Follett Contracts with Stony Brook University to Operate Virtual Bookstore and Campus Stores - Follett

After a national competitive bid process, Follett was chosen as the vendor that would offer the best programs and opportunities for students to save on the overall costs of course materials. Cost-saving options include a textbook rental program that saves students up to 80 percent compared to buying new books and a varied selection of ebooks and other digital learning technologies that help promote anywhere/anytime access to needed materials. Follett will also offer affordable open educational resources content and courseware by Lumen Learning. "We're excited to work with Stony Brook University to serve their students, parents, alumni, fans, faculty and staff," said Clay Wahl, President of Follett Higher Education. "Follett's focus is on providing cost-effective course material options while enhancing the Stony Brook University campus experience and driving student success. Customers can expect our campus and online stores to deliver great products and celebrate the unique spirit of the campus." http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/follett-contracts-with-stony-brook-university-to-operate-virtual-bookstore-and-campus-stores-1018987398

OPEN, a SUNY Cortland Partner, Helps P.E. Teachers Across America - SUNY Cortland

A grassroots organization of teachers helping teachers — specifically in physical education — has a key partnership with SUNY Cortland, including a number of alumni and faculty. Aaron Hart M ’99 is the executive director of OPEN, the Online Physical Education Network, a public service of BSN Sports and U.S. Games. OPEN is a free service that uses a network of 42 national trainers to provide curriculum support and professional development experiences to physical education teachers across the country. To date, OPEN, which officially launched in March 2015, has seen more than 33,000 teachers download lesson plans and resources that have reached 17.5 million students. http://www2.cortland.edu/news/detail.dot?id=57e385b0-3311-4a1c-8091-ffa18be31978

Efforts ongoing to lower textbook costs at Iowa State - K. Rambo, Iowa State Daily

Some at Iowa State are working to make textbooks more accessible for all students. Heather Dean, course materials manager at the Iowa State University Bookstore, is a three-time winner of the Excellence in Course Materials Management award from the Independent College Bookstore Association for her efforts in textbook affordability at Iowa State. Dean’s passion for textbook accessibility stems from her time as a student at Iowa State, where a textbook can run as high as $347. http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_b45034a2-2b7d-11e8-903e-0f4e039239de.html

Two UMD courses will have free online textbook access in the fall - Christine Condon, DBK News

Two University of Maryland biology courses will be among many in the University System of Maryland to offer students free online textbook access next year with the help of a system grant program. BSCI201 and 202, introductory courses in human anatomy and physiology, will use a free, open-source textbook from OpenStax beginning in the fall, said biology professor Sara Lombardi. To make the switch, university lecturers for the courses received a $1,500 grant from the Maryland Open Source Textbook initiative, which offers grants to encourage faculty to utilize open educational resources. The grants were announced March 6. http://www.dbknews.com/2018/03/14/umd-textbooks-free-open-source/

MERLOT Updated for Mobile OER Hunting - Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

MERLOT, the granddaddy of open educational resources developed by the California State University system, has entered its third decade of operation with a new facelift. The project, as always, provides a gateway to OER. But with its newest release, search functionality has been expanded and coding has been done using responsive web design to make it mobile device-friendly. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/03/15/merlot-updated-for-mobile-oer-hunting.aspx

Skyepack Harnesses Open Educational Resources to Offer College Course Material to Students for Just $35 - Henry Kronk, eLearning Inside

While traditional textbook publishers have been hiking their costs in recent years, a Purdue-affiliated company is changing that story. Skyepack works with professors to curate their educational material for their course. With the help of open educational resources, they aim to provide it to students for just $35. https://news.elearninginside.com/skyepack-open-educational-resources/

Event shows students benefits of open educational resources - Sergio Medina, San Antonio College Ranger

On small white erase boards, a question read, “What would I do with the money I had to spend on textbooks?” Using a marker, liberal arts freshman Mackensie Villareal wrote down “bought my child more school supplies and save for Christmas.” This was the scene at Alamo Open’s textbook awareness event March 7 in the courtyard west of Moody Learning Center. It was part of OER Awareness Week. The event was coordinated by Phillip Anaya, open educational resources and digital coordinator of the Alamo Colleges, and volunteer Carrie Warren. http://theranger.org/2018/03/15/event-shows-students-benefits-of-open-educational-resources/

One Example of a Nonprofit Moving to Scale through a Collaborative Network - Derrick Rhayn, Non-Profit Quarterly

Last week, the Department of Education (DOE) announced a national partnership focused on OER with the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), a California-based nonprofit whose mission is to improve the practice of continuous learning, collaboration, and change in the education sector. The partnership focuses on enhancing and expanding the #GoOpen network, an Obama administration initiative geared towards supporting “states and districts choosing to transition to the use of openly licensed educational resources to transform teaching and learning.” https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/03/16/one-example-nonprofit-moving-scale-collaborative-network/

University of Alberta Advocacy group pushing for open access educational resources - Andrew McWhinney, the Gateway

A group on campus is trying to create a world where paying for textbooks is a thing of the past. The open educational research advocacy group’s goal is to spread awareness of open educational resources (OERs) on campus. OERs are teaching materials that are freely available and published with an open license, which means they can be reused, revised, remixed, retained, and redistributed at no cost. For instructors, this means they can pick and choose elements from various places in order to create a completely customized course as opposed to relying on a textbook. https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2018/03/grp-for-open-access-ed-resour/

Open Educational Resources (OER) - UT Dallas Eugene McDermott Library

Open Educational Resources (OERs) can be defined as "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." [1] David Wiley [2] states that the framework of OERs is based on the five Rs of Openess: http://libguides.utdallas.edu/open-educational-resources

$1,200 per year on books? Open education resources offer alternatives to expensive textbooks - St. George News

Textbooks play a big part in the cost of higher education. Students pay an average of $1,200 per year on books, and expense that’s usually paid directly out-of-pocket, not with scholarships or financial aid. The cost for textbooks has risen 90 percent in 18 years. The Consumer Price Index for textbooks has increased at a higher rate than that of new home prices and medical care. The high cost of books has forced many students to reconsider purchasing the materials, even if it meant that going without the textbook could hurt their grades. https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2018/03/09/prc-open-education-resources-offer-alternatives-to-expensive-textbooks/#.WqQgrx3wbow

New Framework Offers Way to Validate OER Commitment - Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

A new report proposes a framework by which open educational resource initiatives — and particularly those promulgated by for-profit organizations — can be measured. "Toward a Sustainable OER Ecosystem: The Case for OER Stewardship" has three purposes according to its authors: to help make sure "the OER community's values can be maintained as the movement scales"; to gauge the practices of "new entrants" to the OER field (especially those out to make money from it); and to build educator confidence in participating in OER, including those who contribute their own materials and may be uncertain regarding its use by for-profit publishers. https://thejournal.com/articles/2018/03/06/new-framework-offers-way-to-validate-oer-commitment-sincerity.aspx

Free e-textbooks every student can access and afford - Myra Salcedo, Mesa Journal News

Enter Open Educational Resources (OER) and open textbooks, key online sources for free textbooks for students. As a faculty member, I would like to be paid for my work. However, if I can save even one student from dropping out of class due to the lack of affording a textbook, I will create that textbook, uncompensated. This is because I am a first-generation graduate. I left home at the age of sixteen when my family wanted me to work in retail rather than going to college. I made it. Now, I need to pay it forward. This does not mean that I will not write books for publication or compensation. It means that those books will not be textbooks. Equal education for everyone means affordable education. I am preparing to develop a free textbook, which I have been told is an arduous process. If it does not take away from my current classes, then I am ready. Some student organizations (at other universities) are offering stipends to teachers who write textbooks. https://mesajournalnews.com/5976/showcase/free-e-textbooks-every-student-can-access-and-afford/

In Search of OER’s Future and Edtech’s Missing Evidence at SXSW EDU - Jeffrey R. Young, et al, EdSurge

Monday marked day one of Open Education Week, and speakers at a panel used the opportunity to discuss the potential for open educational resources as an alternative to increasingly unaffordable textbooks—as well as the challenges and misconceptions that the open movement still faces. Panelists started by drawing attention to Austin Community College, where students are advised to budget at least $1,200—about a third of tuition costs—for textbooks. While OER was presented as one way to ease course material costs, other challenges remain, starting with understanding and awareness of what the term means. “‘Open’ is not the same thing as digital,” said Nicole Allen, director of open education at SPARC, an academic coalition that advocates for open sharing and resources. “And open doesn’t only mean ‘free.’” https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-03-05-in-search-of-oer-s-future-and-edtech-s-missing-evidence-at-sxsw-edu

Five examples of how higher education is changing with technology - Business and Finance

Both inside and outside of Ireland universities are experimenting with handheld and mobile computing, earning badges before degrees, game-based learning and virtual reality. Technology is changing all parts of the university experience, from the way students are reached during recruiting, how they fill out their forms when enrolling, and once on campus (or not) how assessments are conducted and the way they sign on and access resources in the library 24/7. Open educational resources are helping to take this level of robust resource to the underserved parts of the world. All these are in line with UNESCO guidelines aimed at helping the world’s populations move from exclusion to empowerment, a set of values always held by the Irish as well. https://businessandfinance.com/guest-blog-five-examples-higher-education-changing-with-technology/

Teaching and learning workshops focus on resources to help students save money on their education - U Calgary

Oopen educational resources (OERs) are getting attention on campuses around the world and here at the University of Calgary. OERs are peer-reviewed academic content that has been made available via an open licence, such as a Creative Commons License, and which are useful for teaching, learning and assessment. “Everything is going digital, I do think this is the future of education,” says Ykje Piera, learning technologies specialist and open educational resources lead at UCalgary. Piera is involved with the university’s OER pilot project and has seen a lot of interest from instructors: “The academic community is buying in. There was no shortage of applications for the pilot project. There is lots of enthusiasm for projects.” https://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2018-03-01/teaching-and-learning-workshops-focus-resources-help-students-save-money-their

Red Hat Honors Instructors Who Champion Open Source Education

For the second year, Red Hat is honoring the work of higher education instructors who are committed to teaching the open source development process to their students. The majority of honorees are past participants in Professor’s Open Source Software Experience (POSSE). Launched by Red Hat in 2009, POSSE is a cultural immersion in the tools and practices of open source communities, designed for instructors looking for ways to bring their students into active participation in those communities. These workshops are made possible through National Science Foundation grants awarded to Drexel University, Nassau Community College and Western New England University, and by Teaching Open Source, a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Corporations such as Red Hat and Google provide support through Teaching Open Source and their participation in POSSE workshops, which are co-taught by members of the academic and open source communities. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180228005098/en/Red-Hat-Honors-Instructors-Champion-Open-Source

A Guide to Good OER Stewardship - Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

Interest in open educational resources -- freely accessible and openly licensed learning materials -- is booming. But while OER’s growing popularity with faculty members has delighted supporters, it has also attracted the attention of commercial publishers. Macmillan Learning, Cengage, Pearson and McGraw-Hill have all recently introduced products that incorporate open educational resources into platforms that also include proprietary material. The development of these products has sparked concern among some OER advocates, who question whether OER that you pay to access is really still open. But publishers say they are adding value by making it easy for faculty members to adopt OER, by helping them find the best content and enhancing it with supplementary materials such as homework and exam questions. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/03/05/advocates-develop-framework-stewardship-open-educational

Geneseo uses funding to investigate more digital educational opportunities - Malachy Dempsey, the Lamron

As the administration attempts to further the Geneseo Strategic Plan 2021, faculty and staff have explored methods to implement more digital learning tools. Members of the college community have embraced such moves with open, but cautionary feelings. With funding from the first stage of the Strategic Plan, Assistant to the Provost for Digital Learning and Scholarship and professor of English Paul Schacht has spearheaded digital learning in various areas. The office is working with Milne Library to help professors understand and utilize online resources, Library Director Ben Rawlins said. The funding will also allow certain faculty members to study how other colleges approach the digital world, according to a Feb. 15 news posting on the college’s website. https://www.thelamron.com/posts/2018/3/1/geneseo-uses-funding-to-investigate-more-digital-educational-opportunities

Growing textbook prices a problem on the rise - Molly Browning, Pasquino

For some college students, textbook prices are a heavy weight that they can’t always afford. Potomac State College business student, Zoe Sypolt, stated she budgets $500-$1,000 for her text books each year. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the price of textbooks has risen from January 1977 to June 2015 by a 1,041 percent increase. https://pscpasquino.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/growing-textbook-prices-a-problem-on-the-rise/

‘Z-degree’ gives students textbooks for free - MAURA LERNER, STAR TRIBUNE

At Minnesota state colleges, students spend an average of $1,000 a year on textbooks alone. But in Brainerd, they can earn a two-year degree without paying a penny for books. Central Lakes College has joined a growing national movement to ditch pricey textbooks in favor of material that can be found online for free. This semester, it launched one of the state’s first “Z-degrees,” meaning that all the required readings—in this case, for an associate of arts degree—are available at zero cost to students. https://www.ecampusnews.com/campus-administration/z-degree-gives-students-textbooks-free/