Open Access (OA) is a publishing model that values access over commercialization and makes scholarly material like research articles and books available to the public at no cost. International Open Access Week (October 21 – 27, 2024) is a time to recognize the importance of OA and to raise awareness. When information is readily available to all researchers, it can be more widely read, cited, and expanded. Are you interested in learning more about Open Access and breaking down paywalls? Consider attending these OA Week webinars hosted in Massachusetts:
This workshop is tailored for faculty members who are new to Open Educational Resources (OER) and are curious about how these free and openly licensed materials can enhance their teaching.
This 30-minute webinar will explain why ‘Open’ is crucial to the definition of ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER), permitting OER’s use for truly innovative pedagogy.
Every year, in the month of March, there is a week-long global recognition of the importance of Open Education. Its goal is to raise awareness about the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. Open Education Global promotes events on an international scale to increase knowledge of Open Educational Resources (OER) and other topics within Open Education. Hopefully you will have a chance to participate in some of these opportunities, and you may consider the following events offered by Massachusetts state colleges and universities, including a panel to be held here at UMass Dartmouth.
The ROTEL Grant Project Team has partnered with Rebus Community to offer five (5) online webinars of approximately 1 hour each per year on topics related to Open Educational Resources (OER). The following professional development opportunities are available courtesy of the ROTEL federally funded open textbook project and the OER Professional Development Committee. Please share these monthly virtual sessions broadly with your OER community and others you wish to have join your OER community. These virtual sessions are intended to enhance the skills and knowledge of those who are currently adopting/adapting/creating OER resources. However, these sessions will also be useful for those who wish to adopt/adapt OER materials. All sessions will be recorded.
Once you have registered, you will receive a Zoom link one week prior to the workshop.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Publishing
Friday, February 23, 2024 | 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM ET
In this session, we’ll discuss how Rebus’ open publishing differs from traditional models by keeping diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind throughout the production cycle. Working with the principles of DEI is critical to creating valuable resources, and can have impacts beyond improving the quality of the OER. We’ll highlight how creators in Massachusetts have adopted this approach in their projects.
OER & Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Friday, March 8, 2024 (Open Education Week) | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching that asks us to make our classrooms accessible from the start. While doing so can be fairly time intensive, the rewards make it worthwhile. UDL is a key approach to help us achieve the goal of greater inclusion in our teaching, especially with OER. At this session, we will explore the basics of UDL and how OER can help us make strides towards inclusive, innovative teaching and learning experiences.
With the shift to digital learning in online classrooms, we are reminded about the potential OER can provide to better engage with our students. This session will introduce H5P, a free tool that lets you create interactive content for your textbooks. We’ll look at the range of content types in H5P, see examples from published textbooks, and highlight other tools you can use to make dynamic OER.
Accessibility and OER
Friday, April 19, 2024 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET
One of the major goals of the open education movement is to ensure that learning materials are available and usable widely. Accessibility can be a barrier to widespread OER use and adoption, and is often an afterthought to many textbook publishers. In this session, we’ll explain what we mean by accessibility, remediation, and the work this entails. We’ll provide a set of small but simple ways for you to ensure that your learning materials meet accessibility standards
Creating OER with Students
Friday, May 17, 2024 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET
Student voices need to be central in OER projects, especially considering that they are the final users of these materials. In this session, we will showcase a range of OER that have been co-created with students. We will consider the following questions: Where can students join the publishing process? What conversations around ownership, copyright, licensing need to be had? How can this experience be enriching for students?