The one thing I did not do in library graduate school was to spend a lot of dedicated time on copyright and other related issues. I’m definitely feeling the crunch, particularly in light of the open access (OA) and open educational resources (OER) movements in higher education. Over the summer, I was very impressed with the University of Maryland University College‘s move to open digital resources for undergraduate education. Here is Barbara Fister’s overview of recent developments in OA during Open Access Week this past fall. Adding to the recent developments in OA that Fister lists, just today I read that the Oberlin Group, with the backing of liberal arts colleges, launched Lever Press.
In the CJCLS listserv this fall, someone posted the following report, “Opening Public Institutions: OER in North Dakota and the Nation, 2015,” and asked where all the community college librarians were in helping to lead OA/OER on their campuses. Here are some resources some people shared from that listserv, as well as some resources from a question about open textbooks from the ILI listserv:
Lansing Community College’s OER Summit
Lansing Community College’s OER LibGuide
Northwestern Michigan College OER LibGuide
University of Maryland University College OER LibGuide
OA and OER are subjects I follow, but not to the degree I would like. One of the challenges is that our community college is not part of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, but according to the website “[i]ndividuals, whether they represent Consortium members or not, are welcome to use and modify materials and resources found on this website, and to participate in webinars and other Consortium activities.” I just got added to the CCCOER Advisory Google Group, so I hope to gain more knowledge. They also have a YouTube channel. I suspect that with the push for distance education in our college district, and some of the buzz that was generated by a student leader about open textbooks to the Academic Senate, we will become more involved. As the newer librarian two years away from tenure, it’s difficult to broach these subjects, but I am preparing. In fact, I took an online “how to teach an online” class this past fall with other faculty members more to see what the faculty were saying regarding content for courses, etc. There is a need for OER there.
Someone also pointed me to SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Here are some relevant conferences. The 12th Annual Open Education Conference was in Vancouver this past November, so I plan to take a gander at the website for #OpenEd2015. I was really bummed that San Jose State University’s one-day Open Access Conference 2015 was during a planned mini vacation. I will be on the lookout for this year’s conference dates.
I definitely also need to carve out time to watch the Blended Librarian recorded webcast On Becoming Open Education Leaders. Librarians really are in the fantastic position to lead the movement, and there are some college’s that have specific OER/OA librarians. How neat!
(As I was finishing up this post, someone posted about Project CORA, Community of Online Research Assignments: An Open Access Resource for Faculty and Librarians. I am so excited! This “library” will really enhance my information literacy instruction work!)
Another thing I have been meaning to do over the winter break is to start the the Coursera course Copyright for Educators and Librarians (librarians are educators, but okay). I still have time to begin before I go back to work, though.
I sense a theme among some of the links I’ve been collecting over the last few months, as well.
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video
Digital Media Law Project’s Fair Use webpage
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL)‘s Copyright for Librarians
I also find BYU’s Copyright 101 modules to be helpful. The videos don’t really look modern, but they now have captions!
Lindsay Ann Davis 