OER Digest – October 23, 2025
Gabby Hernandez (SPARC) | Volume 196 | October 23, 2025
THE OER DIGEST
Your monthly newsletter for open education updates, opportunities, and reminders
The OER Digest marked its 10th anniversary with a reflection from its founder Ethan Senack. Building on that legacy, the next phase of the Digest will continue to strengthen connections across the open education community. The Open Education Association Development Project is building a space to help the community discover what’s happening across the open education field, and the Digest will be part of that vision. In December, the Digest will relaunch as the OE Digest and will continue to deliver the same trusted updates you’ve relied on for the past decade. Thank you for being part of this journey!
OPEN CONNECTIONS
Conferences, jobs, and other OER-related opportunities
CONFERENCE: Last call to register for the 2025 Open Education Conference! This hybrid event is next week, October 28-30 in Denver, CO and online. Don't miss out on your chance to learn about the latest research, best practices, and innovations from across the open education field.
OPPORTUNITY: Open Education Conference is accepting self-nominations for candidates to serve on the Conference Board. Anyone who identifies as a member of the conference community is eligible to run for a two-year term. The deadline to self-nominate is November 14th. Learn more.
JOB OPPORTUNITY: The Open Education Network is currently accepting applications for an Executive Director. This position is responsible for providing strategic leadership, management, and oversight of OEN program activities, while establishing and maintaining key relationships with external partners, members, and UMN colleagues. Learn more and apply today!
JOB OPPORTUNITY: Ball State University Libraries is hiring a Senior Director of Digital Scholarship and Scholarly Communication. The listing is open for applications until November 10, 2025 and you can find the application here.
JOB OPPORTUNITY: Are you looking for a new opportunity to be innovative in supporting open scholarship? If yes, you may want to apply for the Open Scholarship Librarian position at Florida International University Libraries! Candidates are encouraged to apply to Job Opening ID 536207 at https://careers.fiu.edu/.
JOB OPPORTUNITY: The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) consortium is seeking applications for an Affordable Learning Librarian to join their team. This position supports the collaborative PALSave Affordable Learning Program and is grant-funded through June 30, 2029. View the full posting here.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Mark your calendar for the 8th annual OERizona Conference happening February 19 -20, 2026. The Call for Proposals is open and you are invited to share your unique experiences and ideas relating to the conference theme “Surviving and Thriving”. The call for proposals deadline is November 16, 2025.
STAY UP TO DATE: The Open Education Association Development project A set of resources to help make things easier to day up to date with open education conferences, webinars, and opportunities. Visit their Resources page to learn more!
STORIES FROM THE FIELD
Quick snapshots of those making change on the ground level, and those impacted
From the World: In an exciting OEGlobal Live show on Friday, October 17, the OEGlobal Award Winners were announced. These awards were selected through a rigorous selection process from a rich field of 193 nominations representing 42 countries. The 2025 Review Committee carefully pruned the nominees to a shortlist of 48. Read More>>
From Colorado: The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) announced that the Open Educational Resources Council will embark on an OER roadshow to higher education institutions across the state over the next several months. OER are no-cost educational materials that permit free re-use, remixing and sharing. Colorado students have saved more than $70 million in textbook costs since 2019 as a result of Colorado’s OER program. Read More >>
HOT OFF THE PRESS
Each edition, we highlight an interesting, new, openly-licensed resource
From Compliance to CoRegulation: Revisioning Guidance and Behavior Management to Support Children’s Social and Emotional Development within Classroom Communities by Sara E. Miller, Leslie La Croix, Kimberly Sanders Austin, Christine Pegorraro Schull, and Marianne Pegorraro Durocher is an open textbook that reimagines classroom management by shifting from compliance-based approaches to collaborative, community-driven strategies. This textbook celebrates the unique strengths that children bring to early childhood spaces and shows how educators can work collaboratively to help all children successfully engage within these communities.
An Introduction to Geospatial Thinking and Open Source GIS by Jennifer Moore is a beginner’s guide to understanding geospatial concepts and tools, and is intended to provide a flexible, open, and timeless resource for geospatial thinking and open-source geographic information systems (GIS). The OER was published by WashU Libraries in partnership with the DI2 Accelerator Award for Open Educational Resources.
WEIGH IN
Great reads to repost or share and interesting discussions to consider
Maricopa Community Colleges save students $270M in textbooks | Scottsdale Independent
Breaking the old model of education with MIT Open Learning | MIT News
Curriculum Development with OER | University at Buffalo (UB) Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation
Have suggestions for the next edition? Let us know at oerdigest@gmail.com.
The OER Digest is a public newsletter distributed to a broad group of stakeholders across the higher education community. Subscribe here.