Thursday, May 25, 2017

CFP: The Evolution of Affordable Content Efforts in the Higher Education Environment: Programs, Case Studies, and Examples

The Evolution of Affordable Content Efforts in the Higher Education Environment: Programs, Case Studies, and Examples

Upcoming, openly licensed University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing title (2017) available as a digital publication using Pressbooks (and possibly as a print on demand title)

Edited by Kristi Jensen (kjensen@umn.edu) and Shane Nackerud (snackeru@umn.edu), University of Minnesota

Proposal Deadline: June 16, 2017

Notification of Selected Authors/Chapters: June 30, 2017

Chapter Deadline: November 27, 2017

While the movement to utilize open educational resources in a wide range of educational environments began over two decades ago, there has been a surge in interest in both OER and other affordable course content options in the last several years. Much of the recent interest has been tied to strategic initiatives to make higher education more affordable and to improve teaching and learning.

A great deal has been published on open educational resources and open textbooks in higher education. While open textbooks and OER are exciting options, focusing only on OER or open textbooks often excludes many new efforts that present a wide array of affordable content options - options that have broader reach given the lack of quality, open resources available in many subject areas.

The Evolution of Affordable Content Efforts in the Higher Education Environment: Programs, Case Studies, and Examples, will allow authors from across institutions to provide their blueprint(s) for creating successful affordable content programming.

Chapter Ideas:
We are looking for chapters in the following areas but welcome your additional suggestions for review:

  • Bookstore models - rentals, all purchase ebook models
  • Faculty experiences - collaboration, impact on teaching, impact on students, why a move to affordable content
  • Student feedback and experiences
  • Library licensed multi-use ebook models
  • Hybrid content models - Library Licensed, OER, public domain, Fair Use, etc.
  • OER only models
  • Purchase models, for example, student fees pay for texts and they “check them out” for the semester
  • University wide collaboration models focused on OER and/or affordable content
  • Inter-institutional collaboration models focused on OER and/or affordable content
  • Incentive grants to utilize or create OER and/or affordable content
  • Publishing efforts
    • Replicating traditional publishing to create open content
    • New views of what textbook is broadly or for certain disciplines
    • Developing new models of peer review
    • Creating assessments and other supplemental materials
  • Education, workshops, culture change
  • Responses to legislative dictates

All chapters might include details about:
  • Partnerships
  • Scalability and sustainability
  • Barriers and successes
  • Pros and cons of approaches or methods
  • Measures of success and assessment efforts
  • And lessons learned


Proposal Format:

Proposed chapter title
300-500 word chapter description
Author(s) name, professional title, & contact information
Short 100 word bio for author(s)


Submission Process:
Authors interested in submitting chapters should complete the proposal form
on or before June 16, 2017.