OER Digest - July 11, 2019
From Mo Nyamweya, SPARC | Volume 85 | July 11th, 2019With 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 into law, providing funding to establish the Connecticut Open Educational Resource Coordinating Council as part of the Executive Department. Meanwhile, Virginia’s HB 2380 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 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.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 or via email.
OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: BCcampus is now accepting proposals 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, Annie Johnson’s survey on open textbooks and university presses, and Hilary Miller’s resource on outreach for inclusive open education. Check out the full cohort’s work here.APPLY NOW: Applications for this year’s Open Education Policy Forum, taking place in Warsaw on October 7th-8th, are now open. 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 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 >>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 >>
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”, 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 | Richmond Times-Dispatch
- An Open Invitation | Inside Higher Ed
Interesting to Consider >>
- Most 20th Century Books Unavailable to Internet Users – We Can Fix That | Internet Archive Blogs
- 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 l Philadelphia Inquirer
Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com, or tweet us @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.