learning
Consortium, presented on Nov. 13th during the annual OLC Accelerate
Conference. "With the integration of OER into our learning management
system, students have immediate access to learning materials from the first
day of class," said SLCC mathematics department Associate Dean Suzanne
Mozdy. Read more >
<https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/18/11/p12704115/slcc-math-department-wins-national-award-for-oer-efforts>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

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

BCcampus and the Kwantlen Polytechnic University Learning Centres recently
released University 101: Study, Strategize and Succeed
<https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/studystrategizesucceed/>, edited by
Christina Page. The book helps readers create a foundation for
post-secondary studies by learning how to learn.

WEIGH IN

Interesting Discussions and Strategic Reads to Repost or Share

Great to Share >>

Open textbook pilot should be made permanent | The Baltimore Sun

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-1121-open-textbooks-20181119-story.html

Interesting to Consider >>

Open Educational Resources: What We Don’t Know | Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2018/11/14/what-we-dont-yet-know-about-open-educational-resources-opinion?utm_source=Inside+High

Does OER Actually Improve Learning? | EdSurge

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-10-11-does-oer-actually-improve-learning

Why do textbooks cost so much and how can you spend less on them? | The
Global Dispatch

http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/why-do-textbooks-cost-so-much-and-how-can-you-spend-less-on-them/

The Coming Wave of Affordable Textbooks | The Scholarly Kitchen

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/11/19/the-coming-wave-of-affordable-textbooks/

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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