Category Archives: oa.hewlett_foundation

Assessing Open Education Resources Programs – Ithaka S+R

Posted on by
Reply

“Today we are excited to announce that Ithaka S+R is embarking on a one-year research project, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, to assess the impact and implementation of open educational resources (OER) programs at public institutions of higher education. Through the project, we will develop a framework to guide sustainable OER adoption and implementation.

At their core, OER initiatives aim to increase student learning outcomes by reducing costs. Our project aims to explore how OER strategies have evolved to meet the needs of faculty and students. In particular, we will develop a holistic framework to assess the impact of OER programs and the challenges they face, paying particular attention to faculty perspectives, student learning outcomes, and equity and digital equity.

Drawing on lessons from the broader literature on teaching and learning initiatives in higher education, the project is guided by the following research questions:

To what extent are postsecondary higher education institutions concerned with sustaining open education initiatives?
What attributes do successful OER initiatives share?
How can institutions move from pilot to wider adoption?
What factors contribute to or inhibit the sustainability of new initiatives in postsecondary institutions? …”

OU joins multi-state effort expand open-access science, literacy elementary curriculum – 2022 – School of Education and Human Services – News – OU Magazine – Oakland University

Posted on by
Reply

“Oakland University will share in a $7.5 million grant as part of a multi-state effort to develop an innovative, research-driven science curriculum designed to support teachers in engaging students’ natural curiosities and interests across the world.

The open-access project is being spearheaded by OpenSciEd, a major national effort designed to develop and support freely available high-quality K-12 science instructional materials and teacher professional learning resources….”

Open Minds Podcast: Angela DeBarger of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Posted on by
Reply

Hello Creative Commoners! This week is Open Education Week, and we are back with a new episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons.

Photo courtesy of Angela DeBarger

In this episode, CC’s Director of Open Knowledge, Dr. Cable Green, sits down for a conversation with Open Education Advocate, Dr. Angela Haydel DeBarger. Angela is a Program Officer in Education at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Her portfolio addresses Open Education, with the aim of democratizing knowledge, creating inclusive and engaging experiences for learners, and advancing racial equity in education systems.

Previously, Angela served as senior program officer for Lucas Education Research at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she led elementary and middle school project-based learning initiatives. From 2002 to 2014, she worked as an education researcher at SRI International. Her research focused on improving classroom pedagogy, specifically assessment strategies, to promote student learning and engagement in science.

Angela has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University, a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in educational psychology from Stanford University. She is a native Californian and enjoys spending time with her two boys.

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

The post Open Minds Podcast: Angela DeBarger of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation appeared first on Creative Commons.

Our approach to systemic racism in Open Education

Posted on by

“The events of this year and the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have impacted many of us in deeply personal ways. As a Black woman, I often wonder how to show up as my authentic self and use what power I have to undo systemic racism. At the Hewlett Foundation, I do not feel alone in this work. With a renewed focus on racial equity, the foundation has been taking steps to address systemic racism. This includes looking back at all of our grantmaking strategies to ensure that our investments address root causes of racial injustice. Through this process, we’ve recognized that there is more we can be doing, particularly through our work in open education.

Our Open Education strategy is about the vision that every learner should have access to the knowledge and information that they need to learn. Open education goes beyond a focus on resources and includes practices, policies, and research to create meaningful and inclusive educational experiences for learners. Nearly two decades of work in this space have made it clear that access alone is not a guarantor of racial equity for learners. Instead, learners should be supported and encouraged as sensemakers and creators of their identities and their communities….”

OpenStax to vastly expand open education library with support from national foundations

Posted on by

“OpenStax, Rice’s educational technology initiative, is vastly expanding its library of free textbooks, working toward a goal of ensuring that no student ever has to worry about textbook costs again. This work is possible as a result of new grants totaling $12.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Stand Together community….”

REBUS Foundation

Posted on by

“Books and textbooks are central tools in our intellectual lives. While they are no longer alone in our media landscape, books maintain their critical place in our culture as the documentation of human knowledge and experience.

The Rebus Foundation builds new models and technology for open book publishing and reading on the web, to encourage deeper engagement, and to enable people (and machines) to use and build on books and reading in new and meaningful ways….

Our first focus is on Open Textbooks*. In partnership with universities, professors, students, and related institutions, we are developing an open and collaborative model for publishing Open Textbooks. We want to make it easier to publish great Open Textbooks.

In parallel with our work on Open Textbooks, we are members of the W3C, where we are helping develop a new vision for books that are native to the web. We want to help combine the older tradition of portable, bounded books with the pervasive accessibility, addressability, and interconnectedness of the Open Web. Our first focus in this area will be on scholarly deep reading….

We believe we can move this vision forward by helping to build a web-based ecosystem of people, tools, services, and standards that together help usher in a new vision for open textbooks, books, and reading….”