The 2016 SPARC MORE Conference brought together a diverse array of perspectives to work on every aspect of creating a system that serves scholarship, disseminates knowledge, and feeds the public good. Speakers included representatives from a preeminent private foundation, university presidents, young researchers, new faculty, librarians, and technical staff - all part of a dedicated community working to set the default to open.

Those gathered at the March 7-9 conference were both “unabashedly idealistic” and “relentlessly pragmatic” about open access, open data, and open educational resources, said SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph at the closing session in San Antonio. Participants were encouraged to think about the outcomes that they wanted to achieve through advocating for open access (and open data, and OER), and to consider open as a strategy to help the community solve big problems, and capitalize on new opportunities. Rather than simply advocating “open” as the end game, discussions centered around the importance of effectively finishing the sentence “open in order to….” (i.e., opening up access to textbook in order to make college more affordable; or opening access to data in order to prevent the Zika virus from fueling a pandemic…).

As you work to turn your passion for open into action, here are some highlights and takeaways from the SPARC MORE 2016 Conference:

1. Video recordings of all SPARC MORE sessions can be found on SPARC's YouTube channel
2. Gates Foundation embraces Open and raises the bar for others
3. What university leaders can do to promote Open & how librarians can help
4. Moving books into Open Access
5. Early Career Researchers Forge New Paths to Advocate for Open
6. The Open Agenda and new faculty: Connecting early
7. Workshop: Improving Campus Open Access Policies
8. SPARC 2014: A transformative experience
9. SPARC Africa: Building on a shared culture
10. Photos from MORE Meeting

2016 SPARC MORE Meeting Sponsors

SPARC is incredibly thankful for the generous support of our MORE Meeting sponsors:

Wi-Fi Sponsor

Luncheon/Reception Sponsors

Showcase Sponsors

Supporting Organizations

Program Committee

The SPARC MORE Program Committee includes: Heather Joseph (SPARC), Jean-Gabriel Bankier (bepress), Joni Blake (Greater Western Library Association), Amy Buckland (University of Chicago), David Ernst (University of Minnesota), Rupert Gatti (Open Book Publishers), Diane Graves (Trinity University), Debra Kurtz (DuraSpace), Erin McKiernan (Wilfrid Laurier University), Emma Molls (Iowa State University), William Nixon (University of Glasgow), Donna Okubo (PLOS), Kostas Repanas (Agency for Science, Technology & Research), Jeff Spies (Center for Open Science), Jennifer Sturdy (Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in Social Sciences), Shan Sutton (University of Arizona), Greg Tananbaum (SPARC), Lee VanOrsdel (Grand Valley State University), Alex Wade (Microsoft Research), Kelsey Wiens (Creative Commons South Africa).

Today, SPARC joined other leaders in the global OER movement to release Foundations for OER Strategy Development. This collaboratively-written document provides a concise analysis of where the global OER movement currently stands: what the common threads are, where the greatest opportunities and challenges lie, and how we can more effectively work together as a community. Ideas for this document came from across the OER community, following a 6-month drafting and feedback process. The document and full announcement can be found at http://oerstrategy.org.

Members of the community can participate by reading the document and tweeting commitments to advancing opportunities at #oerstrategy.

SPARC played a central role in drafting the text of this document, and we look forward to working with the community to improve global collaboration on OER.

Today the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced a new campaign to encourage schools to adopt free, openly licensed educational materials, capping off a historic month of developments for the U.S. open educational resources (OER) movement. Entitled #GoOpen, the new campaign was launched at a Symposium on Open Education, where more than a dozen representatives of the OER community participated along with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith.

The #GoOpen campaign includes several exciting components:

• The Department of Education is proposing a new policy that would ensure educational resources and other intellectual property created through its discretionary grant programs would be openly licensed. This proposal is the first major step the Obama Administration has made toward fulfilling a call made by more than 100 organizations this summer for a federal government-wide policy to open up federally funded educational materials. A 30 day comment period is expected to open next week when the notice is officially published in the Federal Register.
• A cohort of 10 K-12 school districts have committed to "take the #GoOpen challenge" and replace at least one traditional textbook with OER. Six additional districts that have experience successfully implementing OER have volunteered as ambassadors to provide mentorship and support for districts just starting out.
• A group of technology companies and civil society organizations have made commitments to support school districts who want to #GoOpen. Amazon, Microsoft and Edmodo have announced a set of tools that integrate with the Learning Registry and enable schools, teachers and students to more effectively find and use OER. Creative Commons, ASCD and the Illinois Shared Learning Environment have pledged professional development and platform support.

This announcement is the latest in a string of increasingly positive OER developments in the U.S. government. In September, Secretary Duncan announced the appointment of Andy Marcinek as its first Open Education Advisor during a back-to-school tour of the Williamsfield Unified School District in Illinois (which has since become a #GoOpen ambassador). Earlier this month, legislation was introduced in both chambers of the U.S. Congress to help advance open textbooks in higher education. And on Tuesday, the U.S. government released its new Open Government National Action Plan, which included a commitment to expand open licensing of federally funded resources.

Many conversations will follow in the coming months about the implementation of the new policy proposal and other commitments. It is exciting to see so many new allies interested in working to improve education through open resources, and the OER community stands ready to work with ED and its #GoOpen partners to ensure the campaign is a success.

Today the White House released its 2016-2017 Open Government National Action Plan, which includes commitments to expand access to open educational resources and the results of federally funded research. This exciting development shows continued support from the Obama administration for these issues, and sets the stage for continued progress beyond the 2016 elections.

The commitment to Open Education has been highly anticipated by the community since this summer, after more than 100 U.S. civil society organizations — including SPARC — sent a letter to the White House calling for strong executive action to make federally funded educational resources openly licensed. While the OER commitment released today stops short of the broad policy changes that civil society called for, it lays out several meaningful steps in the right direction.

The OER commitment begins with a strong statement in support of the benefits of open educational resources:

Open educational resources are an investment in sustainable human development; they have the potential to increase access to high-quality education and reduce the cost of educational opportunities around the world. Open educational resources can expand access to key educational materials, enabling the domestic and international communities to attain skills and more easily access meaningful learning opportunities.

It also specifies three activities the U.S. will take to advance open education:

• Openly license more Federal grant-supported education materials and resources, making them widely and freely available.
• Publish best practices and tools for agencies interested in developing grant-supported open licensing projects.
• Convene stakeholders to encourage further open education efforts.

The OER commitment builds on momentum that has grown since the U.S. became the first Open Government Partnership (OGP) member country to introduce open education into its National Action Plan last fall. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), State Department and Education Department recently held a workshop in New York City to fulfill one of the commitments in this plan, which was recently featured in a White House blog post.

On the Open Access and Open Data fronts, the plan released today reiterates U.S.'s firm commitment to opening access to articles resulting from publicly-funded research, citing the language from the 2013 OSTP Directive on this subject. Additionally, the plan calls for robust attention ensuring that data — including code, applications and technologies — generated from publicly-funded research be made openly accessible as well. This is a strong nod to an eventual full U.S. Open Science Agenda.

The plan's release also coincides with the Open Government Partnership Summit in Mexico City, where for the first time ever, a workshop on open education is featured in the program. SPARC's Nicole Allen is on the ground helping to organize the session, along with the U.S. and Slovak Governments and Creative Commons United States. We are hopeful that this session can begin laying the groundwork for collaboration between the government and civil societies to implement the U.S. commitment announced today and open education overall.

SPARC stands with our coalition partners ready to continue the conversation with the White House and federal agencies to help implement the commitment announced today, and to reinforce our call for a federal government-wide policy to ensure that taxpayer funded educational and research materials are openly licensed.

SPARC is excited to share that today the Affordable College Textbook Act was introduced in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. The bill aims to reduce the cost of textbooks by expanding the use of open educational resources on college and university campuses. It was introduced by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN) and Angus King (I-ME) and Representatives Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) and Jared Polis (D-CO).

• SPARC Advocacy Page
• SPARC Press Release
• SPARC Fact Sheet

The bill would create a federally-funded competitive grant program for colleges and universities to establish open textbook pilot programs. Pilots would seek to expand the use, creation and improvement of open educational resources on campus, with emphasis on high enrollment subjects and other areas that would achieve the greatest textbook cost savings for students. As a condition of the grants, any educational materials developed would be released under an open license and freely shared with other schools and the general public.

The bill was originally introduced in the 113rd Congress in 2013, and today's reintroduction signals the continued national significance of open educational resources as part of higher education's future.

Hundreds of campuses across the country are already leveraging open educational resources to reduce costs for students and improve academic success. From Tidewater Community College's zero textbook cost degree to Carnegie Mellon University's innovative Open Learning Initiative, the evidence continues to grow that the future of educational materials can be open -- and this bill represents a step in that direction.

While the timeline for advancing any legislation in today's political climate can be long, this bill provides a key rallying point for the Higher Education Act reauthorization process and also offers a positive model for state legislatures to consider. SPARC is excited to get to work with our allies to continue moving the conversation forward!

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

For Immediate Release                                                               Contact:          Nicole Allen
October 8, 2015                                                                                               (202) 750-1637
[email protected]

SPARC Backs Bill to Make College Textbooks More Affordable 

Washington, D.C. — SPARC, an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to broaden access to academic knowledge, today applauded the introduction of the Affordable College Textbook Act of 2015, which would reduce the cost of college textbooks by expanding the use of open educational resources.  The bill was introduced by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN) and Angus King (I-ME) and Representatives Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) and Jared Polis (D-CO).

Open educational resources (OER) are free, openly-licensed academic materials that everyone can use, adapt and share.

"Higher education is calling for solutions to the textbook costs crisis, and this bill provides an answer," said Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education at SPARC.  "For too many students, textbook costs have become unaffordable, even with today's cost saving measures like renting and used books.  It is time to focus on solutions that deliver meaningful, long-term savings for students, and open educational resources are the most effective path forward.  We’re grateful to Senators Durbin, Franken and King and Representatives Hinojosa and Polis for their leadership on to this important issue."

The cost of textbooks has emerged as a significant piece of the college affordability and access debate.  Textbook prices increased 82% between 2002 and 2012, and the average student budget for books and supplies is more than $1,200 per year.  A recent report by NBC found that textbook prices have risen over three times the rate of inflation from January 1977 to June 2015, a 1,041 percent increase.  Despite the vast potential for technology and the internet to solve this problem, many e-textbooks and other digital materials from traditional publishers actively restrict much of this potential and perpetuate high costs.

Open educational resources are gaining traction as an alternative to costly textbooks. Hundreds of campuses across the country are already leveraging OER to increase access to course materials and reduce costs for students. The Maricopa Community College district in Arizona has saved students more than $4.5 million through faculty adoption of open textbooks. The University of Maryland University College recently became the first major U.S. institution to replace all textbooks in undergraduate courses with free online resources.

Numerous studies have documented that the use of OER can significantly reduce student costs while maintaining or improving academic success. A new multi-institution study published this month by researchers at Brigham Young University provides the most compelling case yet: students in more than half of the courses using OER did better than their peers in at least one measure of academic success, and the vast majority of courses performed at least as well.

“With open educational resources, we have a solution to the textbook cost crisis at our fingertips,” said Allen. “This bill would take a tremendous step toward expanding the benefits to students and faculty alike.  And in the mean time, there are many ways that institutions and states can begin leveraging the power of open educational resources today.”

About the Bill

The Affordable College and Textbook Act directs the Department of Education to create a competitive grant program for higher education institutions (or groups of higher education institutions) to establish pilot programs that use open educational resources to reduce textbook costs.  Pilot programs may focus on using existing OER, creating or improving new OER, or conducting efficacy research – or any combination thereof, so long as the end result is student savings.

Any educational materials developed or improved through the program will be posted online and licensed as open educational resources so that everyone – including other colleges, students and faculty – can freely use these materials.  The bill contains a strong definition of an open license that is equivalent to the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits full reuse rights on the condition of author attribution.  This license would ensure the public gains the maximum benefit of the materials created through the grant program.

The Affordable College Textbook Act was first introduced in the 113^th Congress.  To learn more about the bill click here.

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SPARC®, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.  Developed by the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC has become a catalyst for change.  Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries.  More information can be found at www.sparcopen.org/ and on Twitter @SPARC_NA.

This piece originally appeared in The Huffington Post.

The age-old expression "you get what you pay for" is often used to explain away the skyrocketing cost of textbooks. Sure, prices may top $200 per book and the value may drop to pennies by the end of the semester, but it's all to ensure the material is of high quality to help students succeed -- or so the logic would go. But in a world where using free and open information has become a staple of everyday life, is "you get what you pay for" still true when it comes to textbooks?

According to the latest research, not anymore.

A new multi-institutional study conducted by researchers at Brigham Young University looks at the academic outcomes of students assigned free, openly-licensed textbooks versus those assigned traditionally-published textbooks. What the study finds is the opposite of what folk wisdom tells us: expensive textbooks are not superior to free ones. In fact, the results show a striking trend that students assigned free, open textbooks do as well or better than their peers in terms of grades, course completion, and other measures of academic success.

If traditional textbooks are not producing better outcomes, then what exactly arestudents paying for?

Here's a breakdown of the results:

• Course completion: In all of the courses studied, students who were assigned open textbooks were as likely or more likely to complete their course than those assigned traditional textbooks. In one course, the completion rate was remarkably 15 percentage points higher for students using open textbooks.
• Grades: Students who were assigned open textbooks tended to have final grades equivalent to or better than those assigned traditional textbooks. In more than a quarter of the courses, students using open textbooks achieved higher grades, and only one course using open textbooks showed lower grades (which is at least partially explained by the course's significantly higher completion rate, which includes the grades of students who would have otherwise dropped out).
• Credit load: Students who were assigned open textbooks took approximately 2 credits more both in the semester of the study and in the following semester. This is a sign that students are reinvesting money saved on textbooks into more courses, which can accelerate graduation times and potentially reduce debt.
• Overall success: Overall, students in more than half of the courses that used open textbooks did better according to at least one academic measure used in the study, and students in 93% of these courses did at least as well by all of the measures.

The study is based on more than 16,000 students across 10 institutions, and is the largest and most rigorous study of its kind. Naturally, there are some limitations, most notably that the researchers cannot conclusively claim that textbooks are the sole cause of differences in student outcomes, since uncontrolled factors such as variation in teaching methods may have played a role. However, more than a dozen other studies have been published over the last five years that find a similar correlation between open textbooks and as-good-or-better student outcomes, which shows a definitive trend.

Hundreds of campuses across the country have already joined the movement for open educational resources, working to expand the use and creation of materials that can be freely used, adapted and shared. While there is still work to be done to develop models to support and sustain these efforts at scale, the evidence is clear that open models can be effective by the criteria that matters most: the success of students.

It's time to leave behind the idea of "you get what you pay for" for textbooks and start working toward the educational materials of the future, which can be free, open and effective.

Today the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced the hiring of the first ever open education adviser to lead a national effort to expand Open Educational Resources (OER) in K-12 schools. This announcement marks a critical step for ED and the Obama Administration toward leveraging OER as a solution at a time when improving educational access, opportunity and affordability is at the forefront of the nation’s mind.

The new open education advisor will work with K-12 schools across the country to transition from traditional textbooks to OER, enabling states and districts to adapt and modify materials to meet student needs, and also free up funding to invest in other innovative ways.

Secretary Duncan announced the position during a bus tour stop at the Williamsfield Unified School District in Illinois, which offers a perfect illustration of how schools can leverage OER to improve teaching and learning. Over the past two years, Williamsfield worked to replace a set of traditional textbooks by adapting and localizing OER, creating a more engaging classroom experience for students and generating savings that the schools reinvested to develop a cutting edge STEM program that would have otherwise been impossible with traditional materials.

While the focus of the position is K-12, the impact of this work will also extend to higher education by enabling schools to better prepare students for college and support momentum for the OER movement as a whole.

This exciting announcement is part of the growing momentum within the Obama Administration to support OER and public access to publicly funded resources. Last month SPARC and 100 other organizations signed a letter calling on the White House to ensure that educational materials created with federal funds are released to the public as OER. SPARC expects to work closely with the new Open Education Advisor and continue advocating with our coalition partners to advance open policy at the Federal level.

Join the conversation on social media with @SPARC_NA using hashtags #ReadyforSuccess and #GoOpen.

Today, a broad coalition of more than 90 organizations (update: now 109) representing the education, library, technology, public interest and legal communities released a letter calling on President Obama to open up educational materials created with federal taxpayer funds. Building on the Administration’s strong leadership in advancing public access to publicly funded research and data, the coalition asks the President to commit to an Executive Branch-wide policy to ensure that federally funded educational and training resources are made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) that are free for the public to use, share, and improve. The letter is a response to the White House's call for ideas to improve the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan, which is currently under development for release later this year.

More information:

• SPARC press release
• Read the letter
• Sign the letter
• Twitterstream

Amplify our call to action on social media with hashtag #OERUSA.