The position as first OER advisor for the U.S. Department of Education will be filled by Andrew Marcinek, a founder of EducatorU and a blogger on educational matters at http://andrewmarcinek.com/ . Check out the article in Campus Technology at http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/09/21/department-of-ed-names-first-oer-advisor.aspx
Our previous post on this position from SPARC is here, http://oer.hawaii.edu/u-s-department-of-education-to-hire-open-education-advisor-for-k-12/.
There is an interesting paper posted in the famous Arxiv hosted by Cornell University Library, “Redesigning a junior-level electronics course to support engagement in scientific practices,” by H.J. Lewandowski and Noah Finkelstein of the University of Colorado Boulder. See http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.03925.
The course syllabus is at http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys3330/phys3330_sp14/phys3330_syllabus_sp14.pdf and demonstrates a successful course in measurable outcomes of student engagement and retention of the concepts. The course does not require a textbook.
This is another example of a course redesigned to be more effective and became more affordable for students because of faculty who wanted to give their students hands-on practice in doing science.
Check out the post at http://www.sparc.arl.org/blog/education-department-hires-first-ever-open-education-advisor about OER getting major support from the U.S. Department of Education.
Open Educational Resources also have an important role to play in higher education. Open resources used with a more integrative use of online library resources, the Zero Textbook courses can transform classes taught at UH.
Doug Ward of the University of Kansas in a commentary in today’s CHE [Sept 8, 2015] argues that open source or library sources not only save students money but can offer a better way to teach. Ward suggests alternatives to going with a pricey textbook, such as,
“Scour the web and enlist your college’s librarians to find articles and posts that provide the same — or even better — information as in the textbook.” [bolding is mine]
See the article at http://m.chronicle.com/article/Why-You-Ought-to-Think-Twice-/232877/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
For Fall 2015, Leeward CC is offering 53 classes that have Textbook Cost: $0 designation* in the online course list. This designation applies to any class that does not require students to purchase textbooks. These classes include 7 sections of ENG 22, 2 sections of ENG 24, 17 sections of ENG 100, and 8 sections of ENG 200. Other classes include ENG 207 and 209, POLS 110, SOC 100, 151, and 250H, and WS 151. In addition, Leeward CC is offering its first open educational resources (OER) ENG 100 online course. Susan Wood, Professor CC of English, was the first at Leeward CC and in the UHCC system to create an open, online course for English 100.
As part of the UH system initiative, the Leeward Library and Educational Media Center (EMC) have promoted the use of OER, no-cost, and affordable solutions to support student success and make higher education more affordable. A May 2015 survey of Leeward CC students found that, of the 987 students responding, 55% did not purchase a required textbook for a course and 65% said that textbook costs influence their decision to enroll in a course.
This summer, the EMC and Library collaborated to offer a track in the Pacific Region Learning Summit entitled “Go Open, Go Free Using OER.” Participants included teaching faculty, librarians, and instructional designers from Leeward CC, Kapiolani CC, Hawaii CC, and UH Maui College. Leeward is the first campus in the UH system to design and deliver a professional development series to help faculty find and incorporate no-cost, low-cost, and creative commons licensed resources into their courses as replacements to costly commercial course materials.
The Library and EMC continues its partnership to promote OER as a viable alternative to expensive commercial textbooks and work with faculty members to identify and adapt OER materials for their courses. For more information, please see Leeward’s Open Educational Resources website.
*Textbook Cost: $0 classes are self-designated by the instructor. An instructor teaching classes that do not require students to purchase any textbooks may request to have this designation added to their classes in the online course list. Contact your Leeward CC Division Secretary to add Textbook Cost: $0 to the Banner SSA Text field for your classes.
UMUC announces that they have replaced all undergraduate textbooks with OER and other no-cost (to students) digital resources for this Fall semester. By Fall 2016, graduate materials will also be cost-free to students. This move was to save students money but also to change teaching to avoid relying on materials locked away in static textbooks. Read, http://www.umuc.edu/globalmedia/embedded-digital-resources.cfm .
We can do this at the University of Hawaii–contact oer@hawaii.edu to discuss further.
The University of Hawaii at Manoa undergraduate curriculum committee of the Physics Department have adopted an OpenStax College Physics textbook for their non-calculus Physics 151 and 152. Cost savings for approximately 120 UH Manoa students in 12 sections will be more than $20,000 (the cost for last year’s textbook was $167).
This announcement went out to UH Manoa faculty yesterday morning. Please consider reviewing an OpenStax College textbook if you are a UH Manoa faculty member.
Outreach College will provide a $200 gift certificate to the UH Bookstores for each accepted review. To participate in the review process you must be a full-time active faculty member of UH Manoa, associated with a department for which the textbook you are reviewing might be used in courses offered by the department.
If you are interested in reviewing an OpenStax College textbook for Outreach College, please apply here: http://wp.me/P5VkWx-k2. When you are
invited to review the textbook of your choice we would like to receive the review within a month. We will be accepting applications through December
31, 2015.
The process for reviewing the textbooks in the repository is provided here: http://go.hawaii.edu/XN. We ask that you enter your review using
the online rubric in the repository.
The review will have a CC By license, meaning that anyone may use your review as long as they provide attribution to your work. Your review will
posted on the oer.hawaii.edu site, shared with relevant curriculum committees and instructional faculty, and will be shared with other institutions and organizations working on OER.
An inspiring example of collaborative OER creation is provided in this article [https://www.simonsfoundation.org/features/foundation-news/marathon-editing-brings-new-rigor-to-wikipedia-physics/]. At an American Physical Society meeting in June in Columbus, OH (The Ohio State University) the APS and the Simons Foundation brought together experts for an edit-a-thon to create new articles and make existing Wikipedia physics articles better. In a 3-hour session, 24 physicists joined three group leaders who were expert Wikipedia editors. Examples of articles edited or created in this intense session are, Speed of Light and Quantum Feedback. The article notes that the editors found The Wikipedia Adventure to be a useful tutorial for editing Wikipedia articles.
The much acclaimed copyright online course out of Duke University is now completely asynchronous and accessible whenever you want to begin. See Copyright for Educators & Librarians to begin. The instructors are noted experts in working with copyright in creating educational materials, Kevin Smith (Duke University), Lisa Macklin (Emory University), and Anne Gilliland (University of North Carolina).
A blog post on the American Enterprise Institute site from Mark Perry of the University of Michigan Flint campus provides recent costs of the most expensive textbooks used at that campus. The data were collected by Matthew Wolverton, an electronic resources librarian at UM Flint. See http://go.hawaii.edu/lw for the full post by Perry. One of the charts shows the most expensive average textbook costs by discipline, ranging from $147 to $260. Students generally take more than one class a semester, making their out of pocket expenses potentially out of reach. Perry posits that the inflation in cost of textbooks is an aspect of an economic bubble and unsustainable given initiatives such as OpenStax , offering free and high quality textbooks at no cost to students.
Open SUNY, an ambitious project by SUNY Press to bring out open educational resources as open textbooks offers a way to volunteer your skills. Check out the page http://textbooks.opensuny.org/volunteer-with-ost/ for more information. The currently available open textbooks can be viewed at http://textbooks.opensuny.org/category/available-now/ and the exciting list of forthcoming books is at http://textbooks.opensuny.org/category/forthcoming/.
Nicole Finkbeiner of OpenStax College at Rice University gave groups of faculty and instructors at Manoa, Honolulu CC, Kapiolani CC, and Leeward CC an overview of the amazing contributions OpenStax College is making to higher education through open textbooks.
To review the webinar go to OpenStax College 2015 July 10.
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education posted today at http://chronicle.com/article/In-Students-Minds-Textbooks/231455/ provides more reason to adopt open educational resources.
“A survey of undergraduates on 23 campuses by the National Association of College Stores, expected to be released on Thursday, found that students spent an average of $563 on course materials during the 2014-15 academic year, compared with $638 the year before.” The article goes on to indicate that students are opting out of purchasing required materials. However, “a separate survey of professors on the same campuses, meanwhile, found that they almost never see the course materials as optional.”
From Junie Hayashi:
Just a reminder for everyone interested in learning more about free texbooks and resources developed and peer-reviewed by educators. Please join us for a special webinar and discussion on Open Educational Resources (OER) presented by the Faculty Mentoring Program at Outreach College and OpenStax College. Other venues for the webinar include:
OpenStax College is a leader in developing no-cost quality, peer-reviewed learning materials for higher education. The presenter will be Nicole Finkbeiner, Associate Director, Institutional Relations at OpenStax College, Rice University. Sara Rutter, Open Educational Resources Librarian, Outreach College will host a discussion following the presentation. The library and EMC staff will also be on hand to answer your questions about getting started with OER for your classes.
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