A Seattle representative to the Washington state assembly sees open access to education as a key to government reform. Reuven Carlyle elaborates on the open educational resources movement and shows how college and high school success can make great strides at a fraction of the cost of physical campuses. See http://reuvencarlyle36.com/2010/08/12/want-government-reform-open-access-to-higher-education/
Free Online Business Courses
August 7, 2010Free online business courses are available from the U.S. Small Business Administration Training Network.
Course titles include:
- FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING
- GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING
- BUSINESS PLANNING
- SURVIVING A SLOW ECONOMY
- STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS
- ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
- BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Also, see these free publications:
Free Digital Study Versions of the Classics
August 7, 2010The Anne Arundel Community College Bookstore provides free e-textbooks of the classics as Digital Study Versions. These are enhanced digital versions which can be downloaded an unlimited number of times and include study tools such as highlighting, annotations and search capabilities. In order to read these eBooks, you will need to have the free Adobe Digitial Editions reader software on your computer. Click here to install.
Works included were written by the following authors:
OER Resources
August 6, 2010- Apply CC Licenses
- Bookserver
- Case for Free Use
- CC Shared Culture
- ccLearn FAQ
- Citizendium
- CK12 Flexbooks
- Collaborative Books Project
- Commonwealth of Learning
- Composing OER
- Curriki
- DebateGraph
- Digital Marketplace
- DiscoverEd
- Distruptive Innovation
- DIY Open Content
- Economics of Open Content
- Educator Mini-handbook
- ETL OER
- Faculty Worksheet
- FHSST How-To
- Findability
- Flat World Knowledge
- FREE
- Free Digital Textbooks Initiative
- FriendFeed Open Textbooks
- Global Text Project
- Goodbye, Textbooks
- High Tech Center
- Information R/evolution
- Instructional Architect OCW
- Internet Archive OER
- Intro to OER Tutorial
- K12 Open Ed
- KY Learning Depot
- MERLOT
- morgueFile
- OER Blogs
- OER Course SCoPE
- OER for Cancer
- OER in Health
- OER Practices
- OER Recommender
- OER Research
- OER Self-Paced Tutorial
- OER The Way Forward
- OER Workshop
- OER Workshop Toolkit
- OnCoReBlue Print Webinars
- Open Course Library
- Open Learning Initiative
- Open Library
- Open Revolution
- Open Textbook Adoption
- Open Textbook Webinar
- Open Training Platform
- OpenEd
- Opening Up Education
- Open|Web|Content|Edu Course
- Orange Grove Texts Plus
- PediaPress
- Potto Project
- Publishing Open Content
- QeDocs
- Quick Guide
- SCoPE OER Seminar
- SOFIA
- SOL*R Repository
- SPARC
- Teacher’s Domain
- Textbook Revolution
- The Machine is Us/ing Us
- The Textbook Source
- UNESCO OER Toolkit
- Universal Access to Knowledge
- Use CC License
- Why OER?
- Why Open Textbooks?
- Why Remix OERs?
- Wikibooks
- WikiEducator
US Labor Dept Seeks OER Grant Reviewers
August 6, 2010The U.S. Department of Labor has an urgent need to add to its pool of expert reviewers for a new grant competition related to open educational resources and online learning. If you are interested, please submit your credentials via this webpage: http://www.doleta.gov/doc/grant_panelist.cfm.
100,000+ Visits to OER Consortium
August 5, 2010The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources website passed the 100,000 visits mark this week.
For those of you interested in open education and reform, be sure to take a look at the current issue of EDUCAUSE Review.
The Open Future: Openness as Catalyst for an Educational Reformation
The Open Student: Questioning the Future of the Open Student
The Open Course: Through the Open Door: Open Courses as Research, Learning, and Engagement
The Open Faculty: To Share or Not to Share: Is That the Question?
The Open Ed Tech: Never Mind the Edupunks; or, The Great Web 2.0 Swindle
The Open World: Access to Knowledge as a Foundation for an Open World
New OER Poll
July 23, 2010The Open Educational Resources Center for California wants to know more about what college faculty think about textbooks and other learning materials.
To participate in our poll, go to http://www.allourideas.org/collegetextbooks
Then just click on your preference for each paired choice. Feel free to add your own idea, too.
Results will help guide the future direction of the Open Educational Resources Center for California.
For more information about open educational resources and open textbooks, please visit http://grou.ps/oercenter and http://www.twitter.com/oer_center
WA State Policy Supports OER
July 13, 2010Once again the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges shows leadership and innovation in promoting use of open educational resources. Their recent announcement states that all competitive grants that they administer will have a Creative Commons Attribution license. For details, see Cable Green’s brief and the latest Creative Commons blog posting.
A Policy Review and Development Toolkit is available from OER Africa to help organizations consider their own OER policies. Also see Open Educational Resources Policy Background.
For examples of policies that support use of open educational resources and open textbooks at a community college, see Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board Policies: 4185 Publication and Adoption of Instructional Materials and 6141 Public Domain.
Duncan Praises OER at CC Graduation
June 27, 2010U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan honors community colleges and their graduates
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15385988?nclick_check=1
See this paragraph:
Duncan praised the efforts of Foothill faculty members to use free or low-cost Web-based “open educational resources” as substitutes for costly college textbooks.
Attending both ceremonies was former Foothill-De Anza Community College District Chancellor Martha Kanter — now undersecretary of education — and the first in the history of the department with experience as a community college leader.
Creative Commons launches Catalyst Campaign
May 31, 2010The Catalyst Campaign: Donate Now to Help Fund Creative Commons’ Catalyst Grants
Creative Commons has launched of the Catalyst Campaign – from now through June 30.
They are raising money to fund their recently-launched Catalyst Grants program.
Catalyst Grants will make it possible for individuals and organizations to harness the power of Creative Commons. A grant might enable a group in a developing country to research how Open Educational Resources can positively impact its community. Another could support a study of entrepreneurs using Creative Commons licenses to create a new class of socially responsible businesses. Anyone may apply for a Catalyst Grant, which ranges from $1,000-$10,000.
But Creative Commons can’t do it without your help. Their goal is to raise $100,000 from CC supporters like you to fund the grants that will make all this possible. Donate today to help spread our mission of openness and innovation across all cultural and national boundaries.
Thanks to the Milan Chamber of Commerce which has generously donated EUR 10,000 to jumpstart the effort!
Will you join in?
Advocate: Take a moment to spread the word about the Catalyst Campaign and Grants program on your blog and social networks with our banners and buttons.
Donate: If you give $75 or more, you can become the proud owner of one of these bright and cheerful, limited edition “I Love to Share” t-shirts. Every bit helps so give what you can today to ignite openness and innovation around the world!
