OER and administration

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Plamen Miltenoff

Embracing OER Institutionwide

A new study finds that open educational resources are a big hit with some community college students and faculty, but that these textbook alternatives won’t reach their full potential until administrators embrace them.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/20/teachers-students-love-oer-officials-not-all-board

While the study’s findings are mostly positive, there remain problems nationally with adoption of OER by faculty members themselves. These challenges exist despite efforts by some states and individual colleges, philanthropies and even the federal government to launch initiatives designed to fund the creation and build the awareness and ultimately adoption of high-quality open materials.

“Leadership matters to adoption and scale, and that leadership shows through in strategy and in where resources are allocated,” she said. “Without these things, any of these interventions are just an ad hoc exercise that won’t transform teaching at an institution.”

expensive texbooks are still a problem

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Plamen Miltenoff

https://www.facebook.com/372280739820732/posts/1561044264277701/

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-04-19-expensive-textbooks-are-still-a-problem-will-higher-quality-oer-help

Expensive Textbooks Are Still A Problem. Will Higher Quality OER Help?

Cost savings are not the only benefit to OER, according to proponents. They argue that the open format also gives faculty the tools to make their courses more responsive to student needs.

Achieving the Dream also announced that it has received an $800,000 grant from the Hewlett Foundation to study, along with SRI Education and the Tennessee Board of Regents, how OER grantees use it in the classroom in Tennessee.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt sold to Veritas

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Plamen Miltenoff

https://www.facebook.com/162373073824096/posts/5196613930399960/

tracking educational materials on OER

Posted on January 5, 2022 by Plamen Miltenoff

Free Cultural Works, Open Educational Resources and Open Access

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Plamen Miltenoff

Clarification of Free Cultural Works, Open Educational Resources and Open Access

https://medium.com/creative-commons-we-like-to-share/clarification-of-free-cultural-works-open-educational-resources-and-open-access-ff03e3b594af

textbook spending

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Plamen Miltenoff

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RemakingtheUniversity/permalink/1698892896970733/

CA 4 100% OER

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Plamen Miltenoff

California colleges set 100% OER goals as textbook publishers go digital

The state passed its budget in July with $115 million for developing OER

The textbook publisher Pearson last month announced a new digital subscription model that allows students unlimited access to titles for $14.99 a month, following similar services offered by competitors Cengage and Chegg.

Federal Grant Aimed At Decreasing Cost of Textbooks

Posted on August 13, 2021 by Plamen Miltenoff

Consortium of Colleges, Led by Framingham State, Receives $441,000 Federal Grant Aimed At Decreasing Cost of Textbooks

A consortium of six colleges led by Framingham State University, as well as the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, has received a $441,367 grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) aimed at increasing the number of college courses utilizing free Open Educational Resources (OER) rather than costly textbooks.

The project – Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens (ROTEL): Culturally Relevant Open Textbooks for High Enrollment General Education Courses and Career and Professional Courses at Six Public Massachusetts Colleges – will test the hypothesis that underrepresented students will achieve higher academic outcomes if free, culturally-relevant course materials that reflect their experiences are utilized.

Student savings on textbooks over the three-year grant period are projected to be over
$800,000, and the goal is to create a new model that provides continued savings long into the future.

OER work valued for tenure

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Plamen Miltenoff

The Tenure Review Process Must Evolve

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/08/10/work-open-educational-resources-should-be-valued-tenure-review-opinion

when the Digital Humanities emerged as a field, most tenure and promotion systems didn’t address digital scholarship, leaving this new form of academic work unrecognized and uncitable in tenure and promotion portfolio.

Many postsecondary institutions in North America evaluate tenure candidates along three dimensions: research, teaching and service.

OER-related activities are forms of research, teaching and service.

unfortunately, OER work isn’t a standard criterion for tenure and promotion evaluation. Moreover, the tenure review committee may not be familiar with OER and thus may not appropriately take this work into account while evaluating the faculty member’s portfolio.

the Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success (DOERS3) collaborative, a group of 25 public higher education systems and statewide/provincewide organizations that are committed to supporting student success by promoting OER, has developed a tool to help tenure-track faculty include OER work in their tenure and promotion portfolios.

The matrix could also be used to incentivize OER adaptation and creation: For example, a department chair who has spearheaded an OER initiative in their department could adapt the matrix to show faculty how they can fit their OER work into their tenure and promotion portfolio, thus piquing faculty’s interest in OER. This department chair could also share the matrix with other chairs on their campus who are interested in OER so they could adapt it for their own departments.

Platinum Equity McGraw Hill

Posted on July 24, 2021 by Plamen Miltenoff

Platinum Equity announced an agreement this week to buy the company from Apollo Global Management, in a deal valued at about $4.5 billion, including debt, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The acquisition comes about a year after McGraw Hill terminated its efforts to merge with fellow publisher Cengage.

Private equity firms have been gobbling up edtech companies (and newspapers)

The effects that private equity deals like McGraw Hill’s will have on textbook users and college bookstores depend on whether firms are looking to make a lot of money in a quick sale or are interested in the steady financial returns more common to the publishing industry

Called “inclusive access” by the industry, the practice prompts students to pay for access codes to digital copies of bundled course materials. Colleges, retailers and publishers are legally required to allow students to opt out of these subscriptions.

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