2nd Annual Northeast Regional OER Summit

Northeast Regional OER Summit LogoYou are invited to attend the 2nd Annual Northeast Regional OER Summit at University of Massachusetts Amherst on May 31 – June 1, 2018. This 2-day event is part of a multi-state collaboration for open education in the northeast region.

The conference welcomes new and experienced OER (open educational resources) advocates  offering the opportunity to learn and share effective practices in awareness building, implementation, collaboration, strategy, and research.

Visit the Northeast Regional OER Summit site for conference details, including registration, costs, schedule, and more.

OER with Shannon L. Jenkins

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Did you know nearly 60% of all students do not purchase a textbook at some point in time?
The National Association of College Stores (NACS) says the average college student will spend $655 on textbooks each year, but with a single textbook easily costing as much as $300, that total can easily be much higher. In fact, the College Board puts the annual cost of books and materials at $1,168 as noted by Tyler Kingkade of the Huffington Post. Open Educational Resources (OER) are an opportunity for decreasing these costs for our students.

A lunchtime discussion with guest speaker Shannon L. Jenkins, Associate Professor of Political Science and Department Chairperson where we explore the teaching and learning benefits of incorporating these OER instructional materials. Information on how to get started using OER and creating your own OER is also presented. Click the video below to watch.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/hmF81E_KSps[/youtube]

What is OER?

The Hewlitt Foundation (Hewlitt.org) defines OER as:

“OER are 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 re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge”.

We’ve changed our name….

The Fair Use Committee is now called Scholarly Communications.

The Scholarly Communications Committee is a group of librarians and instructional technology staff who are interested in educating its members and the academic community on guidelines and best practices in copyright and fair use, open access publishing, author’s rights, and open educational resources.

Webinar: Open Textbook Initiatives

Please join us for the following webinar offered by NISO (National Information Standards Organization) and sponsored by the UMass Dartmouth Fair Use Committee.

Wednesday, September 17th
1-2:30
Library Viewing room, Room 314

This webinar will focus on the efforts to make textbooks electronically available under free open copyright licenses as part of the broader open educational resources movement.

Topics:

The Library Publishing Landscape for E-Textbooks
This presentation explores the current landscape for academic libraries’ involvement in publishing e-textbooks, focusing on the Open Access textbook pilot project currently in place between OSU Libraries and Press and the OSU Extended Campus. Participants will learn about challenges and gain some takeaways to assist in investigating their own partnerships.

Student-Funded Textbook Initiative at Kansas State University
For two years, the Student Governing Association at Kansas State University has been the primary funder of the Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative. This project awards stipends up to $5,000 to K-State faculty to develop an alternative to the traditional print textbook. To date, awards totaling $96,250 have been made. Over the next year, it is projected that over 12,000 students in 20 courses will not have to buy textbooks in these courses saving students nearly $1,000,000. Of course, every year each open textbook continues to be used these numbers will increase incrementally. This presentation will cover student/library funding of the project, faculty/library collaboration in the initial proposal and initiative, assessment goals, and more recently, interest in the initiative on the part of the president and provost of the university.

Using Open Resources to Expand Access to Education
Boundless began by offering students affordable textbooks created from open educational resources, helping students save money. Today, the company has grown to serve the entire educational ecosystem by curating, creating, and publishing a range of open content. Using open licensing allows Boundless to serve everyone from students to educators to authors by making it simple to access, share, and customize the resources within its platform. This presentation will discuss the benefits of using open licenses in expanding access to education.

Webinar: Electronic Textbooks: Plug in and Learn

Please join us for the following webinar offered by NISO (National Information Standards Organization) and sponsored by the UMass Dartmouth Fair Use Committee.

Webinar: Electronic Textbooks: Plug in and Learn

Wednesday, September 10th from 1-2:30 in the Library Viewing room, rm 314

This webinar explores the notion of just what an electronic textbook is. Are e-textbooks an interactive “courseware” website, an application for mobile devices and tablets, or self-contained digital files? Or is there a place for all of these and if so, how do they fit together and combine with a course syllabus?

Topics and speakers are:

Advocating for Change: Open Textbooks and Affordability – Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education, Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

Open Your Books and Turn to Page 10: Getting Students to Use Their E-Textbooks – Reggie Cobb, Biology Instructor, Nash Community College

A Proof of Concept Initiative: The Internet2/EDUCAUSE Etextbook Pilots – Monica Metz-Wiseman, Coordinator of Electronic Collections, University of South Florida Libraries