Temple University Libraries is celebrating Open Education Week March 9-13. Open Education Week is a yearly celebration designed to raise awareness about open educational resources. Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free to read and reuse. Examples of OER include videos, problem sets, slides, and textbooks.
At Temple, faculty across the schools and colleges are using OER in their classes. Faculty often assign OER in order to make their courses more affordable for students – by choosing an open textbook instead of a commercial textbook, for example, faculty can potentially save students hundreds of dollars a semester. Another benefit for faculty is it that OER are openly licensed, which means that faculty can remix and build upon the content, customizing the material to meet the needs of their particular class.
To mark Open Education Week, Temple University Libraries will be offering the following activities:
Temple OER Faculty Virtual Exhibit
March 9-13, all day
Charles Library, First Floor
This virtual exhibit profiles a few of the many Temple faculty who are using open educational resources in their courses, focusing on current and past Textbook Affordability Project awardees as well as faculty currently publishing open textbooks with North Broad Press. Read additional accounts from more faculty listed on our blog.
Open Education Tools and Methods Posters Series
March 9-13, all day
Charles Library, 3rd Floor, Digital Scholars Studio
Visit our poster series featuring mapping with QGIS, data analysis with R, network analysis with Gephi, 3D modelling with Blender, and simulation learning with PhET. DSS representatives will be present between 12:00-1:00PM to answer any questions.
Using Open Textbooks in the Classroom Workshop
Tuesday, March 10, 12:30-1:30PM
Charles Library, 4th Floor, room 401
We’ll provide an introduction to the world of open educational resources. We’ll discuss how to find high quality open textbooks in your discipline, and show you how these books can be customized to suit the needs of your particular class.
Register at https://library.temple.edu/events/839
Open Education Grad/Faculty Coffee Hour
Wednesday, March 11, 12:00-2:00PM
Charles Library, 4th Floor Graduate and Faculty Study
Join us for coffee hour in the Graduate and Faculty Study in celebration of Open Education Week!
And, a little later in the month, we’ll be featuring a hands-on workshop focused on locating, mixing, and creating open educational course materials with LibreTexts.
Open Education Week is also a great time to learn more about Temple University Libraries’ Textbook Affordability Project which provides awards ranging from $500 to $1500 to faculty for adopting or creating free alternatives to commercial educational resources. Applications will be accepted until March 25.
We hope you will join us for our Open Education Week events!