NMU event to explore open education resources - Northern Michigan Mining Journal

Northern Michigan University’s Lydia M. Olson Library and the NMU Center for Teaching and Learning will host a panel discussion on the topic of open educational resources for faculty, graduate students, local educators and community members.The panel will serve as the kick-off event for a two-year pilot program to increase OER use on NMU’s campus.

https://www.miningjournal.net/news/local/2023/03/nmu-event-to-explore-open-education-resources/

ECC pushes for increased use of free and low-cost textbooks - Jonathan Riley, the Missourian

East Central College staff are hoping to involve more faculty members in an initiative to provide textbooks and other curriculum materials at low or no cost, which has collectively saved students more than $1 million in recent years. ECC’s affordable and open educational resources (A&OER) initiative was first introduced in fall of 2018. By July 2021 it had saved students more than $500,000, and has since gained even more traction, saving 13,600 students $1.3 million since A&OER’s inception, according to Director of Library Services Lisa Farrell.

https://www.emissourian.com/local_news/ecc-pushes-for-increased-use-of-free-and-low-cost-textbooks/article_f40b2e7e-c2a6-11ed-89b7-1fd25a97c0ed.html

Open educational resources (OER) - University of Arizona Libraries

The University of Arizona is an active member of the Open Education Network, which advances open education. Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources in the public domain or released with an open license (e.g., Creative Commons license).  Anyone can freely use, copy, adapt, and reshare OER. Opencontent.org states that true OER are free to access and allow for the 5R's of open content:

Retain: make, own, and control copies of the content

Reuse: use the content in a wide range of ways

Revise: adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself

Remix: combine original or revised content with other material to create something new

Redistribute: share copies of the original content, revisions, or remixes with others

https://lib.arizona.edu/instructors/oer

Organisational Integration of OER: Good Practice from HE & Business - ICDE

Join us on 29th March at 11:00-12:30 CET. In this network event we will present the findings from our current policy and strategy research which collected best practice case studies of organisations successfully integrating OER policy and strategy. We will share good practice on the successful implementation of OER from the higher education and business contexts. Some interesting challenges and implications have come up in the analysis and we will discuss them with participants at the event. The session will focus on the conditions needed to successfully establish an OER strategy in business and in HE, the challenges met and possible solutions for an effective implementation.

https://www.icde.org/event/organisational-integration-of-oer-good-practice-from-he-business/

Free textbooks? It could soon be a reality at California’s community colleges - ALYSSA STORY AND CARMEN GONZÁLEZ, Cal Matters

One idea under consideration by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office is to fund community colleges to produce their own textbooks. The system must decide how to spend $115 million in state funds set aside to reduce the burden of textbook costs. Every community college will receive $20,000 to design zero-textbook-cost programs and an additional $180,000 to implement them. Some colleges will also get larger, competitive grants. 

https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/college-beat-higher-education/2023/03/free-textbooks-california-community-colleges/

Mohave Community College instructor honored for lowering students’ college costs - the Miner

Mohave Community College faculty have a goal to help students lower the cost of college by eliminating the high-cost of textbooks and course materials. They are doing this by finding or creating Open Educational Resources, commonly called OER in higher education circles. According to an MCC news release, OER are free or low-cost learning materials and MCC has dozens of courses where instructors are utilizing OER materials across all four campuses. Life Science Instructor Eric Osborn was recently honored as an OER Hero by the higher education group called Open Textbooks for Rural Arizona.

https://kdminer.com/news/2023/mar/11/mohave-community-college-instructor-honored-loweri/

UTSA receives new grant to expand and enhance free textbook program for students - UTSA Today

UTSA has received a $10,000 grant to promote faculty adoption and student awareness of Open Educational Resources (OER), learning, teaching and research materials distributed under an open license and available to students at no cost. The Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success (DOERS3) Collaborative, a group of 30 public higher education systems, including the University of Texas System, awarded the grant to UTSA.

https://www.utsa.edu/today/2023/03/story/utsa-receives-grant-to-enhance-free-textbook-program.html

Washtenaw Community College students save $10 million in textbook costs with OER program

Washtenaw Community College’s (WCC) program to help students earn degrees, certificates and general education credits with little or no textbook costs has recently surpassed the $10 million savings mark. Washtenaw embarked on its Open Educational Resources (OER) program in 2017 and this year launched its first “Z-degree,” or zero textbook cost degree, an Associate in Science: General Studies in Math & Natural Sciences, to join four Z-certificates in business and 325 general education course section offerings. Instead of a traditional textbook that can cost hundreds of dollars, students use free OER textbooks adapted by WCC faculty or other textbook alternatives.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/03/02/2619762/0/en/Washtenaw-Community-College-students-save-10-million-in-textbook-costs-with-OER-program.html

MCC instructor honored for lowering cost of college for students - BeeNews

Mohave Community College faculty have a goal to help students lower the cost of college by eliminating the high-cost of textbooks and course materials. They are doing this by finding or creating Open Educational Resources, commonly called OER in higher education circles. OER are free or low-cost learning materials and MCC has dozens of courses where instructors are utilizing OER materials across all four campuses.  Life Science Instructor Eric Osborn was recently honored as an OER Hero by the higher education group calledOpen Textbooks for Rural Arizona.  

https://www.thebee.news/mcc-instructor-honored-for-lowering-cost-of-college-for-students/

Free Digital Textbooks are Gaining Popularity - Tommaso Mauro, Coyote News

Partnering with colleges like CSN, OpenStax provides instructors with non-copywritten materials. McDonough says, “The big thing for students is that – majority of the time – all of this is free. It is online for free; the textbooks are digital.” According to CSN’s website about the OER summit, “To date, the program has resulted in over $20 million in additional student savings from OER. We are glad CSN was chosen for this partnership. This project ties in with the goal of our institution to help our students complete their courses by lowering barriers, such as the cost of textbooks,” says James McCoy, VPAA.

https://coyotestudentnews.com/2023/03/09/free-digital-textbooks-are-gaining-popularity/

The Global OER Graduate Network: an example of a Community of Care

The Global OER (Open Educational Resources) Graduate Network (GO-GN) was founded in 2013 to support and connect doctoral researchers on OER worldwide and to promote open education research and its potential impact on society. In its ten-year history GO-GN has brought together doctoral students, experts, and educators from all five continents. GO-GN organises face-to-face events, online webinars and other activities that promote support and collaboration among its members. The pandemic impacted on GO-GN members and the network; this research shows how the network moved from a community of practice to a community of care.

http://oro.open.ac.uk/86482/

An Ann Arbor college saved its students $10M in textbook costs - Samuel Dodge, MLive

A Washtenaw Community College program has saved students $10.1 million on textbooks since 2017. The Open Educational Resources program provides WCC students degrees or certificates that require zero cost in textbooks. Students use free OER textbooks adapted by WCC faculty or other textbook alternatives. The multi-million dollar savings for students makes college even more affordable for WCC students, WCC President Rose Bellanca said in a statement.

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/03/an-ann-arbor-college-saved-its-students-10m-in-textbook-costs.html

OU LIBRARIES GRANT INCENTIVIZES USE OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES - Addie Crawford, News9

Instructors on the University of Oklahoma's Norman campus can apply for the “Alternative Textbook Grant," which offers up to $2500 to create or adopt affordable class material. Open educational resources, learning materials in the public domain or openly licensed, can help ease students' financial burden and allow instructors to customize their course content. OU Libraries said the resources are widely available and free to use. 

https://www.news9.com/story/63f75c535b81380720a71cc1/ou-libraries-grant-incentivizes-use-of-open-educational-resources

Open Education Resources conference planned - Mountaineer News

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and the West Virginia Community and Technical College System will host the second in-person event focused on the adoption and scale of Open Education Resources across the state from April 12-14 at Embassy Suites in Charleston.

https://enews.wvu.edu/articles/2023/02/23/open-education-resources-conference-planned

The OSPRIG OER Oscars - U Oregon Open Education Week

This event, hosted by OSPIRG, will celebrate UO faculty who have adopted or authored open educational resources (OER) in their classes to help save their students money. Come learn from instructors and students about how OER have affected teaching and learning at UO, and connect with students, faculty, and library workers excited about open education.

https://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/the_osprig_oer_oscars#.ZAJgqD1MEd4

Remixing Public Domain Culture for Climate Awareness: A Creative Workshop - Mozilla Festival

Join CC's Jennryn Wetzler, Brigitte Vézina, Monica Granados, and Cable Green at "Remixing Public Domain Culture for Climate Awareness: A Creative Workshop" at Mozilla Festival to explore the interplay and alignment between open knowledge and open culture, and their roles in addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

🗓 Monday 20 March

⏰ 6:30 PM U16

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/GXJSMN-1

NMU Event Explores Open Educational Resources - Northern Michigan University

Northern Michigan University's Lydia M. Olson Library and the NMU Center for Teaching and Learning will host a panel discussion on the topic of open educational resources (OER) for faculty, graduate students, local educators and community members. The event is scheduled from 4-5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 15, in the Olson Library Atrium, with a reception to follow. The panel will serve as the kick-off event for a two-year pilot program to increase OER use on NMU's campus.  OER materials are available at little or often no cost and can be used for teaching, learning or research.

https://news.nmu.edu/nmu-event-explores-open-educational-resources

Getting to Open at a Closed Institution: A Case Study of Evolving and Sustaining Open Education Practices - Morgan, Tannis, Commonwealth of Learning

This study examined a Canadian post-secondary institution in the period between 2010 and 2014, with a follow-up assessment in 2018 in order to understand its evolution with open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP). In the first timeline, the study looked at drivers that contributed to the uptake of OER in relation to the type of OER and factors contributing to the diffusion of OER. In the second timeline, the study looked at whether OEPs are being sustained and how they evolved at the institution. Results show that within the institution there are both benefits and tensions to being open, and an institutional approach that considers openness on a case-by-case basis is appropriate. In looking at these two time periods, the study fills a gap in OER research by providing a more longitudinal view of an institutional shift towards initiating and sustaining openness.

https://oasis.col.org/items/207c8117-e6a8-429d-bf91-d3e8fe8cf8ee

e-Commons at University of Dayton

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES: CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND ENGINEERING MECHANICS

Browse the Open Educational Resources: Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Collections:

Course Notes

Drainage Design Tools

Textbook: Methods for Solving Hydraulic Networks

Training Course Notes

Urban Stormwater Management Reference Materials

https://ecommons.udayton.edu/oer_cee/

Libraries offering Open Education Resources Week workshops - WV Librariea

Open Education Week

To mark Open Education Resources Week, March 6-10, WVU Libraries has designed a series of workshops for faculty and graduate students who are interested in learning and adopting open educational practices in their teaching and/or in publishing their own OER. Attend this introductory workshop to learn more about open educational practices that  can provide you with even more strategies and approaches to remove barriers to student learning. This workshop uses a social justice approach to open education.

https://enews.wvu.edu/articles/2023/02/28/libraries-offering-open-education-resources-week-workshops

OPEN SCHOLARSHIP AT WATERLOO - University of Waterloo

Open Education Week runs March 6–10, 2023. The Open Scholarship Committee is planning several events throughout the week to profile OE projects at Waterloo, promote the open community, and highlight support that is available for the creation, adoption, and adaptation of open educational resources. These events include live presentations as well as Daily Bulletin articles.

https://uwaterloo.ca/open-scholarship/open-educational-resources/open-education-week-2023

UNM celebrates open education week - University of New Mexico

The UNM Open Educational Resources (OER) Initiative has organized a slate of exciting and informative events for Open Education Week, March 6–10, to raise awareness of current initiatives and inspire visions of how OER could develop across the UNM system and across New Mexico. Open Education Week is an annual celebration of actively sharing and learning about the latest achievements in OERs: teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others. OERs have the ability to significantly reduce student fees on textbooks thus making academic success more accessible to all. 

http://news.unm.edu/news/unm-celebrates-open-education-week

Where can I find images that are openly licensed? - UCL

Here are some places where you can find openly-licensed images; remember to check the licence for each image and provide the correct attribution if required. Information about how to correctly add attributions can be found under the 'Including attributions' section of Find and use Open Educational Resources. Contact us if you need any more help or information with this, or if you know of other sites we can add to this page.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/open-education/oer-repository/where-can-i-find-images-are-openly-licensed

Get to know Xinli Wang: Open Education at UM - University of Manitoba

While UM gets ready to celebrate our second Open Education Week (OE Week) during March 6-10, 2023, Xinli Wang, an instructor in the UM Mathematics Department, has been using Open Educational Resources (OER) teaching materials in her courses since 2019. OER are materials like textbooks that are free to use and come with licensing which allows professors to distribute and even adapt the material to suit their own teaching needs.

https://news.umanitoba.ca/get-to-know-xinli-wang-open-education-at-um/

Fostering Student Success with OER: A Conversation with Students, Faculty & Administrators - UTSA

In this UTSA Libraries & UTSA Academic Innovation sponsored panel, hear perspectives on open educational resources (OER) from a variety of UTSA stakeholders. UTSA Student Government will share the stresses of textbooks and why OER are a great fit for UTSA students. UTSA faculty will share how they are creating OER for their courses: including motivations for designing and tailoring OER for improved student engagement. Academic department chairs will share how they encourage faculty to adopt and create OER. You’ll also learn about the impact of OER adoption on DFW rates as well as platforms and support available to all UTSA faculty adopting or creating OER.

https://faculty.utsa.edu/events/fostering-student-success-with-oer-a-conversation-with-students-faculty-administrators/

UWinnipeg Library to celebrate Open Educational Week

 The University of Winnipeg Library is celebrating  from Monday, March 6 to Friday, March 10 to raise awareness and highlight innovations in open education.  OER are free, accessible, and reusable educational tools that provide increased equity and access to education. This also encourages increased innovation by allowing people at educational institutions all over the world the ability to collaborate. It also helps students save money. UWinnipeg focuses mainly on OERs, which include, but are not limited to, open textbooks.

https://news.uwinnipeg.ca/learn-about-open-educational-resources/

Sharing Innovation Practices around OER: Theory, Practice, Examples and Debates

Join us in Open Education Week on March 7th, 2023 at 14:00 – 15:30 CET to hear exciting news from the Innovation and Business Models strand of ENCORE+. 

We will be taking a look at the results of more than two years of research and networking activity, including outcomes from the OER Innovation Survey; and desk research into the essential factors relating to OER innovation. An expert panel will provide responses and reflections, and we will look ahead to a packed final year of ENCORE+ including our integration events and final conference. Come to learn more about the ways that open educational resources support innovation in teaching and learning! This event is part of a series of ENCORE+ Network events happening in March. Please find more information about the individual events, including the registration forms, through the following links: 

13th March 10:30-12:00 CET: Quality

21st March 14:30-16:00 CET: OER Technology

9th March 11:00-12:30 CET: Policies & Practice 

https://encoreproject.eu/event/innovation-and-business-models-spring-23/

Creating and Modifying Open Educational Resources - Affordable Learning Georgia

Welcome to Creating and Modifying Open Educational Resources, a chapter-by-chapter informational tutorial for USG faculty and staff interested in creating or adapting open educational resources. By the end of this tutorial, participants should have the knowledge necessary to:

Identify and create adaptable OER

Use multiple hosting and creation platforms to create new OER

Apply an appropriate open license to a newly-adapted or newly-created resources

Optimize the discoverability of newly-created OER

https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/resources/training-modules/module-1-introduction2

MIDDLESEX RECOGNIZED AS TOP 10 STATE INSTITUTION WITH OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ENROLLMENT - Middlesex Community College

The Connecticut Open Educational Resources Coordinating Council released their 2022 legislative report which names Middlesex Community College among the top 10 state colleges with students enrolled in the OER state-funded grant program. According to the council’s website, the program was implemented in 2019 “to strategically support Connecticut higher education institutions’ efforts to increase access, affordability and achievement for students through the incorporation of open educational resources (OER).” The 2022 report, released on January 31, summarizes the council’s efforts through a statewide survey on the promotion and adoption of OER in high-impact course areas, a state-funded grant program for the review, adoption and creation of OER within high impact course areas, and the promotion and support of OER through professional development opportunities.

https://mxcc.edu/middlesex-recognized-as-top-10-state-institution-with-open-educational-resources-enrollment/

OPEN AND AFFORDABLE TEACHING MATERIALS GRANT OPPORTUNITY - University of Delaware Library, Museums

Those who are teaching an upcoming course at the University of Delaware are encouraged to apply for an Open and Affordable Teaching Materials grant, offered by the UD Library, Museums and Press. The grants are designed to support course material affordability and to empower those who teach to transform their courses with open, free or existing Library-licensed materials. There are four types of grants available.

https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2023/february/open-and-affordable-teaching-materials-grant-opportunity/

CC Needs Assessment Report on Public Domain Tools in Cultural Heritage Sector Unveils Key Insights Brigitte Vézina - Brigitte Vézina, Creative Commons

This report showcases one of the many ways in which we at CC strive to support our global Open Culture community in realizing a vision for better sharing of cultural heritage: we develop and steward a legal, social, and technical infrastructure that supports open sharing that is impactful, generative, equitable and resilient. The insights gained from this report are crucial in guiding our efforts to improve the accessibility and usability of our public domain tools for the cultural heritage community. At CC, we are committed to improving our response to the needs of our global community and supporting better sharing, and the maintenance of our licenses and tools, focused on the communities they serve, takes center stage. 

https://creativecommons.org/2023/02/23/cc-needs-assessment-report-on-public-domain-tools-in-cultural-heritage-sector-unveils-key-insights/