BLOG: Current Happenings in OER

Healey Library is pleased to announce the first publication of an open educational resource (OER), supported by the OER Faculty Incentive Grant at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

“Latine Students in U.S. Schools: An Interactive Resource Book for Educators” by UMass Boston College of Education and Human Development Professor Melissa Colón and her doctoral students is the first open educational resource fully created using the support of this grant. In addition to the financial support from the Provost’s Office, authors also collaborated with Healey Librarians, who provided copyright information, assistance finding open access materials, formatting and platform training, and general publication guidance.

This born-digital textbook importantly increases free access to reliable, peer-reviewed educational material about the schooling experiences of Latine youth in the United States. It contributes to the mission of the open movement by expanding the availability of information, especially about historically underrepresented populations. In chapter three titled, “Why an OER Book?” Colón writes, “by providing a free book targeted at educators, I wanted to remove cost-prohibitive factors to learning more about OER and specifically about Latine students in the U.S.” (Colón, 2025).

Read the book here: https://pressbooks.pub/latinestudents/

Abstract: This interactive resource book provides educators with highly curated research, academic scholarship, and community-based materials to better inform and support their work with Latine students, families, and communities. Grounded in critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies (Rendón et al., 2014; Alim & Paris, 2017). This book encourages educators to cultivate a spirit of curiosity, collaboration, and continuous learning, recognizing that serving Latine students well requires both commitment and ongoing inquiry.

We are excited to announce LibreTexts latest innovation in our greater LibreVerse of technologies, the Forge, is officially here. The Forge is an assignment platform specifically built to advance Open Pedagogy and provide actionable insights through integrated analytics. The platform enables instructors to design renewable, collaborative long-form assignments and gives students meaningful opportunities to produce public-facing, openly licensed work. Seamlessly aligned with the values of Open Education, the Forge supports a learner-centered, participatory approach that scales across class sizes and disciplines.

Access to the Forge is available for all LibreTexts verified instructors:

https://forge.libretexts.org

Learn more about how you can integrate the Forge into your classes:

https://libretexts.org/blog/introducing-forge-new-innovation-open-pedagogy

ACRL announces the publication of The Open Science Cookbook, edited by Emily Bongiovanni, Melanie Gainey, Chasz Griego, and Lencia McKee, a collection of lesson plans and activities for supporting openly accessible, reproducible research.  

Open science promotes more transparent, accessible, and reproducible research and extends beyond the sciences, fostering this inclusivity across all disciplines. There are many benefits to practicing open science, including opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, increased visibility and impact, and enhanced reusability of research.

The Open Science Cookbook provides a wide variety of lesson plans and learning activities for supporting collaborative, transparent, openly accessible, and reproducible research. In five sections, it has something for beginners to more advanced practitioners and for different audience sizes.

• Program Development
• Instruction
• Outreach
• Events
• Collaborations and Partnerships
  Just as freely sharing data and workflows enables key breakthroughs in major fields, sharing open science practices and resources creates an even stronger foundation for this necessary growth at institutions around the world. The Open Science Cookbook offers innovative ways for academic libraries to promote open science through advocacy and education.

University of Northern Iowa's Rod Library is pleased to announce the final publication of a new Open Educational Resource (OER)textbook, Media and Power, by three of our Communication and Media faculty, Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Catherine H. Palczewski. This project was funded by the UNI Textbook Equity Mini-Grant Program.

The book guides students through concepts, content, and exercises that help them develop media literacy by understanding media and power. The authors want students to not only gain the ability to critically analyze the languages and discourses – textual, visual, audio, and code – that people use to create and interpret media content, but also to understand the overarching context: media possess immense power in contemporary societies around the world. Included throughout are class assignment and activity prompts.

This book has already been piloted with students for several semesters, it is the focus of an upcoming international media literacy conference, and there are plans to translate the book into multiple languages. As an OER, permissions are included for translation, adaptation, and distribution, and it is free to all. In addition, the license specifies that adaptations must be shared similarly, thus ensuring more free and open resources enter the scholarly commons on this topic!

The LibreTexts team is pleased to announce the official launch of our Academy Online. Part of our larger Academy Center for Open Instructional Innovation and Professional Development, Academy Online offers a number of professional development opportunities to help grow your open education programs, develop ZTC pathways, and curate OER.

Now available is a series of free, asynchronous courses designed to introduce you to your new favorite all-in-one Open Education toolbox, including an Introduction to LibreTexts: Into the LibreVerse. If you're looking for the perfect way to get started with LibreTexts, this course is for you. Also available now: LibreTexts for Students, designed to help your students get the most out of their OER, and a short introduction to our open homework and assessment platform, ADAPT.

You can find all of our Academy Online courses on our website, and be sure to keep checking back for new content: https://libretexts.org/academy/online.

oertransport Textbooks are a new suite of six openly licensed textbooks which are transforming how transportation planning is taught across the U.S., thanks to an ambitious initiative led by CAPPA faculty members at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in partnership with institutions in California and Florida. The OER, “Enabling Transportation Planning Professional Advancement”, eliminates textbook costs while delivering high-quality, industry-vetted content to students pursuing sustainable and equitable transportation careers.

Foundations of Business, 2nd Edition [2025] by Holly Jackson, PhD was created for use in Virginia Commonwealth University's BUSN 201, Foundations of Business course which strives to build awareness of corporate social responsibility and ethical business behavior. The practical application of the concepts gained in this course, and through this text, assists students in gaining an integrated awareness of business, while practicing analytical skills needed for their advanced business courses and careers. The second edition contains updates for relevancy, plus a new section on Mentoring.

Ecology for All! by Brouwer, Connuck, Dubniczki, Gownaris, Howard, Olmsted, Wetzel, Whittinghill, Wilson, and Zallek is an ecology text designed in modules so that instructors can choose the pieces that make sense to assign in their context. The textbook covers a wide range of topics including Introduction to Ecology, Evolution, Adaptations to the Physical Environment, various ecological communities, Population Ecology, Behavioral Ecology, Species Interactions, Ecological Succession, Biogeochemical Cycles, Landscape Ecology, Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, and Human Impact on Global Climate among others.

I’d like to bring to your attention a new OER from the University of Virginia:

Higher Education Evolution: Unraveling the Past, Confronting Today's Challenges, and Empowering Student Independence, by Rachel Most

From the author:  “This book is a compilation of my personal journey in higher education and of what I have seen and learned from 30 years working in that field. To say there has been a sea change in how students perceive and navigate college and in the level of parental involvement since I began working with college students in the early 1990s is an understatement. The changes have been epic. There are four parts to this book. The first part (Chapter 1) is my story where I share my experiences growing up, getting to college, and then getting to graduate school. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 (the second part) include the history of higher education, what it has become and what I think it should be, and the value of the liberal arts. In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 (part three), I share some of the situations I dealt with as a dean and advisor, offer reflections on the pandemic and higher education, and then offer some advice for students. These sections come together at different points and in different ways for the fourth and concluding part of the book—the epilogue.”

In recognition of International Women's Month, the Pressbooks March Book of the Month is Women Writers, an open-access literary anthology featuring works by women writers across history. It provides historical context, critical analysis, and diverse perspectives on literature, aiming to highlight women's contributions to the literary canon and support college-level study of feminist and gender-related themes in literature.

From the preface: 

This project started small, but continued to grow as I thought about all the talented and inspiring women writers that should be included.  With nine units, containing ninety-nine chapters, the book may at first appear overwhelming.  However, I have organized it in a way that makes it easy to pick and choose the content that is right for your individual needs.  The nine units are organized by genre: feminist theory, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, music, plays, film, short stories, and novels.  Within the nine units, I have organized the featured authors chronologically by date of birth.  Each unit starts with an introduction that gives an overview of the content within the unit and it ends with a creative, culminating writing project that can be adapted for students at all levels.  Each featured author chapter includes shortcut anchors for easy navigation, background on the author and selected texts, visuals, discussion questions, interactive activities, and sources for further study.

Just in time for international Open Education Week (March 2-7, 2025), the Affordable College Textbook Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. Congress. The bill aims to reduce the cost of textbooks by expanding the use and awareness of open educational resources at college and university campuses. The Senate bill is sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Angus King (I-ME), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) will introduce companion legislation in the House. SPARC strongly supports this bill, and you can read more in SPARC’s news post and Senator Durbin’s press release.

The Affordable College Textbook Act would:

• Authorize a U.S. federal grant program, similar to the Open Textbook Pilot, to support projects at colleges and universities to create and expand the use of open textbooks with priority for projects that will achieve the highest savings for students.
• Improve and update existing requirements for publishers and institutions that provide information on textbook costs for required materials to students on course schedules, including a requirement to inform students about the terms under which publishers collect and use their data.
• Codify strong definitions of OER and open licensing to ensure that materials created with federal funds under the bill have the maximum benefit for students and the public.

If you’re represented by members of the U.S. Congress, you can show your support for the Affordable College Textbook Act by asking your Senators and Representative to become co-sponsors. Visit the SPARC policy page for more information.