EUA has presented a comprehensive response to the “Plan S” consultation launched by Science Europe. Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing launched in 2018 by an international group of research funders (Coalition S). EUA has a special interest in Plan S as it complements the Association’s efforts on Open Access to scholarly publications. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Introduction to Open Education: Towards a Human Rights Theory
TJ Bliss, Patrick Blessinger, International Journal of Open Educational Resources, 2018/10/23
This is an overview of openness in education and in educational resources in particular and takes a human-rights perspective on the subject. It's a fairly long article, but relatively introductory. Its almost entirely US-based history dates the beginning of open content from 1998, which is a (large) number of years too late (again, my 1995 openly-licensed Fallacies guide was following examples already widelky found the field even by then). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. On OER and College Bookstores
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, 2018/10/15
Once concern about open educational resources (OER) is that they might cost the college bookstore its traditional revenue base. But as David Wiley points out, only a small percentage of the cost of a textbook is returned to the bookstore. And this could be made up with, say, print-on-demand service. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. $1 Billion in Savings through Open Educational Resources
Nicole Allen, SPARC, 2018/10/12
According to SPARC, Open Educational Resources (OER) have saved the academic community (that is, students, donors and governments who actually pay for the system) more thn a billion dollars over the last five years. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why open admission systems don’t always lead to greater equity in higher education
Marie-Helene Doumet, Education & Skills Today, 2018/10/10
People writing about open access to learning need to review their knowledge of necessary and sufficient conditions. It is misleading and trite to say "x by itself won't solve the problem of equity". This is true for pretty much any value of x because solving the problem of equity requires that a number of factors be present. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open access at a crossroads
David Kramer, Physics Today, 2018/10/13
More reaction to Plan S for open access. I'm fully sympathetic with the Smits line of reasoning: “For the last 20 years, libraries, universities, and [others] had the possibility to sort this out. But they did not,” Smits says. “Now the funders have stepped in, and they now call the shots.” The publisher made large profits, the universities focused on absurd metrics, and the researchers didn't care. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Intro to OER: A Wider Spectrum
Tom Woodward, Bionic Teaching, 2018/10/03
The bulk of this post is a revised outline of an introduction to open educational resources (OER) with a lot of links to sources and resources. This is prefaced with an explanation of that structure. "I try to work from the typical conception of OER towards what I feel like are less considered elements," writes Tom Woodward. More...