The Open Education Initiative at UMass Amherst by Marilyn Billings
Open Educational Resources by Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education, SPARC
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
New! Fair Use Guide
Copyright, fair use and author’s rights are hot topics in higher education. The Committee on Fair Use created a new online educational guide to help clarify these important, but often confusing, issues. The guide offers links to relevant best practices and resources, as well as current information on educational opportunities here on campus.
Check out this guide if you have questions about the fair use in education or are interested in protecting your own rights when publishing your research in academic journals.
Fair Use Guide: http://guides.lib.umassd.edu/fairuse
Webinar: Fair Use Without Fear in the Academy
The Committee for Fair Use would like to invite you to a webinar made available by the Boston Library Consortium on Tuesday, February 18, 2014 from Noon – 1:30PM in the Library Room 426.
“Fair Use Without Fear in the Academy” — February 18, 2014 | 12pm ET. The third in a series of webinars focusing on open access, copyright, and fair use. Co-sponsored by ASERL, Boston Library Consortium, California Digital Library, CIC Center for Library Initiatives, Greater Western Library Alliance, Triangle Research Libraries Network, and Washington Research Library Consortium.
More information about this webinar is available here: http://bit.ly/1m5AMIB
Questions? Please email: fairuse@umassd.edu
WEBINAR: Helping Students Make Sense of Fair Use
The UMass Dartmouth Committee for Fair Use would like to invite you to a webinar made available by the Boston Library Consortium on Wednesday, January 15 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the Library, room 314.
Webinar: Helping Students make Sense of Fair Use
So if we’re confused about copyright, what about our students? How do we help them think critically about using copyrighted materials in their classroom assignments when we’re not even sure ourselves? This webinar will describe current fair use analysis and provide a framework to guide students in making sound decisions about using copyrighted material in their work.
See the full description here:
http://www.blc.org/news/webinarhelpingstudentsmakesenseoffairuse
Questions? Please email: fairuse@umassd.edu