College Open Textbooks BLOG
Driving Awareness and Adoption
Hats Off to the Florida! (Part 2) – Open Textbook Leaders
There’s alot going on in Florida when it comes to Open Textbooks. My first Florida Hats Off post covered some and I offer a few more here.
The folks in Florida have driven the creation of what is called the “Online Content Repository (OnCoRe) Blueprint Project“. This project is being funded by FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education through the Florida Distance Learning Consortium (FDLC).
The OnCoRe Blueprint was created to provide a template or manual to help others create statewide digital repositories. The important fundamental component of the Blueprint is that it uses a standards-based approach that ensures interoperability of content among repositories. You can go to the OnCore Blueprint site and download the pdf file which not only provides details of the Bluprint, but goes into the history of how it came about.
There have been things going on at the government level also; Florida Senate Bill 844 and House Bill 7121. A good jumping off point to learn more about these bills and the activities spawned by them, is to visit the Orange Grove website. One result of these bills was to create the Open Access Textbook Task Force (OATTF). This task force utilizes the skills of a good cross section of Florida based educators and have on their agenda a number of agressive goals to drive the adoption of open textbooks.
Individual participation in these efforts throughout Florida is strong. There is statewide membership in CCCOER (Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources), which was established in July 2007 by the Foothill-De Anza Community College District (FHDA) in California. There has also been strong Florida support for the College Open Textbook Project through workshops and becoming advocate/trainers.
Hats off to Florida for alot of work well done. A double Hats Off to Susie Henderson (FDLC) for being a driver of many of the above mentioned activities. 
Textbook Media and Accessibility Headline CCCOER Quarterly Meeting- June 7th – Foothill College
Join us for the next CCCOER Quarterly Meeting – June 7th – Foothill College
The next quarterly Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) meeting will be held at Foothill College’s Campus Center (Toyon Room) in Los Altos Hills from 10 am to 1 pm on June 7, 2010. Attendees can join in person or attend online.
AGENDA:
• Keynote presentation with Q&A: Mark Miller, business development at Textbook Media, with a major open textbook announcement.
• CCCOER leadership and changes in the coming months.
• Geoff Cain of College of the Redwoods and representatives of other member colleges will provide presentations on their best practices.
• Panel discussion on textbook accessibility led by College Open Textbooks Associate Director Una Daly featuring - Jared Smith from Web Accessibility in Mind; Gaier Dietrich, acting director of the High Tech Unit of the California Community College; Julie Carpenter, Collections Director at Bookshare; and Alice Kreuger, president of Virtual Ability – who will be discussing the motivations and processes for making OER accessible to diverse learners.
We would also like to invite three other member colleges with new OER websites or other recent initiatives to give short presentations. If interested in sharing your best practices and being one of the three presentations or have any questions, please contact Monica Sain at sainmonica@foothill.edu.
Register today! http://bit.ly/CCCOER_060710
ABOUT CCCOER:
The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) is a joint effort by the OER Center for California, Foothill-De Anza Community College District, the League for Innovation in the Community College and many other community colleges and university partners to develop and use open educational resources (OER) and especially open textbooks in community college courses.
Hats Off to the Florida! (Part 1) – Open Textbook Leaders
I think it’s time to acknowledge the many organizations who have put in alot of effort and achieved significant accomplishments in the Open Textbook movement. Starting with this post, I will be putting the spotlight on those organizations on a state by state basis. Just in case I blitz out (and sometimes I do..) and miss some organization that should to be mentioned, comment back to this blog and tell us about it.
Todays Hats Off goes to the FLDC, the University Press of Florida (UPF), Orange Grove, and Orange Grove Texts Plus. OK, now let’s decipher all of this.
FDLC is the Florida Distance Learning Consortium. The consortium consists of Florida educational institutions and promotes and supports Distance Learning.
The University Press of Florida is the official publisher for the Florida State University System. Their goal is to collaborate with all the stakeholders in the chain of higher education to meet their evolving needs.
Orange Grove is an online repository of free educational resources based in Florida. Orange Grove Text Plus is a joint initiative of Orange Grove and the University Press of Florida. These two organizations are partnering to lower textbook costs by providing textbooks that are affordable, available online, and adaptable by both instructor and student.
These organizations are a powerhouse in the State of Florida when it comes to leading the way for Open Textbooks. Great results and positive relationships. Hats off!
I had the opportunity to speak with some individuals who represent these organizations; Cathy Alfano (Orange Grove Proj. Mgr., FDLC), Susie Henderson (Orange Grove Project Director and Associate Executive Director of FDLC), and Meredith Morris-Babb (Director of the University Press of Florida, UFP). All three were very enthusiastic about the interest generated by educators and students in Florida and the success of the programs. They pointed out that all the pieces are in place for continued success and growth (resource repository, delivery method, authoring, motivated end consumer). Orange Grove has six server centers world wide that can be used to deliver content to locations around the globe. Meredith brought up the point that course supplement materials (quizes / homework / tests / etc) are an important part of the resources. They are working with WebAssign to provide the related supplemental materials online 24/7. 
In the area of adopting and resource creation, they are working with universities on programs to make it enticing for instructors to participate in and create Open Textbooks.
In summary, they are all set up to deliver quality resources to students in the format of their choice (%100 online/downloadable to printable copies) not only in the state of Florida, but any other locations where these educational resources are needed.
There is alot of activity in Florida, so more on Florida in another post. In the meantime, go check out their websites!
Foothill College Representation at SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit
Foothill College’s Una Daly (Associate Director Community College Open Textbooks) will be a panelist at this years Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Ed Tech Industry Summit.
This event will take place in San Francisco (at the Palace Hotel) during May 23 – May 25. It looks like this is the place to be if you want to be a part of the the latest happennings in the intersection of K12 and post secondary education and technology.
Una will be participating in a session called “Governmental and Institutional Drivers of Open Educational Resources”. If you are attending, check your schedule for the time of this session which shoould be on May 24. The contents of the session will launch off of the description presented in the program:
“The Obama Administration, state policy makers and institutional leaders
are driving development and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER)
in many pockets across the country and throughout the K-20 system. This
panel of local, state and higher education leaders will explore the goals
of OER, the definitions and models, and the current and future impact on
students, educators, government agencies and publishers/developers.
Questions to be answered include: What needs are these OER initiatives
trying to solve — cost saving, filling a market gap, encouraging digital
and innovation, flexibility to edit content, other? What is the long-term
sustainability model for OER? What does OER mean for publishers and
developers?”
The opening keynote address is called “What Does Going Mobile and Global Mean? Lessons From the Industry Trenches.” If you have read some of my previous blog posts, you may have noted that the mobile readiness of educational resources is on the minds of alot of people. Enjoy the show, and check out Clement Street while in San Francisco for a fantastic selection of good food.
UCF OpenSpace: New UK Based Online Courses
The University College Falmouth , which is located in the UK, has just gone live with their Beta 1.o of UCF openSpace. This is a pilot program made possible through a grant from The Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational Resources Programme.
Open access to Art, Media, Design, and Performance education is made available through this program. Also available to UCF openSpace users are such tools as editing applications, collaborative work spaces and forums that allow for assessment, feedback, and peer critiquing.
A few things to be aware of include the courses not providing credit towards a degree, the faculty at UCF are not accessible, and the courses may be shortened versions of other courses available. However, despite these last points, this is still another positive push forward in the area of open education and open textbooks.
India's Spin On Open Courseware, Open Textbooks
The Europe Asia Business School is located in Pune, the capital of the state of Maharashtra, India. It is said to be the cultural center of Maharashtra. On May 14, this school hosted an Open Courseware seminar with the MIT Senior Associate Dean.
An interesting point was brought up by Dr. Nikhil Agarwal, Director Europe Asia Business School. He emphasizes that when we speak of technology bringing educational resources to the people, we should focus more on mobile devices. To support this point, Dr. Nikhil Agarwal brings up the fact that there are over 600 million mobile users in India compared to 70 million computer users. That is quite a big difference. Dr. Agarwal says, “I think in near future, the most important medium for imparting continuous education will be mobile phones & televisions”.
So, I think the developers of open Courseware and OpenTextbooks should investigate and strive to make these resources available via mobile technology as well as computers.
Athivia College: International Business College
If you are looking for affordable business classes, check out Athivia College. 
They are an international business college which follows the open college model. They offer free courses online. The course material is viewable online but printed copies can be purchased through Flat World Knowledge. Their courses typically take 25 hours to complete and certification is available.
USG Share: Lots of Sharing Going On
The University System of Georgia (USG) has a really nice educational resource sharing platform in place. It is called USG Share. 
It has all the features of a quality system we would expect to see; a repository of digital content that is reusable/re-mixable and readily accessible, material that is classified as Open Textbooks, and a community of people who are enthusiastic about the concept of Open Educational Resources. Resources in their repository are shared throughout the University System of Georgia via the USG Collection or with the world through the Public Collection. Get a User ID and password (you can access the sytem by logging in as guest) and you are ready to utilize the resources as well as contribute to the collection for others to use.
You should take a look at a fun video they have available which shows USG Share in action. See if you can identify the actors in the video.
Khan Academy: Education on YouTube
I heard that there were some cool educational resources on YouTube. I finally went there to check them out and I found one that is very impressive; the Khan Academy.
Let me introduce you to Mr. Salman Khan who has created the Khan Academy. Salman has quite a deep background in math, engineering, and business. He is very passionate about making information available to people who want to learn and in a way that bypasses the typical bureaucracy associated with traditional education.
The Khan Academy is a non-profit organization that provides high quality education to “anyone, anywhere”. There are about 1200 videos available for viewing on YouTube. The subjects cover the areas of math, business, history, statistics, physics, chemistry, economics, and more. There are some schools and instituations that are not allowed access to YouTube. To circumvent this, there are other partner organizations (The Lewis Center for Educational Research) that are providing alternative access to the content. In addition, Sal is working on getting the videos mirrored on other non-YouTube sites. Check out his website. It has alot of good information and personal insite into how and why he started the Khan Academy.
How To Adopt An Open Textbook Workshop: May 6 at Foothill College
Come join Foothill’s Una Daly for a two hour workshop on How to Adopt an Open Textbook. The workshop is free and open to SF Bay Area community college faculty and staff. It’s going to be at Foothill College on Thursday May 6 from 1:30 to 3:30 PM. It should be a nice warm sunny day for this event!
More info at Workshop Details.
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