[Open-education] OER Digest - July 11, 2019

Thu Jul 11 19:50:24 UTC 2019

VOLUME 85

>From Mo Nyamweya | Volume 85 | July 11th, 2019

With updates from Nicole Allen, Hailey Babb, and Ethan Senack

THE OER DIGEST

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

STATE POLICY UPDATES: The governor of Connecticut recently signed HB 7424
<https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which_year=2019&bill_num=7424>
into law, providing funding to establish the Connecticut Open Educational
Resource Coordinating Council as part of the Executive Department.
Meanwhile, Virginia’s HB 2380
<http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?191+sum+HB2380> went into
effect at the start of July, requiring institutions to provide information
about no-cost and low-cost course materials within their course catalogs
and/or registration systems. Both bills provide important infrastructure
supporting institutions in adopting OER and ensuring transparency for
students.

GRANT RECIPIENTS: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
has awarded
a grant <https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/re-36-19-0089-19> to South
Carolina State University to sponsor a summit on OER for academic
librarians at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The
summit will focus on empowering and equipping librarians to become
advocates and leaders of OER and affordable learning movement at their
campuses.

NEW CO-AUTHOR: Hello everyone, my name is Hailey Babb and I’m currently
interning with SPARC over the summer months! I’m very excited to be joining
on as a co-author for the OER Digest. Some of you may recognize me from our
video edition of the Digest back in October at OpenEd18. I’m currently
finishing my undergraduate degree at the University of Lethbridge in
Alberta, Canada and dedicate a lot of my extra time to advancing the
student movement for open education in Canada and abroad. I’m always very
excited to connect with other open enthusiasts, so please don’t hesitate to
reach out! You can find me on Twitter at @haileybabb
<https://twitter.com/haileybabb>.

SIGNING OFF: Hey everyone, Digest founder Ethan Senack here. Quickly
announcing that I’m going to be leaving the CC-USA team at the end of this
week! It’s been a pleasure writing the Digest and working with many of you
to advocate for OER over the past couple years  – I’m grateful for all your
time and support. I'll be continuing my work with the broader CC Network
the meantime, and I won’t be going far: I’m joining the team at ISKME to
support their equity work and manage their DC advocacy. You can always
reach me @ESenack <https://twitter.com/esenack> or via email.

OPEN CONNECTIONS

Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: BCcampus is now accepting proposals
<https://bccampus.ca/grants-calls-for-proposals/open-education-sustainability-grant-for-institutions/>
for their Open Education Sustainability Grant for Institutions. Grants can
be used for workshops, training, and institutional support for OER and open
education infrastructure. Proposals are open until August 22nd for
post-secondary institutions in British Columbia.

CONGRATULATIONS: The 2019 class of SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellows
has graduated. Each fellow completed a capstone project and published an
openly licensed resource to help the community. Examples include Carrie
Gits’ nine module introduction to OER
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/14aLPwtMmaWMlcFs7XrruO-VXebcq0rWSutqpveKP08M/edit>,
Annie Johnson’s survey on open textbooks and university presses
<https://osf.io/2yxa8/>, and Hilary Miller’s resource on outreach for
inclusive open education
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EtjJ0VomDvN2lEkSOnVTfnAO3AiYEceobG5M9UJM6ps/edit#heading=h.u3a9pbikkgxe>.
Check out the full cohort’s work here
<https://sparcopen.org/our-work/open-education-leadership-program/2018-2019/>
.

APPLY NOW: Applications for this year’s Open Education Policy Forum, taking
place in Warsaw on October 7th-8th, are now open
<https://oerpolicy.eu/oe-policy-forum/>. The deadline for applications is
July 28th.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

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

FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA: Kwantlen Polytechnic University has launched
<https://twitter.com/KPUopen/status/1148262638658310145> two new Z-degree
programs: an Associate of Arts degree in Sociology and a Diploma in General
Studies. Students taking either program can expect to save about $2,250
each in textbook costs. Offering Canada’s first zero cost textbook
programs, KPU now has over 300 textbook-free courses in their catalog. Read
more >> <https://www.kpu.ca/open/zedcred>

FROM MASSACHUSETTS: The UMass Amherst Libraries announced the recipients
for the 2019 Open Education Initiative grants, awarding ten faculty members
with funding for projects to revise or create new OER. This year’s winners
represent a broad range of disciplines across campus including music and
dance, Spanish grammar, and teaching and learning. Now in its tenth cycle,
the Open Education Initiative has generated a total savings of over $1.8
million for students in UMass Amherst classes that utilize OER or free
library materials. Read more >>
<https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/libraries-announce-2019-open-education>

HOT OFF THE PRESS

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

Florida State University just published an open textbook titled “First
Semester in Numerical Analysis with Julia
<https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/first-semester-in-numerical-analysis-with-julia>”,
authored by Giray Ökten. The textbook presents the theory and methods,
together with the implementation of the algorithms using the Julia
programming language and can be accessed via the Open Textbook Library.

WEIGH IN

Interesting Discussions and Strategic Reads to Repost or Share

Great to Share >>

Opening education resources for college students
<https://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/brian-k-payne-column-opening-education-resources-for-college-students/article_5a795e5c-60d8-5e8a-b311-d111a6a56f5b.html>
| Richmond Times-Dispatch

An Open Invitation
<https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/open-invitation> |
Inside Higher Ed

Interesting to Consider >>

Most 20th Century Books Unavailable to Internet Users – We Can Fix That
<http://blog.archive.org/2019/07/01/most-20th-century-books-unavailable-to-internet-users-we-can-fix-that/>
| Internet Archive Blogs

Shining a Brighter Light on Textbook Affordability
<https://www.pcapt.org/blog/shining-a-brighter-light-on-textbook-affordability>
| Partners for College Affordability

College student was late returning a textbook to Amazon, so the company
took $3,800 from her dad
<https://www.inquirer.com/news/amazon-textbook-rental-college-delco-20190709.html>
l Philadelphia Inquirer

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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