Differentiating Between Open Access and Open Educational Resources | VTechWorks

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From Anita Walz: Preview: Differentiating open access and open educational resource can be a challenge in some contexts. Excellent resources such as "How Open Is It?: A Guide for Evaluating the Openness of Journals" (CC BY) https://sparcopen.org/our-work/howopenisit created by SPARC, PLOS, and OASPA greatly aid us in understanding the relative openness of journals. However, visual…

SPARC Releases Connect OER Annual Report for 2018-2019 - SPARC

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From SPARC: Preview: SPARC is pleased to release our 2018-2019 Connect OER Annual Report, which offers insights about OER activities across North America. This year’s report examines the current state of OER activities featuring data from 132 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Our intent is that these insights will help inform SPARC members, open…

OA in the Open: Community Needs and Perspectives | LIS Scholarship Archive Works |

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From Rebecca Kennison, Judy Ruttenberg, Yasmeen Shorish, and Liz Thompson in LIS Scholarship Archive Works: Abstract: The National Forum described here was proposed as a first step in surfacing community requirements and principles toward a collective open access (OA) collection development system. The Forum asked participants to envision a collective funding environment for libraries to…

Libraries and Archivists Are Scanning and Uploading Books That Are Secretly in the Public…

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From Karl Bode in Motherboard Tech by VICE: Preview: A coalition of archivists, activists, and libraries are working overtime to make it easier to identify the many books that are secretly in the public domain, digitize them, and make them freely available online to everyone. The people behind the effort are now hoping to upload…

A 21st Century Solution to the Serials Crisis: White paper | Scholastica

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From Scholastica: Preview: As the cost of academic journals continues to rise, institutions and individual scholars are increasingly at risk of losing access to leading research. Time is running out to break this dangerous cycle. This white paper brings together key literature and insights from 5 expert open access (OA) advocates to survey the journal…

A Guest Post from CCC - Top 5 Resources on Transformative Agreements - OASPA

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From Chuck Hemenway in Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Blog: Preview: Transformative Agreements are a popular topic of conversation these days – but do you ever feel like you need a quick refresher course on the topic? Read, watch, or listen to the items below for a deeper practical understanding of Transformative Agreements, fast. 1.…

Pursuing a new kind of “big deal” with publishers | Inside Higher Ed

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From Lindsay McKenzie in Inside Higher Ed: Preview: Making the transition from paying to read to paying to publish academic research won’t be easy for universities or publishers. But it is possible, attendees at an open-access-publishing event were told Thursday. The University of California, which canceled its “big deal” with publisher Elsevier earlier this year…

Teaching and Learning Without a Textbook: Undergraduate Student Perceptions of Open Educational Resources| International…

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From Hong Lin in International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning: Abstract: Given the upsurge of textbook costs, college students increasingly expect universities and instructors to offer alternatives to traditional textbooks. One textbook alternative is using open educational resources (OER). While OER unquestionably save students money, the question remains whether the adoption of…

Can we transform scholarly communication with open source and community‐owned infrastructure?|Learned Publishing

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From Alison McGonagle‐O’Connell and Kristen Ratanin in Learned Publishing: Preview: When it comes to infrastructure, scholarly publishing has been slow to evolve, and recent consolidation has weakened the competitive landscape. Publishers are waking up to learn that their most valuable asset – their publishing pipeline and accompanying workflow data – is suddenly owned by a…

Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between…

By: SC@S

From John Hilton in Educational Technology Research and Development: Abstract: Although textbooks are a traditional component in many higher education contexts, their increasing price have led many students to forgo purchasing them and some faculty to seek substitutes. One such alternative is open educational resources (OER). This present study synthesizes results from sixteen efficacy and…