Penn State Lehigh Valley holds second annual Open and Affordable Showcase - Sara Karnish, Penn State Lehigh Valley

A growing number of Penn State Lehigh Valley (PSU-LV) faculty have incorporated open and affordable educational resources (OER) into their classroom instruction. Their commitment to utilizing OER and the many benefits it offers students was the focus of the second annual Open and Affordable Showcase at PSU-LV. The one-day conference celebrated open education work happening on campus and offered professional development opportunities for faculty and staff interested in OER, open pedagogy and more. The event was sponsored by the campus library and Academic Affairs.

https://www.psu.edu/news/lehigh-valley/story/penn-state-lehigh-valley-holds-second-annual-open-and-affordable-showcase/

2021 FL OER Conference - U Texas

Online in Zoom:

The Open Language Resource Center (OLRC) at the University of Kansas and the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) at the University of Texas at Austin hosted the first annual Foreign Language OER Conference on Saturday, March 6, 2021. The goal of the conference was to provide a venue to showcase large-scale foreign language OER and to exchange information on topics related to OER production and adoption. View the schedule here, including video links and abstracts

http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/event/2021-fl-oer-conference

Brock grants aim to enhance teaching, cut student costs - Douglas Hunt, Brock University

A new grant is enhancing academic flexibility for instructors while cutting course costs for students. The Open Educational Resources (OER) Adoption Grant program is funded by the Brock University Students’ Union (BUSU) and is distributed to instructors who have incorporated OER into their courses. OER are teaching, learning and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright but have been released under an open licence. OER may be freely reused, revised, remixed, retained and redistributed.

https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2023/05/brock-grants-aim-to-enhance-teaching-cut-student-costs/

Thomas College receives $20K grant from New England Board of Higher Education to expand awareness of open educational resources for students - BDN Community

In an effort to bring awareness of cost savings for students through Open Educational Resources, the New England Board of Higher Education has selected Thomas College to receive an Open Education Course Marking Grant. This new 15-month initiative will support institutions in the expansion of student awareness and use of no-cost learning materials. Thomas College is one of only four institutions in New England to receive the award.

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2023/05/23/bdn-maine/thomas-college-receives-20k-grant-from-new-england-board-of-higher-education-to-expand-awareness-of-open-educational-resources-for-students/

Inclusive Initiatives: Equitable Access with OER - Macalester

A team of Macalester faculty and staff is focused on identifying solutions for this broad problem. They’ve learned that open educational resources (OER) could provide some relief—and help shape a more inclusive learning model. “Through our research so far, we’ve found that a number of faculty are already doing all sorts of things to mitigate costs for students,” says Angi Faiks, Library director. “OER can put the power back into the hands of the teacher and the students. It shifts the balance of power from ‘here is the textbook from which you must teach’ to piecing things together, creating new resources, rethinking materials. It offers a more co-created and inclusive way of teaching.”

https://www.macalester.edu/news/2023/05/inclusive-initiatives-equitable-access-with-oer/

Open Educational Resources - Kennesaw State University

OER range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation (UNESCO, 2018). Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) is a USG initiative to promote student success by supporting the implementation of affordable alternatives to expensive commercial textbooks, particularly OER.

https://radow.kennesaw.edu/academic-innovation/development/resources.php

Textbook Mavericks Honorees 2023: Greg Morin, Angelika Stout, and the lecturers of Marketing 3200: Business Communications - University of Nebraska Omaha Libraries

The 2022-2023 school year saw several major milestones in the adoption of affordable content at University of Nebraska Omaha and the University of Nebraska system. System-wide, university affordable content programs achieved, ahead of schedule, the initial goals set forth when the Open Nebraska (ONE) initiative was launched in 2019. At the time, the goal was to save University of Nebraska students $10 million by the 2023-2024 school year through the adoption of no-cost and low-cost materials. As of Fall 2022, that figure reached $13 million.

https://www.unomaha.edu/criss-library/news/2023/05/textbook-mavericks-honorees-announced.php

Popular YouTuber's Math Videos Added to Digital Textbooks - Aaron Gifford, Government Technology

Nonprofit OpenStax, which makes free online learning materials, has partnered with tutoring firm Scalar Learning. Enhanced algebra and trigonometry books featuring YouTuber Huzefa Kapadia will be out soon. At his full-time job, Huzefa Kapadia spends about 60 hours a week helping Southern California high school students understand polynomials, radicals and quadratic functions. But globally, he’s more known for producing videos that simplify difficult math concepts, amassing more than 7.5 million views and 68,000 subscribers on his Scalar Learning YouTube channel. Those online videos will be incorporated into an existing OpenStax digital textbook collection, which spans from basic algebra to calculus. The first batch, algebra and trigonometry textbooks, are slated for updates by the end of this summer, according to a May 4 news release.

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/popular-youtubers-math-videos-added-to-digital-textbooks

LibreTexts: Free the Textbook

All Libretexts libraries are accessible to everyone via the internet, completely free. We believe everyone should have access to knowledge. The libraries are part of a huge network that provides not just single textbooks, but an infinitely large library through which new texts can be developed & shared. Always up to date, the Libretexts platform ensures consistency, the newest info available, and allows instructors to fine tune a project for their needs.

https://libretexts.org/

OER @ TDL | Planning Your Academic Year - Texas Digital Library

Texas Digital Library invites anyone who works with, advocates for, or is interested in open education to join us for our next OER @ TDL meet-up. Event details are below. In honor of all the color-coded calendar fanatics, day-planner devotees, BuJo™ buffs – and everyone in between – Texas Digital Library invites leaders from our OER Community to share their approaches to planning OER activities for the academic year. Following presentations, we will invite guests to share their own calendars / planning tools as well as reserve ample time for Q&A at an open forum.

https://www.tdl.org/event/oer-2023-07/

OER and AL$ @ Sacramento State University Library

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free online teaching and learning materials. They include videos, textbooks, quizzes, learning modules and more. Contact the Publishing & Scholarship Support Team or your subject librarian for information on OER materials for your classes and subject area. CSU's Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) is a program that enables faculty to choose and provide more affordable, quality educational content for their students. By reducing CSU student course material expenses, more students acquire the educational resources they need to succeed at CSU. With AL$, faculty and students have greater access to quality free and lower cost learning materials through a variety of programs and partnerships.

https://library.csus.edu/oer-als

Call for submissions: Contribute to an OER English anthology - ALA

In a collaborative effort, the nonprofit Quabbin Quills, faculty from Quinebaug Valley Community College, and the Connecticut Open Educational Resources are seeking submissions for English composition essays to be published as OER/Open Access resources in an online anthology for faculty and students worldwide. Help us create a collection of excellently written nonfiction essays, including work that fits the traditional modes or patterns of discourse - narrative, exemplification, definition, compare and contrast, classification, argument and persuasion - as well as creative non-fiction, literary analysis, and literacy narrative. Essays should be focused on the following topics: technology, food, social justice, family, gender, work, and culture.

https://connect.ala.org/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=c4c951ee-fbca-4afa-9024-a71f5a886e54&CommunityKey=927d02c1-673b-4e91-9911-8fdf8dc3407f

Open Ed Reader - OER Research Hub

The OER Research Hub is a UK-based organization connected to the Open University that gathers and analyzes research on the impact of OER. In keeping with the philosophy of open, they believe that you should not hide your research questions but you should be open so others can help find answers to your questions. The OER Research Hub was funded by the Hewlett Foundation.

https://openedreader.org/openedreader/oer-research-hub

Pathway to Adult Basic Education - BC Campus

There has been incredible work across British Columbia around the development of certificates, diplomas, associate degrees, and degrees that rely solely on open educational resources (OER) and other free materials for enrolled students in an effort to save them money. These credentials have been named Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) programs. From 2018 to 2020, we focused on the adaptation and creation of a wide range of Adult Basic Education (ABE) open educational resources that are aligned with the subjects and levels outlined in the ABE Articulation Handbook [PDF]. The resources are organized below based on their level within the ABE program.

https://bccampus.ca/projects/archives/pathway-to-adult-basic-education/

A responsive approach to OER - RUANDA GARTH-MCCULLOUGH, RICHARD SEBASTIAN AND STACEY SOUTHER, Community College Daily

There’s a growing consensus that the use of open educational resources (OER) has reached a turning point. Spurred by the shift to online learning during the pandemic and ongoing efforts by states, institutions, philanthropies and individual faculty members to make learning materials more accessible, affordable and responsive to students’ experiences and needs, nearly one in four instructors (22%) used OER in fall 2022, up nearly fivefold since 2016.

https://www.ccdaily.com/2023/05/a-responsive-approach-to-oer/

Copyright and the role for Creative Commons licences - Open Learn

When deciding what materials to use in teaching and learning, it is essential to understand which licence applies and how you can use each resource. When a piece of creative work such as an image, video or textbook is produced, the creator of the work has certain legal rights. These are intended to protect the rights of the creator and, as a consequence, restrict the ability of others to use or reuse that material without seeking permission from the creator. This is known as copyright, and it applies automatically to all works unless the creator chooses otherwise.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=135544&section=3

Book Review: Using Open Educational Resources to promote social justice. Association of College and Research Libraries. - Vivian Chin,The International Journal of Information, Diversity, &Inclusion

Using  Open  Educational  Resources  to  Promote  Social  Justiceoffers  substantial  discussions regarding usingOER  in  the  service  of information equity.  It  is  refreshing  to  note  that contributors are internationalfromcountries in Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. This text  is helpful for  educators  thinking about  adopting  OER for the  first time andthose who  are  seasoned  in  their  use. Ivory and Pashia’stext  encourages  intellectual  curiosity  in readers to consider how Open Education Resources can live up to its name.

https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/ijidi/article/view/40095/31439

Pricey college textbooks next on AI’s hit list? Professor says ChatGTP could replace them - WFIN

AI software like ChatGPT could be used to replace some university textbooks, transforming higher education and demanding a greater focus on critical thinking, a college professor told Fox News. “Certainly for an introductory undergraduate course, ChatGPT could be used to produce excellent course materials,” said Terence Day, a geography professor at Okanagan College in British Columbia. “Essentially, it could substitute for a textbook.”

https://wfin.com/fox-technology-news/pricey-college-textbooks-next-on-ais-hit-list-professor-says-chatgtp-could-replace-them/

Showcase your skills through short videos and win prizes - the Hindu

This online skills competition seeks to create awareness of the growing importance of skills in today’s world Skillfest 2023 brings together participants from eight Asian Commonwealth countries, including India, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka. The competition is open to anyone between 11 and 65 years from these countries either as an individual or as a team of three. The last date to share the videos is May 15; the winners receive cash prizes and certificates, and their videos will be included in CEMCA’s Open Educational Resources (OER) repository.

https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/skillfest-2023-showcase-your-skills-through-short-videos-and-win-prizes/article66803178.ece

Paola Corti, Open Education Community Manager of the European Network of Open Education Librarians

Paola Corti is the Open Education Community Manager of the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) and she supports librarians in taking action to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendation. She is also a project manager in METID – Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Paola has been working in distance learning since 1998. She has been a passionate advocate for Open Education (OE) since 2016 developing MOOCs and OER in Politecnico di Milano. She is also an experienced and keen OER teacher and trainer. Paola has the CC certificate for Educators and CC Certificate for Facilitators to help others make open educational resources more reusable. Paola’s work tries to link social justice and Open Education. She helps bridge the gap between educators and librarians in achieving more open access to education.

https://awards.oeglobal.org/about/2022-committee-members/paola-corti/

LASU Trains Staff on Open Educational Resources

Addressing the 30 trainees drawn from sections of the university, including academic and non-academic staff, Prof Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello said it has become imperative for the institution to adapt its practices to embrace hybrid teaching methods because of its many advantages, one of which is the opportunity it provides for workers to gain an education. Olatunji-Bello added, “Truth be told, given the complexity of today’s globalised economy and its demands on employees, physical learning may be obsolete for many prospective students who desire access to quality education without the constraints of physical learning.” She said the university had committed huge resources to digitalise her teaching and learning process to actualise the vision of becoming the best in West Africa, adding that the OER training will go a long way in strengthening that drive.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2023/04/26/lasu-trains-staff-on-open-educational-resources/

Celebration of Open Educational Resources (OER) at LaGuardia Community College

Join us for a celebration of LaGuardia's OER initiatives, documentation of the progress that has been made, and a look into the potentialities for the future.

Talks by:

OER Coordinator from CUNY Central on OER across CUNY.

Faculty in the Natural Science and Mathematics, Engineer, and Computer Science Departments who have developed OER over the last six years.

Prof. Ian McDermott of the LaGuardia CC Library on supporting OER throughout the college.

Professors from the English Department and the First Year Seminar Program on OER implementation.

Come celebrate OER and equity in education with us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibvZASEwUJw

OER 101: The Basics - York University

On Wednesday, March 27, 2019, York University Libraries hosted an introductory workshop on open education for faculty, librarians, educational developers, and students. This event was generously sponsored by eCampusOntario. This Google Drive folder provides access to all of the materials from the presentation. 

https://researchguides.library.yorku.ca/OER

Open Educational Resources Toolkit - Open Rose Libraries

This toolkit from the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, provides information and tools to help faculty and library staff to understand, engage with, and sustain OER in their work and practice.  "Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open licence, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others."

https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/oertoolkit/home

The future of open educational resources - JAMES GLAPA-GROSSKLA AND UNA DALY, College Daily

Saying that it’s time for open educational resources (OER) is almost a truism in higher education. The percentage of faculty across all sectors of U.S. higher education who say they use OER for their introductory classes increased from 6% in 2017 to 22% in 2022. At the 2018 Open Education conference, it was announced that OER had saved students over the past decade a collective $1 billion. Beyond this jaw-dropping number, every dollar that a student does not spend with a commercial publisher located outside their community is a dollar that they can spend in their local community.

https://www.ccdaily.com/2023/04/the-future-of-open-educational-resources/

Leadership Tech Cohort Five Completes Program - Arkansas Tech University

Members of Leadership Tech cohort five presented their innovation projects to benefit Arkansas Tech University and graduated from the program during an event at Chambers Cafeteria West Dining Room on Friday, April 21.   ”I want to thank you for your commitment to the program,” said Dr. Robin E. Bowen, ATU president, following the innovation project presentations. “I know this is a huge time commitment in addition to all of the other things you already have on your plate. We really appreciate you participating in this program, furthering yourself and furthering the university.”

https://www.arkansastechnews.com/leadership-tech-cohort-five-completes-program/

AAC&U Suggests Ways to Align Open Educational Resources and DEI Goals Jon Edelman, Diverse-

Open educational resources (OER)—learning materials, such as online textbooks, with licenses that allow them to be freely used, edited, and shared—are natural tools for achieving DEI goals. OER are free, demolishing the cost barrier that prevents some underserved students from getting more traditional textbooks. But the benefits go beyond the financial. OER can be revised and expanded, allowing students to incorporate their perspectives about subjects that affect them. Students can even make sure that the images in an OER represent them by contributing their own. However, although OER and DEI are aligned, the people responsible for their implementation on campus often aren’t.

https://www.diverseeducation.com/reports-data/article/15383710/aacu-suggests-ways-to-align-open-educational-resources-and-dei-goals

The potential of open education resources - Kamran Kardan, Research Information

OERs are here to stay. But the rate of OER adoption, quality, accessibility, discoverability, standardisation, sustainability, and inclusivity very much lies in the hands of you and I: participants in the collaborative community of publishers, institutions, educators, learners, and policy makers. If there ever was a ‘team-effort’ required in the industry, this is it. After more than 20 years working with top consortia, libraries, ministries, hospitals, and corporations within research and education, I have never been more excited. The industry is immersed in an influx of discourse and innovation across the entire educational spectrum.

https://www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opinion/potential-open-education-resources

How digital libraries are raising awareness about climate change -Tarun Arora, Governance Now

The Climate Change Resource Center, launched by the US Department of Agriculture, is another digital library that has played a critical role in providing access to information about climate change. The digital library provides access to a wide range of climate-related resources, including webinars, publications, and data sets. They have also enabled the creation of open educational resources (OERs). OERs have the potential to democratize access to education and make environmental education more accessible to people who may not have access to traditional educational resources.

http://www.governancenow.com/views/columns/how-digital-libraries-are-raising-awareness-about-climate-change

U.S. Education Department Awards COC $3M Title V Grant - COLLEGE OF THE CANYONS

Beginning October 2023, the five-year grant will provide the college with funding to support Hispanic students pursuing STEM degrees through a multi-faceted approach of redesigning Open Educational Resources (OER) with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) elements, providing student counseling and support services, as well as increasing the availability of MESA-type services.

https://scvnews.com/u-s-education-department-awards-coc-3m-title-v-grant/

Use open educational resources to hit DEI goals, AAC&U says - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive

Colleges can use open educational resources, or OER, to meet their diversity, equity and inclusion goals, according to a report released Thursday by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Students engage more when they are able to see people who share their backgrounds represented in course materials, the report said. OER — resources that are either in the public domain or have been licensed to allow people to rework and share them freely — allow educators to individualize materials they use in the classroom. The report is meant to act as a guidebook for institutions interested in making their coursework more inclusive and diversifying the sources from which students learn, AAC&U said.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/open-educational-resources-dei-goals-aacu/648195/