Open to MU faculty and graduate instructors. Please take this anonymous survey to help The UM System’s Affordable & Open Educational Resources (A&OER) learn more about instructor approaches and practices for the selection of teaching materials. The data received from this survey will be used to formulate new strategies for supporting teaching and learning at the University of Missouri. Survey is open until May 20, 2019.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are FREE and OPENLY LICENSED educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes.
Why does A&OER matter?
Adopting free or low-cost textbooks and digital course materials helps Mizzou control the cost of educational resources. Here are some facts about the textbook affordability in the nation and at Mizzou.
According to a report from American Enterprise Institute, from 1998 to 2016, college textbook prices have increased by 90% while recreational book prices have fallen by more than 35%.
Due to the high costs of course materials at Mizzou, 75% of students have delayed purchasing a required textbook.
13% of students have considered leaving Mizzou because they couldn’t afford course materials.
To Dr. William Krause, education needs to be open and without borders. “We should share information. Not hold it for a select few to access.”
Since the beginning of his Mizzou career in 1971, Dr. Krause has been a proponent of helping students learn and giving them the resources they need. “I’ve always felt very strongly that any student, under my tutelage, should have all their materials provided for them.” He even went as far as writing a couple of textbooks, streamlining them to fit the educational needs of the medical students and taking the extra step to find a publisher to make the textbooks as cheap as possible.
For several years, Dr. Krause taught 96 medical students anatomy and histology. “It was very difficult for me to rotate to all the groups in the labs and answer their questions about the slides. [They] would get frustrated waiting to get my help,” says Dr. Krause. Wanting to make sure his students received the help they needed, he applied for and was awarded a grant to work with a multi-headed microscope for help sessions. With this new equipment, he could easily show this large group the slides. “After three or four years of doing this, even those sessions became too crowded. Everyone wanted the extra help.” Dr. Krause knew he had to find a better way to help his students. When a new chair of the department came on board, Dr. Krause took the opportunity to pitch the chair his new idea.
Screenshot of Dr. Krause’s Blood and Bone Marrow Video
“I wanted to place a camera in the eye piece of the microscope and record me narrating and using the electronic pointer in real time.” The new chair was sold on the idea and gave him the go ahead to buy and use any equipment he needed to create these videos. Dr. Krause developed a set of 24 video tutorials and provided DVD copies for each medical student. That’s a total of 2,304 DVDs per year, mostly out of his own pocket. Eventually, it became too expensive to continue making copies, not to mention the DVDs would damage over time. Dr. Krause turned to the library and asked how could he still provide access to these videos while finding cheaper means of doing so.
Diane Johnson at the Health Sciences Library suggested adding them to Google as it was new and could handle 96 students watching 24 videos. Once placed on Google, Dr. Krause started receiving notes of gratitude not only from his students, but from students all over the world thanking him for sharing his knowledge. After a few years, Google wanted Dr. Krause to shorten the videos. Dr. Krause felt that shortening them would make the videos less helpful. Once again, he turned to the library.
Wanting to keep the integrity of the videos, while still keeping freely available, Dr. Krause consulted with Diane Johnson about how best to proceed. She suggested the new repository the library was managing: MOSpace. Following her advice, Dr. Krause added the videos, along with accompanying educational pdfs, to MOSpace. “I was happy to add to MOSpace. It gives the opportunity for people to tap into information from anywhere and makes it more universal,” explains Dr. Krause.
Top Countries by Downloads from April 2018-October 2018
Dr. Krause, while retired now, still continues to help students here at Mizzou and all over the world. With a total of 4,053 views for the videos and close to 19,000 views for the educational pdfs, users are still finding Dr. Krause’s collection. During the month of September 2018, his videos were downloaded over 800 times.
Dr. Krause cannot be more excited about the open education movement at Mizzou. He may have missed the initiative by three years, but he is happy to know that things are changing on campus. “I am delighted I’ve been able to help so many people from so many areas. This is such a tremendous avenue to make material available in the easiest format possible for our students at [little to] no cost.”
Dr. Krause’s videos, blogs and textbooks are found in MOSpace, where they are free to view and download.
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Open Education Week is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Join us!
What Open Education Week events are happening on campus?
Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.
Open Education combines the traditions of knowledge sharing and creation with 21st century technology to create a vast pool of openly shared educational resources, while harnessing today’s collaborative spirit to develop educational approaches that are more responsive to learner’s needs.
The idea of free and open sharing in education is not new. In fact, sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge, insights and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding can be built.
Open Education seeks to scale up educational opportunities by taking advantage of the power of the internet, allowing rapid and essentially free dissemination, and enabling people around the world to access knowledge, connect and collaborate.
Open is key; open allows not just access, but the freedom to modify and use materials, information and networks so education can be personalized to individual users or woven together in new ways for diverse audiences, large and small.
Are you an instructor who is concerned about the impact of high textbook costs on your students?
Explore possible open textbook solutions by attending the Open Textbook Library Review Workshop — a one-hour session where you can discover open textbooks in your field. After the workshop, you’ll be asked to write a short review of an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library Your review will benefit other faculty considering open textbooks. You’ll receive a $250 stipend* for your participation and written review.
*Because not all subjects are covered in the OTL, this will not be an open event. Faculty from specific departments will be invited to participate. $250 participation award from the A&OER grant program will be provided to each faculty member who both attends the workshop and completes a OTL textbook review.
Date: March 9th, 2018
Time: 2-3pm
Location: Ellis Library 114A
If you have questions about this workshop or open textbooks, please contact Grace Atkins, the Open Educational and Outreach Librarian at atkinsge@missouri.edu.
For more information about OER on our campus, visit missouri.edu
For more information about the UM System’s Affordable & Open Educational Resources faculty grant program, visit edu/ums/aa/oer
Funding of $1000-$10,000 is now available to faculty who adopt, adapt or create free or low-cost textbooks and course materials for their classes. Priority will be given to grants for high-impact courses with a large number of students, and to courses with exceptionally high textbook costs. The amount awarded to successful applicants will be based upon the amount of savings to each student, and the number of students in the class.
Grants are available for several different activities, including:
Adopting, adapting and/or creating open and affordable materials
With Dr. Choi’s recent announcement of the University of Missouri System’s recent commitment to adopt OER to reduce the cost of textbooks and course materials, the Health Sciences Library is ready to help our faculty find appropriate resources for their courses.
MedEdPortal is a good starting point for locating open educational materials in medicine and the health sciences. Reach out to Taira Meadowcroft if you are interested in incorporating OER in your courses.
OER Initiatives & SPARC
Presentation in Ellis Library
Tuesday, August 1
2:30-3:30pm
Ellis Library – 114A Please RSVP on Eventbrite
Interested in learning about ways to support and implement Open Educational Resources (OER)?
As the University of Missouri moves forward with its own system-wide OER initiative, it’s useful to learn about how faculty at other universities have made progress in Open Education initiatives. Katie Steen, SPARC Open Education Fellow and Mizzou graduate, is coming to campus to explain how the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) supports the creation and adoption of OER. Ms. Steen will share what SPARC has learned in working with other colleges and universities on OER: what methods for implementing OER have created the most impact in affordability and equitable learning, and strategies for how we can increase OER use and impact at our own university.
Open to all faculty, students, staff, across campus—anyone interested in creating, using, or supporting OER is encouraged to attend!
Presentation will be 30 minutes with up to 30 additional minutes for Q&A. Click here to RSVP on Eventbrite.
+++
Open Education is the critical link between teaching, learning, and the collaborative culture of the Internet. SPARC supports policies and practices that advance the creation and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) — academic materials that everyone can use, adapt, and share freely.
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. SPARC empowers people to solve big problems and make new discoveries through the adoption of policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education.
