College Open Textbooks BLOG

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.