The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) have announced that a joint forum on open educational resources (OER) will be held next month. The SPARC-ACRL forum will be held during the 2009 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Denver from January 24, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. It will introduce OER and the philosophy behind them to the wider library community.
Representatives of the OER community will offer their insights into 'The transformative potential of OER' at the event. They will highlight examples of how different constituencies are currently advancing OER on campuses, and offer suggestions for how libraries can further engage to support OER.
OER are a logical extension of what the library community supports in the open access movement, and underscore the need for the larger playing field on which scholarly communication takes place to be made more equitable. They focus not only on journals, but also on full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques that are critical in the learning environment.
Forum presenters will include Richard Baraniuk, an architect of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration which aims to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education; David Wiley, also a leader of the Cape Town Declaration; Nicole Allen, leader of the Student PIRGs' Make Textbooks Affordable campaign, which aims to develop a textbook market with both a vibrant used book market and a plethora of learning content that is priced and sold fairly; and Mark Nelson, Digital Content Strategist for the National Association of College Stores, the trade association representing the higher education retail industry.
The ACRL Scholarly Communications Discussion Group will also host an open conversation about issues that surface at the forum on January 25. The forum will be available via SPARC podcast at a later date.
