SPARC Open Education 101 Series

SPARC is a nonprofit advocacy organization that supports open systems for research and education that enable everyone to benefit from shared knowledge. SPARC advocates for Open Educational Resources (OER) and will host an informative webinar series on OER this summer. The sessions are geared toward a broad audience of librarians, teachers, instructional designers, and anyone else interested in learning more about free teaching materials. More details and contact information can be found on the SPARC website, and a list of the sessions and their descriptions is included below:

Session 1: Open Education Foundations

August 13 from 2–3 p.m. EDT / 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PDT [register here]

This session will provide a broad introduction to open education, including its core principles, key terms, and historical development. We’ll discuss how open education connects to related movements such as open access and open science, and highlight its potential to remove barriers and expand opportunities for both students and educators. Participants will leave with a strong foundational understanding to support further learning, along with awareness of key tools and resources.

Session 2: Open Education in Practice

August 28 from 2–3 p.m. EDT / 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PDT [register here]

This session will introduce key aspects of putting open education into practice. Topics will include how to find, create, and adapt open educational resources (OER), the foundations of open pedagogy, and how various colleges and universities are supporting open education through campus programs. Participants will leave with practical examples and starting points to apply in their own teaching, library work, or institutional setting.

Session 3: Open Education in the Current Moment

September 10 from 2–3 p.m. EDT / 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PDT [register here]

This session will explore how open education intersects with major trends shaping higher education today. Topics will include shifts in course material billing models (e.g., “Inclusive Access”), the rise of artificial intelligence, and growing areas such as microcredentials and workforce readiness. Participants will leave with ideas for situating open education within these broader conversations and advancing it more strategically on campus.

Session 4: FAQs: Answering Common Questions about Open Education

September 25 from 2–3 p.m. EDT / 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PDT [register here]

This session will take on the real-world questions that come up when open education is introduced on campus. Where do I find OER? How do I know if it’s high quality? We address these and other practical concerns raised by faculty, students, and administrators, including those submitted by participants in earlier sessions. Participants will leave with effective answers to common questions, evidence to back it up, and advocacy tips to apply in their own context.

Image shows words related to Open Educational Resources

International Open Access Week 2024

Cross-posted from the Claire T. Carney Library Blog

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:

Open Education Events This Week

Cross-posted from the Claire T. Carney Library News Blog.

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.

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Mark Your Calendar for These Professional Development Opportunities in OER

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.

Reserve your spot today by filling out the registration form!

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.

Interactive OER with H5P

Friday, March 29, 2024 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET

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?

Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash