Post on 15-Nov-2014
description
Digital and OER Textbooks:The Library’s Next Frontier?
Stephen R. Acker, Research DirectorOhio Digital Bookshelf Project
OhioLINK/The Ohio Board of Regents
Presented to the ACRL Annual Conference April 12, 2013, Indianapolis, IN
Agenda
• OER/Digital Value propositions– Students, faculty, institutions and libraries
• Digital and OER- crossing zebras and leopards– Formats and business models differ
• State of Ohio textbook/learning materials initiatives– ALEKS (Commercial)– Flat World Knowledge (Freemium)– Scaffold to the Stars (OER)
• Re-visiting the Library value proposition– An audience poll and discussion
OER/Digital Value Propositions
• Students– Learning Outcomes/Cost= Value
• Faculty– Curricular flexibility/Time= Value
• Institution– Credential Completion/Time= Value
• Library– Services/Budget=Value
• Pathfinding, accessibility, digital literacy, licensing
Libraries and textbook affordability
96% of attendees felt libraries should play an important role in promoting affordable textbook options
ALEKS Adaptive Learning
Ohio’s Flat World Knowledge Pilots
Minnesota System’s OER Center
Ohio Flat World Knowledge Study Results
Ohio’s Scaffold to the Stars
Pathfinding: Discovering content
• Library-faculty partnerships are needed to vett OER resources.– There are literally millions of OER resources
available offered in complete textbooks and as modules.
Accessibility
• Library Reserves have long had challenges making their resources accessible.
• The accessibility metadata tag introduced in Scaffold offers a teachable moment for faculty eReserve contributors.
• Google Analytics funnels track and sequence equal outcomes for equal effort consistent with ADA requiremets.
Equifinality- Multiple Paths to Learning
Digital Literacy
• In our post-course focus groups, too many students indicate they were unaware of tool usage in digital reserves.– Libraries are excellent sources of digital literacy
instruction in general and could provide essential support in navigating eTextbooks and OER collections.
Licensing
• An under-leveraged resource on most campuses is library expertise in negotiating licenses.– Favorable terms for core textbook access would be
of great value to students and institutions.• This value-add should increase library budgets.
Flexible licensing model
•Refinement of patron acquisition model–Volume and Temporal (dynamic demand functions)
•Example point of departure–ebrary’s three-user model
•patron driven acquisition and Extended Access™ models•also with YBP’s GOBI for firm orders as well as demand-driven acquisition.
Spring thaw: Time to fish• Why am I writing about this in the Scholarly Kitchen? Because I am concerned, first of all, that
our unwillingness in libraries to cut — to stop doing things, to discriminate not between what is and isn’t valuable, but between what is less valuable and what is more valuable — is contributing to a decline in our relevance, a dynamic to which we have so far tended to respond by ever more loudly protesting our ongoing relevance. Second of all, I worry that this tendency extends to academia as a whole and puts higher education (as we understand it) at risk of implosion under the external pressure of emerging competitors in a cold and heedless marketplace of new educational opportunities — perhaps not this week, but sooner than we think. And third, I am concerned that if and when this implosion happens, what will take the place of libraries and universities as we currently understand them will serve us less well in the long run, because those whose choices will shape the future of academia are not always guided in those choices by consideration of their own long-term best interests.
– Rick Anderson, Interim Dean, University of Utah Marriott Library
• Anderson, R. (Mar 26, 2013). Federal Research Funding and the Unwillingness to Cut Bait, The Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
Re-visiting the Library Value Proposition
• What should libraries stop doing to start doing textbooks?– Nothing, all current services are essential.– Some things, but not to start doing textbooks.– Some things, to start library-housed textbook
pilots.– Whatever it takes, textbook-related services are
needed to reverse declining relevance and budget erosion.
Polleverywhere.com
PollEverywhere Preliminary Poll
A singular opinion in need of debate, refinement and creative opposition
declining relevance and budget erosion.
ACRL Live Audience Results
Reverse declining relevance and budget erosion.
Note: Audience response poll limited to first 40 respondents. Non-scientific and not necessarily representative.
Contact
• Steve Acker (acker.1 at osu.edu)– Research Director, Ohio Digital Bookshelf Project– OhioLINK/The Ohio Board of Regents