Celebrate Open Education Week With University Libraries

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Open Education Week, March 5-9, is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide.

The University of Arkansas Libraries will celebrate the week by hosting a webinar, "Collaborating Across Institutions to Advance Open Education," presented by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). The webinar will be screened from 1-2 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, in Mullins Library room 302B. This event is free and open to the public.

"SPARC does an amazing job serving as a bridge between academic institutions and helping to foster collaboration across state and even national boundaries," said Elaine Thornton, distance education librarian. "The Libraries has benefited immensely from the connections we've made through our participation in the coalition. This webinar offers a great opportunity to hear about the work to advance open education at other institutions." 

The University Libraries is a member of SPARC, and Carolyn Henderson Allen, dean of Libraries and a member of the SPARC board of directors. The Libraries actively support the ideals put forth by SPARC as they relate to open educational resources, open access and open data. The University Libraries is also committed to celebrating and working to advance open education all year long. Future programming will focus on encouraging student involvement and advocacy for open educational resources and increasing efforts to build more faculty awareness on campus.

"Thanks to our OER Awards program, we're beginning to make small but meaningful strides in helping lower the cost of education for our students while helping faculty innovate their teaching," said Stephanie Pierce, head of the Physics Library. "This webinar, we hope, will shine a light on the potential opportunities for collaboration, both between fellow U of A faculty and also between faculty at other institutions."

To encourage faculty to move from textbooks to open educational resources, the University Libraries and the Global Campus offer financial incentives to faculty through the OER Awards Program. To learn more, visit libraries.uark.edu/OER or send an email to oer@uark.edu.