Affordable Learning Georgia
Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) is a USG initiative that supports the implementation of affordable alternatives to expensive commercial textbooks, particularly Open Educational Resources (OER) and open textbooks, which are both free and customizable.
ALG offers numerous services to accomplish its goal of affordable learning. The ALG website contains resources and information related to affordable learning, OER, and advocacy. ALG's Textbook Transformation Grants provide monetary support to encourage the adoption and/or creation of open textbooks or the use of library/licensed educational resources (LER).
GGC Contacts
GGC supports the University System of Georgia's (USG) Affordable Learning Georgia program. This program provides two on-campus "champions" for faculty interested in affordable learning, and their email addresses are listed below.
Library Champion: Catherine Downey, Interim Dean of Library Services
Design Champion: Tracy Adkins, Executive Director of Academic Technology and Campus Engagement
Campus Contact: Office of Research and Sponsored Programs & Marie Firestone, Associate Director
Cumulative cost savings and benefits realized by GGC students due to GGC faculty participation in Affordable Materials Grants
GGC's Affordable Materials Grant Data, Spring 2023
The above document is a cumulative cost savings and benefits realized by GGC students due to GGC faculty participation in Affordable Materials Grants
ALG Textbook Transformation Grants
The Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation Grants are intended to:
The Textbook Transformation Grants are offered several times throughout the year. If you'd like to apply for a grant and need help getting started, your ALG Campus Champions are happy to help.
Library/Licensed Educational Resources
Library/Licensed Educational Resources (LER) can support affordability efforts on campus when used to replace an expensive traditional textbook. These resources are not considered OER because they are not openly licensed, such as with a Creative Commons license. However, they are available to students without additional costs.
Finding LER at Kaufman Library
Kaufman Library has a diverse and extensive array of library resources. If you have questions about which library resources can be used as LER, your library liaison can help you find the resources you need.
Where to Start:
This include provides easy access to Kaufman Library's databases.
This list provides access to Kaufman Library's online subscription journals.
Find books and other materials at Kaufman Library.
Open Educational Resources
UNESCO defines Open Educational Resources (OER) as "any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation."
As the definition above illustrates, OER are not limited to only open textbooks; however, textbook affordability is a central issue for many OER initiatives. The Kaufman Library purchases and subscribes to a wide variety of resources that can be used to replace a traditional textbook. These Library/Licensed Educational Resources (LER) are not considered OER because they are only available to GGC students and faculty and they often are restricted in how you can reuse them; however, they can still be a valuable asset when considering alternatives to traditional textbooks.
If you'd like to learn more about OER, the sites below are excellent resources.
The OER Starter Kit Workbook is a remix of the OER Starter Kit to include worksheets to help instructors practice the skills they need to confidently find, use, or even create open educational resources (OER).
Creative Commons provides definitions of OER.
This course provides a broad overview of the ways in which openness impacts many areas of education – curriculum, instruction, learning, policy, technology, research, and finance, among others.
This self-paced workshop contains 10 modules covering everything from copyright and licensing to why OER matters.
These UNESCO guidelines outline key issues and make suggestions for integrating OER into higher education.
Finding OERs
The Milne Library at SUNY Geneseo developed OASIS, a tool that searches across multiple OER sites.
George Mason University Libraries also created a tool that searches across OER sites, the Mason OER Metafinder (MOM).
Try searching with OASIS or MOM before making a deeper dive into the OER sites in the next section. Your library liaison is also here to help!
Numerous sites and repositories exist that make OER available online or make finding OER easier. Below is a selection of available sites.
The Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL) is one of 16 National Foreign Language Resource Centers (LRC's) funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The mission of these centers is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages.
GALILEO Open Learning Materials brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.
Includes links to multidisciplinary collections as well as subject areas.
LIbre Tex Project is result of DOE $5 million Open Textbooks Project award in 2018, with a team of faculty from variety of institutions led by University of California-Davis, developing this site.
The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
OER Commons offers a comprehensive infrastructure for curriculum experts and instructors at all levels to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners.
Open Michigan enables the University of Michigan community to make the products of its research, teaching, and creative work available to the world beyond campus.
OpenStax, a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University, publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are free online and low cost in print.
The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
OPEN Washington, an Open Educational Resources (OER) network, provides easy and organized access to OER.
The following directories enable discovery of freely available peer-reviewed eBooks and eJournals.
DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. All DOAJ services are free of charge and all data is freely available.
Course Reserves
GGC faculty may put materials on course reserve for student use. If you wish to place materials on course reserve, please submit the electronic Course Reserve Request Form and drop off any physical items at the library circulation desk.
Notes:
Links and Relevant Resources:
Information from the American Library Association.
Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Licensed Educational Resources (LERs) are excellent substitutes. “Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities (retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute)” (Creative Commons, n.d.). LERs include articles, e-books, images, reports, statistics, streaming media, etc., that are located within the subscription-based and purchased databases and e-books that Kaufman Library makes available to the GGC community.
A variety of sites provide search help for OERs, including OERs that are peer-reviewed. Many OERs are licensed under Creative Commons, which allows for the 5Rs mentioned above so that a particular OER can be adapted to meet specific instructional needs. Some OERs are open access textbooks, with content written by subject experts, making them freely available to replace required textbooks that have a price attached. Kaufman Library has created a guide to help locate available OERs, such as open-access textbooks, and provides information on Creative Commons licensing. Affordable Learning Georgia maintains a repository of OERs created through its Textbook Transformation grant program.
Materials in the public domain are often part of digitized collections made freely available by libraries, museums, learned societies, etc., and many feature primary source materials. Some materials in digital collections may still fall under copyright restrictions but can be used for teaching and research under Fair Use.
Library liaisons stand at the ready to collaborate with you to make using OERs and LERs a transformative pedagogical experience. Not only can the library liaisons collaborate with you to locate and evaluate the plethora of resources available, but can also work together to “remix” existing materials to make the content interactive and engaging for students.
If the material you have on Course Reserve is what you need, there are two possible options. If the book is available in e-format, the Library will explore the possibility of purchase. Please complete the Material Purchase Request form, but note that the e-format may not allow unlimited simultaneous users. If there is not an e-version, but this is still something you need for your course, please consider selecting a small portion after determining if it falls within Fair Use. If you deem it fair use, Kaufman Library will then digitize this portion for you to add to your D2L course.
Kaufman Library looks forward to working with you as we all make needed adjustments for the coming semester. Please contact your Library liaison or the Access Services Department if we can assist.
Reference
Creative Commons. (n.d.). What we do: Program area: Open education. (n.d.).https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/education-oer/
Creative Commons
The nonprofit Creative Commons provides a way to easily share and reuse content through its free copyright licenses. The use of a Creative Commons license does not remove copyright from an item (image, article, video, etc.), but it does allow the copyright holder to identify how the item can be used. Creative Commons licenses are described in more detail in the section below.
Creative Commons and OER
OER are often published under a Creative Commons license, so a basic understanding of these licenses helps you determine how an OER can be used. The links below
Below is a brief overview of the license conditions that can be applied to copyrighted works. OPEN Washington's OER course contains an excellent Creative Common licenses module, which provides an in-depth examination of this topic.
License Conditions
Creative Commons currently has four main types of license conditions a copyright holder can use when publishing her work. Below is description of each type.
CC-BY/Attribution |
This condition is the least restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses. Attribution only requires that others must give credit to the original copyright holder when using the work even if the original work has been revised in any way. All Creative Commons licenses require attribution, including licenses using the conditions below. |
CC-SA/Attribution ShareAlike |
ShareAlike requires that anyone creating a modified version of a work must publish the new work, even commercially, using the same terms as the original license, crediting original copyright holder. |
CC-NC/Attribution-NonCommercial |
NonCommercial allows for the use and reuse of a work as long as it is not for commercial purposes and the original copyright holder is credited. |
CC-ND/NoDerivatives |
NoDerivatives allows for the use of a work, even commercially, but the original work cannot be modified without seeking permission from the original copyright holder, who must be credited. |
Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike |
Non-commercial Share-alike allows for revision of the original work non-commercial work giving credit to the original copyright holder and licensing under the same terms. |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs |
Non-commercial No Derivatives is the most restrictive and only allows the downloading of the original work without any changes, giving credit to the original creator. |
Public Domain
Creative Commons also has two ways to designate a work that has no copyright restrictions associated with it.
CC0 |
CC0 allows a copyright holder to waive any rights under copyright and give her work to the public domain. |
Public Domain Mark |
This mark identifies works that are free of known copyright restrictions. This mark can be used when copyright has expired on a work. |