Group items tagged

The University System of Maryland will this fall launch a pilot project to gauge the efficiency of open educational resources (OER), James Jalandoni, president of the system's student council, said on Monday. "We have made it a priority to start tackling the issue of textbook costs and the impact they have on college affordability," Jalandoni said.

A student-driven initiative plans to turn the page on skyrocketing textbook costs by promoting an affordable, online educational resource that's picking up steam across the nation: open-source textbooks. Starting this fall, the University System of Maryland Student Council will pilot a program to allow interested faculty members in high-enrollment, entry-level classes to use open-source textbooks.

"Although the open-source textbook concept has been embraced by student groups such as the Student Government Association in College Park, university officials say the challenges include connecting professors with the materials they need for the textbooks and creating a system to assess the quality of the books. Another complication: Many universities are bound to contracts with private companies to run campus bookstores, where many students purchase their textbooks. University System of Maryland financial records show that the bookstore contracts are not always lucrative, however - last year the system lost about $1 million."

In 2010, Roberts was a graduate student working for the federal government while teaching introductory psychology at night. He didn't set aside a summer, a month or a few weeks to prepare his book - he created it on a week-by-week basis, often putting sections together late at night or early in the morning. Roberts, who provides his book free of charge to the university's PSYC 100: Introduction to Psychology classes, is part of a national growing open educational resources movement. These resources are published under a Creative Commons license, which allows for free use and sometimes editing, much like Wikipedia. Roberts' psychology textbook draws from free online information, videos and graphics.

""Why not shame and embarrass others, especially the vulnerable, if there are no negative consequences? If people had a stronger sense that online abuse would be followed by legal or social sanctions, then we surely would have less of it," according to Danielle Keats Citron, law professor at the University of Maryland and author of 2014's Hate Crimes in Cyberspace."

"At the end of the semester, however, students would be required to return the print version to the publisher, preventing them from selling their used casebooks back to a bookstore or to their peers. "My immediate reaction was: 'My goodness, they are trying to to kill first sale!'" said Mr. Grimmelmann, a professor of law at Maryland."

"Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps," said Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland and the author of "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace." "It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way." Continue reading the main story Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app's privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm.

DALE EDWIN MURRAY When campus president Wallace Loh walked into Juan Uriagereka's office last August, he got right to the point. "We need courses for this thing - yesterday!" Uriagereka, associate provost for faculty affairs at the University of Maryland in College Park, knew exactly what his boss meant.

"Using a mix of skills in data engineering, analysis, and business intelligence, the Office focuses on analytics subject areas such as executive and academic program dashboards, marketing, enrollment management, retention, financials, and service centers. A service catalog includes predictive analytics, metrics dashboards, forecast modeling, Ad Hoc reporting, operational reporting, and variance analysis."