Open Educational Resources

"Penn State Leads Big Ten Academic Alliance Project on Open Homework Systems"

"Open Homework Systems: Planning and Piloting Library Support" involves a project team of librarians and staff from three Big Ten universities — Penn State, the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University — and consists of three phases over a two-year period. The first phase encompasses an environmental scan of homework systems used by member institutions as well as an investigation of possible homework systems available. Next, the core project team will identify three or four instructors at each institution to evaluate both OER and a homework system appropriate for their courses. Both instructors and their students will provide feedback through interviews, discussions, surveys, focus groups and other mechanisms.

https://tinyurl.com/3ds2y3m8

"Collaborating to Support the Use and Development of Open Educational Resources: A White Rose Libraries Research Project"

Interest in open educational resources (OER) has grown recently due to many external factors, including the restrictive, unsustainable and expensive business models for teaching materials that are being used by some publishers. In February 2021, the libraries of the UK White Rose University Consortium (White Rose Libraries) initiated a research project to explore the potential of OER and to create guidance in the form of an OER toolkit that could be used across all three institutions, and more widely. The project also aimed to seek improvements in the discovery of OER in the Ex Libris Primo discovery service which is used by all three libraries. This article outlines the methodology used to ascertain the needs of the libraries’ user groups to inform the development of the toolkit. A survey of academic staff across all three institutions was conducted, followed by user experience interviews. The survey findings established that more than half of respondents knew little or nothing about OER, and over half also said that they would be likely or extremely likely to consider using or adapting OER, clearly demonstrating the need for more awareness raising and guidance. The survey interview findings were then used to develop and refine the toolkit.

https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.622

"Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Releases the National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources (OER)"

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is proud to announce the release of a comprehensive document, A National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources in Canada, aimed at advancing the adoption and support of open educational resources (OER) across the country.

This framework is the result of collaborative efforts involving diverse stakeholders, including national student groups, provincial open education organizations, scholars, advocates in open education, and representatives from higher education institutions. Its purpose is to help advance and inform advocacy efforts directed at the Federal government. The ultimate goal is to provide guidance to stakeholders in advocating for federal involvement in OER.

https://bit.ly/3OvhBzL

"Congress Introduces Bill to Tackle College Textbook Costs"

SPARC, a non-profit advocacy organization working to make education and research open and equitable, today applauded the reintroduction of the Affordable College Textbook Act in the U.S. Congress. The bill would address a key but often overlooked factor in the cost of higher education—the cost of textbooks—by establishing a grant program for the creation and use of free, openly licensed textbooks, while also strengthening federal price disclosure requirements for textbook publishers and institutions. If passed, the program would build on the success of the Open Textbook Pilot which is already projected to save students an estimated $250 million since its creation in 2018.

http://bit.ly/40sNVX2

"The Importance of Copyright and Shared Norms for Credit in Open Educational Resources"

Open Educational Resources (OER) are reducing barriers to education while allowing creators the opportunity to share their work with the world and continue owning copyright of their work. To support new authors and adaptors in the OER space, we provide an overview of common considerations that creators and adaptors of OER should make with respect to issues related to copyright in the context of OER. Further, and importantly, a challenge in the OER space is ensuring that original creators receive appropriate credit for their work, while also respecting the credit of those who have adapted work. Thus, in addition to providing important considerations when it comes to the creation of open access works, we propose shared norms for ensuring appropriate attribution and credit for creators and adaptors of OER.

https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.1069388

Paywall: Open Educational Resources in Higher Education A Global Perspective

This book engages with intersections between open educational resources, social justice and equality, as well as policy in terms of open educational resources. Numerous examples of open praxis are also included, ranging from open educational resources courses to the affordances of artificial intelligence, data-driven learning, and open textbooks in this context. Furthermore, chapters range from providing a broad overview of open educational resources international and regional initiatives in Africa, to cases of work done in the United States, New Zealand, Israel, and Hong Kong.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8590-4

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Open Educational Resources through the European Lens: Pedagogical Opportunities and Copyright Constraints"

The article examines the potential and constraints of OERs from both a pedagogical and legal perspective. It demonstrates how this type of resources are fit for purpose to achieve diversity, knowledge co-creation, and students’ agency in the educational ecosystems. It also flags points of weakness of the EU copyright legal framework, such as the lack of harmonization of rules on co-authorship and adaptation, that need to be tackled to fully enable OER-enabled pedagogies across the Union.

https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4343475

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Perspectives on E-books and Digital Textbooks and the Way Ahead"

This article presents a range of perspectives on current issues around e-book and textbook supply and consumption in libraries and universities. It is an attempt to provide an analysis of the often-contentious issues arising and also offers an insight into the positions of all the various parties involved. Whilst there might not be agreement or consensus on the causes of issues and the way to proceed, the article attempts to coalesce various perspectives, in the hope of achieving a greater understanding of different stakeholders. Much of the debate in recent years has focused on the situation in the United Kingdom, but similar issues exist in many other countries and an insight into the international perspective is provided. We also offer some commentary on ways forward for both the short and longer term.

http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.599

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Finding Your Way in Academic Librarianship: Introducing the Scholarly Communication Notebook"

The SCN (https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/SCN) is an extension of an earlier, related, effort to create an open textbook about scholarly communication librarianship. That book, Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge, is forthcoming from ACRL in 2023. . . . Even if openly licensed, a book remains a relatively static resource. Scholarly communication is not static at all. Far from it, as many will attest and recognize through hard-won experience. Our contribution is the SCN, an online collection of contributed, modular, open content scoped to scholarly communication topics, which might complement the book or find use independent of it.

https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.83.10.444

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Just Released – New Insights into OE in European Libraries of Higher Education 2022"

The report presents the findings of the third edition of our annual survey of European academic libraries on the topic of Open Education (OE) and Open Educational Resources (OER). It explores the work being done by European academic librarians to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendation, almost three years on from its initial publication in November 2019.

https://cutt.ly/HNRUoNW

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

First Issue of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education Published

We are pleased to present the inaugural issue of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education (JOERHE). As academic librarians, the three of us intersect with Open Educational Resources, open access, and open publishing in a variety of ways. Drawing on our past experiences with both traditional and open publishing models, we saw a need to create a dedicated, open scholarly space for those who wish to engage in community and scholarly conversation about all things open. It is exciting to see this idea come to fruition. JOERHE’s vision is to reduce the barriers to publication and create a space where authors, reviewers, and readers can build a community that supports and encourages the growth of the profession through kindness to one another as scholars. We also seek to provide transparency in our publishing practices through clear and frequent communication with our authors, reviewers, and readers.

https://cutt.ly/lNRWsd7

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |