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Moving from the use of open educational resources (OERs) to an "open educational practice" helps students to understand themselves as knowledge creators in a community, and not just as information consumers. This article focuses on class projects to edit Wikipedia articles, which is only one example of an open educational practice, but an easy one to start with.

Multiple interesting discussions in this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The first 2 discussions are particularly wiorthwhile. They open with a discussion of the ways U.S. government rules on retaining electronic records will impact the teaching of history, and follow with a discussion of the Open Syllabus Project, which analyzes millions of syllabi collected from the web.

The author's review of the readership statistics for his own papers has some implications for both open access and information literacy instruction.

OhioLINK is joining the Open Textbook Network, a consortium working on controlling textbook costs by providing high-quality open access textbooks. Have you looked at the open textbooks in your field?

Proponents of OER (open educational resources) and open pedagogy respond to some common concerns.

The Open Access movement encompasses a number of initiatives that encourage more affordable course materials for students, shared resources among teachers, and collaboration among scholars. Here are some simple ways of contributing to Open Access in your research and teaching practices.

Big issues on this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The MLA is opening a new repository for scholarship in the humanities. Would you be more likely to use it, or Digital Kenyon, to preserve and distribute your work? The AHA has issues some guidelines about assessing digital work in history; the panelists debate what they're good for and where they don't go far enough.

Big issues on this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The MLA is opening a new repository for scholarship in the humanities. Would you be more likely to use it, or Digital Kenyon, to preserve and distribute your work? The AHA has issues some guidelines about assessing digital work in history; the panelists debate what they're good for and where they don't go far enough.

Vitae's new syllabus database is a very limited tool - it's only searchable by file name, author name, and the disciplinary keywords chosen by the author. Still, it's a good step to see the Chronicle of Higher Ed providing a space for open syllabi. Worth a look as you plan next year's courses, or think about your own online presence!

A group of disabilities studies scholars have released a template letter designed to convince publishers to make more books available in accessible formats. It's a good reminder that everything is negotiable, but you have to ask. (Similar to author's addenda in the open access movement, if enough people start requesting these riders, publishers will see a new reason to change their standard practices.)

Very interesting stuff in this interview about public scholarship and open educational resources, and student privacy in digital scholarship.

Clay Shirkey, author of "Here Comes Everybody," examines the challenge posed to U.S. higher education by massive open online courses, or MOOCs. Shirkey is the author of "Here Comes Everybody," a book he says is about "what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures." In this article, he describes the same dynamic at work in the disruptive potential of MOOCs to all but the most elite institutions of higher education in America. 

This article deserves attention for opening up a professor's iterative process in figuring out the best structure for her class's online presence. I'm intrigued by the idea of using Facebook instead of or in addition to a professor-run website or Moodle page.

An amusing letter about maintaining focus in the "always-on" mobile network environment. I fear, though, that if first-years actually saw this, it would read as something between "eat your broccoli" and "get off my lawn." (In fact, I fear it reads that way to staff and faculty too.)

This is a pretty awesome site. Open in a fresh browser window as each click on a hot link opens a new tab. I would like to confirm many of the dates of these sites, but just the map and its interactive-ness alone is worth checking out!

A discussion with Kenneth Crews of Columbia University about copyright. It opens with a nice primer on the concepts of copyright and fair use, and takes an interesting turn at the end as the discussants consider the ownership of faculty and staff copyrights, and Creative Commons licensing.

By building an open, multi-disciplinary collection of SMART recipes (Simple, Modular, Assessable, Reproducible,and Tested) that could be integrated into any curriculum, we intend to bring information literacy to the forefront of liberal arts education.

A short open access textbook which presents main concepts of various kinds of information literacy to students. It includes case studies and hands-on exercises.

James Lang offers a set of strategies to get students to read the syllabus, and to actually internalize the information in it. I've recommended syllabus quizzes to many faculty members, but I'm intrigued by the way Lang suggests personalizing them with open-ended questions.

Many classes already use library materials (physical or online) as course readings. Have you looked, though, at the open textbooks and other instructional materials available in your field?

"In writing, as in learning, openings matter. Don't fritter them away." 4 ways you can use the opening of class to help students transition their attention into your course, from James Lang.