Biography
Anna Newman is the Digital Projects Manager for the Connecticut State Library. Previously, she was the Librarian for Digital Academic Strategies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In this position, she provided faculty support services in the areas of open scholarship and scholarly publishing, supported digital scholarship projects, and managed the George C. Gordon Library’s web presence. Anna’s research interests include open access advocacy, digital project management and sustainability, and equity in scholarly communications.
Leadership Portfolio
During the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program, Anna focused on developing strategies for OER outreach at WPI, raising awareness and cultivating support for a campus-wide OER initiative. Her initial outreach efforts in collaboration with colleagues in the library and academic technology office led to WPI’s Morgan Teaching & Learning Center convening a Faculty Learning Community on OER in spring 2019. Anna also created outreach materials, including “OER and Equity in the Classroom,” an infographic that illustrates how OER can promote a more equitable system of higher education.
For her capstone project, Anna conducted an institutional needs assessment for an open education initiative at WPI. Over the course of the project, Anna connected with OER stakeholders at WPI and identified current attitudes about, areas of opportunity for, and barriers to OER. She wrote a needs assessment report that shared her findings and outlined recommendations for moving forward with an open education initiative. She also created a guide to conducting an open education needs assessment, which includes best practices, examples from the field, and a reusable planning template.
