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Learn how faculty are helping students save money
Pedagogy in Practice | By Megan Babel, ASA Communications Coordinator
Since 2018, Minnesota State faculty have been participating in the Open Educational Resources (OER) Learning Circles program, where they collaborate with colleagues from across the state who are committed to redesigning courses around OER, creating OER ancillary materials, and/or authoring primary course resources to help eliminate course material costs for students.
2024 OER Project Showcase
Learn how faculty from OER Learning Circle cohorts have been helping save students money at the 2024 OER Project Showcase. The showcase will be held virtually across six days in March and April with a handful of OER Learning Circle participants in each, presenting their work and answering questions. Learn more and register for these informative events.
Summer OER Learning Circles
The Summer 2024 OER Learning Circle cohort is now accepting applications until April 5, 2024. In addition to virtual weekly meetings, OER Learning Circles utilizes a D2L Brightspace course to support faculty and takes place over a five-week period. Participants receive compensation in the form of release credit equivalency (RCE) of $1750 in combined salary and fringe. Apply for the Summer 2024 OER Learning Circle Cohort.
Use Pressbooks to publish free digital books
Academic Technology Tips | By Etta Thornburg, Support and Training Librarian
Pressbooks is an authoring and publishing platform used to create digital and ebooks available for free to all Minnesota residents through the Minnesota Library Publishing Project.
Minnesota State subscribes to PressbooksEDU, an educational use version, which provides additional functionality for authors by increasing the interactivity of their materials, for example the addition of H5P or social annotation (Hypothesis). Projects related to the creation and adaptation of OER materials are prioritized by Minnesota State.
Originally, PressbooksEDU was a pilot project, however; as interest has grown the publishing program requires some adjustments to ensure that it remains sustainable. To that end, changes to program management will be made as of July 1, 2024.
Books of interest to the entire Minnesota State community will be made available to authors throughout the system. For example, every institution does not need their own guide to book creation in Pressbooks, instead a single book is available to the entire system. Institutions can share site specific information in a designated chapter or part.
Creating a Pressbooks Account and Starting a New Project
Authors are encouraged to have a draft ready to enhance and publish, before requesting an account through the Minnesota State PressbooksEDU instance.
Since book creation is limited to 30 new books a year, per the Minnesota State license, book creation/cloning is disabled and will require an admin to start new projects. To start a new project, please complete the request form.
All users will be added to the Minnesota State Test Book, a sandbox shared by everyone where users can test scenarios and experiments before implementing in a project. To maintain current access users need to log in to PressbooksEDU at least every six months.
Publication Timeline
The timeline for book publication is shortened, at a maximum authors will have two years from the project’s start to completion. Authors of new projects are automatically given one year to completion with two six-month extensions available. Projects currently in development are expected to be completed by end of FY25.
All projects will be reviewed by committee before being made publicly available. It’s expected that OER projects will be publicly available with a CC license when complete. For transparency, all adapted OER will have a standard front matter adaptation page detailing the source, the scope of the revision, and why.
For help or questions please contact Etta Thornburg, Support and Training Librarian.
Summer NED Opportunities
Did You Know? | By Megan Babel, ASA Communications Coordinator
The Minnesota State Network for Educational Development (NED) is pleased to offer a series of short courses, long courses, and faculty learning communities on the NED Events Calendar for the Summer 2024 term. Check out new courses available through a partnership with Quality Matters and the Online Learning Consortium.
These opportunities are designed by Minnesota State faculty and staff for Minnesota State faculty and staff and help build awareness, develop knowledge, skills, and abilities, and provide space for reflecting and revising.
Courses include Disability Justice II, Equity and Technology, Grade Smarter Not Harder, and more! Browse the NED Events Calendar or view the flyer to plan your educational development for the summer. Space is limited!
Educational Development and Technology, Minnesota State.
View past editions of the Educational Development Digest.
Visit the NED Events Calendar to view upcoming educational development opportunities. Visit the NED Resource Site for recordings of previous webinars and additional resources.
