College Open Textbooks BLOG
Driving Awareness and Adoption
Exemplary open textbooks and methodology: ChemWiki and its Progeny
ChemWiki not only shines as an exemplary series of open-licensed chemistry textbooks, it has spawned
Professor Delmar Larsen of the University of California at Davis heads the ChemWiki project, a series of online textbooks including Analytical, Biological, Inorganic, Organic, Physical, and Theoretical Chemistry plus the History of Chemistry and Lab Techniques. All are licensed Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike. Students and instructors contribute to the textbooks that are constantly improved.
ChemWiki includes more than 6,000 pages with high-quality illustrations. Individual pages in ChemWiki can be printed or turned into Adobe PDF files. Contributors include more than 30 chemistry professors and students as well as web technologists and publicist Richard Osibanjo.
ChemWiki provides maps to popular commercial general, organic, and physical textbooks.
Here are the pages showing how other colleges and universities are starting to incorporate the UC Davis ChemWiki into their courses:
- Columbia University
- Contra Costa College
- Diablo Valley College
- Hope College
- J. Sargent Reynolds Community College
- New Mexico State University Alamogodro
- University of Minnesota at Morris
- Truman State University
College Open Textbook grantee communities include two based on the UC Davis series:
- 3-D Molecular Models in ChemWiki: Dr. Ron Rusay and colleagues at Diablo Valley Community College
- PhysWiki Dynamic Textbook project: Professor Erik Christensen at South Florida Community College and a colleague at Monroe Community College, NY. Erik was named a College Open Textbooks Outstanding Open Textbooks Advocate/Trainer in 2010.
A special feature of the UC Davis wiki texts is the Student Ability Rating and Inquiry System (SARIS) , a tool for tracking student progress based on PracticeZone.
PracticeZone is part of the ChemVantage academic program learning and assessment program for General Chemistry that includes jargon used in mastering video games. Chuck Wight of the University of Utah founded ChemVantage. “We have configured the software to allow students to submit proposed solutions to the problems as often as they want, in order to improve their scores. The objective is for students to use the feedback to correct their errors prior to the deadline for the assignment.” ChemVantage carries a Creative Commons Attribution license.
College Open Textbooks delights in publicizing the wiki texts from UC Davis, the use of these by several institutions, and the exciting approach to chemistry education from the University of Utah.
Poetry is Not a Widget: The Priceless is Right
A Jenny Holzer plaque showing a poem engraving. (Photo by gredaline on Flickr.) Courtesy of MIT OpenCourse on Reading
Poetry is Not a Widget: The Priceless is Right
Suggested listening: Alice Coltrane, The Impulse Story
I write this now listening to the late harpist, pianist, organist, virtuoso Alice Coltrane cast spells in her ethereal “Journey in Satchidananda.” I am privileged to have seen her perform with her son Ravi and members of the original John Coltrane Quartet in San Francisco, November 2006, one of only two performances before her untimely death, and after her protracted spiritual reclusion from the stage and the public. For me, her music, especially this exquisite creation, is an analogue for the best of poetry: deft in its experimentation and breadth; precise in its openness; welcoming of warmth, musicality, emotion; wise in its scaffolding of history; innocent in its play; and, generous to both the creator and her audience for, as a work of high craft, when the work is ineffable, one is still encouraged to explain it for there is always something familiar in the seeming unfamiliar, always something intimate in the deepening canvas of seeming generalized experience. As a writer and artist myself, I know that Alice Coltrane did not choose her craft. Her craft chose her. And we are most grateful for this arranged marriage!
I speak to the luminosity of Alice Coltrane because her body of work as well as her actual life illustrate the profound gifts art offers the mundanity, discord, and ravages of daily human life. At this time in our present history, the public display of contempt for intellectual vibrancy and its artistic articulation in the verbal, written, visual, and musical arts is at an all-time high. One can look anywhere in our mainstream landscape and find disparagement of that which is sophisticated, complex, and beautiful in the way only the search for truth, wisdom, and humanity can be. This attack has now infiltrated the very protectorates of art, intellectual integrity, humane humanity, and those who teach and live within such purview: public colleges and universities. Specific attacks are now being waged upon disciplines that encourage free thinking, intellectual diversity, and artistic expression, especially humanities and arts.
Because of the current groupthink among powerful decision-makers such as private industry moguls, government officials, and college and university administrators, all of whom are now forming alliances for profit-centered, assembly-line educational models, then certainly those courses and disciplines most vulnerable are those that provide intellectual space for human expression and possibility, not profit generation. Nationally there are stories of humanities, arts, and social science courses being cancelled or usurped. There are now instances where entire programs such as creative writing or music appreciation are being discontinued. When colleges and universities become businesses and teachers become sales executives, then students become products, commodities for sale in the market of linear conformity. This sabotage will result in intellectual docility and, most disturbingly, artistic death. Without art, culture does not survive.
Musical compositions, philosophical dissertations, visual arts, and poems are not widgets. Humanity is not a widget. Though the leadership efforts are dramatically in this direction, human experience – and the minds creating it – are not yet entirely for sale. Poetry is an acute reminder and reclamation of that which can never be bought or sold: truth, justice, generosity, compassion, beauty, and love.
Thus, the open education movement provides critical resistance to such nefarious profiteering by making art – especially written art – widely accessible and free. Moreover, because poetry is the elegant articulation, defense, and honor of organic experience, its accessible and free status via the open course environment ought to remind wayward educational profiteers that there are better, creative, humane ways to save and generate money in the noble profession of education. For artists and teachers, the issue is moot: art is human and humane. Art, simply, is self-sustaining.
There are some fantastic things happening in literary arts inside and outside academia. Yet, the most robust resources are housed and nurtured by academic institutions. There are ample offerings in traditional and experimental poetics, within a variety of platforms, such as open courses, open formats, institutional programs, electronic archives and magazines, digitized books and papers, and the viral glee of social networking technologies. Below the closing poem is a brief listing of innovative resources, by no means exhaustive. Please use and share generously.
In acknowledgment of the redemptive and restorative energies that poetry gives the world, I will close with one of my favorite poems by Lewis Turco. This poem is written in the Japanese form called Somonka, an epistolary love poem made up of two tankas, an extension of the haiku, wherein each tanka follows a line syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7. The first tanka is a statement of love, and the second is a response.
Epistles: The Tarot IX of Swords
I am writing you
from a pit. It is quite dark
here. I see little.
I am scratching this note on a stone.
Where are you? It has been long.
Thank you for your note.
I do not know where I am.
I believe I may
be with you. It is not dark
here. The light has blinded me.
–Lewis Turco, Poetry Magazine, July 1972
Open Licensed Internet Resources for Poetry
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Courses (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license)
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-004-reading-poetry-spring-2009/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/writing-and-humanistic-studies/21w-756-writing-and-reading-poems-fall-2006/
The Open University (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3007
Free but not open Internet Resources for Poetry
The Poetry Archive (copyright license)
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do
The Internet Archive – search for “poetry” (copyright license)
Electronic Poetry Center at New York State University, Buffalo (copyright license)
Hats off to British Columbia!
BCcampus, the educational technology and online learning service organization for higher education in British Columbia has promoted development and reuse of open educational resources (OER) within its 25 post-secondary campuses and partners since 2003. Headquartered in Vancouver, it has disbursed 9 million dollars through its Online Program Development Fund(OPDF) over the last 8 years. The OPDF encourages collaborative consortiums of British Columbia post-secondary institutions, national and international universities, K-12 districts, eLearning companies, and other non-profits to seek funds for the creation and re-use of online courses and learning objects leading to degrees, diplomas, and certificates. In 2011, it is funding projects as diverse as Aboriginal Early Childhood Education diplomas to British Columbia/China Contemporary Forest TED talks for a credit-bearing course preparing Chinese students to enter higher education programs in British Columbia.
Paul Stacey, BCcampus Director
Paul Stacey, Director of Communications, Stakeholder and Academic Relations and OPDF administrator was recently interviewed at Creative Commons about differences between OER projects funded through private foundation grants and public funds. Although the goal of expanding access to educational opportunities is the same, he identified several key differentiators between private and public funding: one regarding sustainable outcome objectives and the second around open licensing strategies. “The foundation’s primary responsibility is to the founder, while a government ministry’s primary responsibility is to its tax-paying citizens,” says Paul. The regional aspect of publicly funded projects leads to a focus and accountability to the citizens of that region whereas private foundations often have global and humanitarian goals. Furthermore, private OER grants often have a specific start and end date where as publicly funded initiatives are more concerned with ongoing program viability and thus may continue funding of operating costs.
Open licensing strategies also differ between privately and publicly funded OER materials. Foundation grants for OER have generally gone to a single prestigious institution that publishes existing lectures and course materials where as public funds are more likely to be awarded to a consortium of regional institutions to develop curricula for credit. This has lead to a continuum of open licensing strategies with foundation grants tending towards the more broadly applicable Creative Commons licenses recognized worldwide whereas publicly funded OER projects such as BCcampus use regionally recognized licenses derived from Creative Commons licensing but limiting reuse to consortium institutions.
Open Licenses Continuum BCCampus
One recommendation Paul makes is for OER projects to offer a range of licensing options along the “open” continuum. “Multiple options provide greater buy-in and lower the threshold for OER participation,” suggests Paul. Although the downside of more restrictive licenses in creating silos of OER, it allows educators new to the OER world a more gradual entry into sharing and tends to increase the local re-use of materials. Further refinement of OER licenses is clearly needed and integrating their default use into commercial software used by faculty to build materials would also be helpful.
Last month BCcampus and a consortium of Pacific Northwest higher education institutions were awarded a $750,000 Next Generation Learning Grant based on online science courses and Remote Web-Based Science Lab. The North American Network of Science Labs Online (NANSLO) consortium is adding science labs to online science courses allowing student to perform scientific experiments including observation, remote control of instrumentation, and data analysis as students in classroom-based courses do.
The 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!
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!
Recent Comments