Gina Bennett

hi Leva, hi everybody

I'm thinking about ETUG's 20th anniversary celebration.... I love Paul's 'What's my Line?' game show idea. As many will remember, we did an ETUG 'Jeopardy' a couple of years back & it really was fun. And I like Zack's idea (however unlikely) of the cake + fireworks + cruise :) 

But when we're thinking about 20th anniversary ideas I think we really need to keep in mind our newer & brand-new attendees who may not know anything about ETUG's history (& possibly not even care). If we want a 20th anniversary celebration then I think we'll need something that's inclusive of all/most of our membership: from ETUG Emeritus who know all about the group's history to brand-new people who don't even know that they become ETUG members the moment they fill in the workshop registration form ;-)

Gina

Yet another sustainability model... I don't know how many of you saw this article posted in Campus Technology today. Mind you, this is kind of a special case sustainability model since it was initially funded with student money (some kind of tuition rebate). Maybe there are some lessons for us here, however: the value of involving students & the value of out-&-out rewards for faculty who make an effort towards OER adoption to replace textbooks. 

Hi Mary, hi everybody

I've been reading over the Sustainability document provided... some intriguing models here & I think whoever came up with these certainly did a thoughtful job. After thinking about these models, I have a few comments/reactions:

Model 1: Funded Centralized Coordination - I like this one & feel it could provide a pretty high-quality textbook. But I don't hold much hope for it. We have been participating for almost 10 years with the OPDF projects & yet it's my suspicion that cross-institutional adoption of the OERs produced has been very low. 

Model 2: Centralized/Decentralized Hybrid - this one's a bit fuzzy & vague. Also the mention that 'BCcampus will provide technical support' sounds a bit scary. I'm thinking these texts should be EASY to update; any technical support required should be minimal.

Model 3: Cost Recovery - I'm sure as heck not morally opposed to this one but I think it would result in a shaky basis for sustainability. Depending on how this model was applied, texts with a small subscription would never get enough funding to merit attention. And I'm guessing that over time students will be less & less likely to 'need' a print-based copy.

Model 4: Sponsorship - Again; I don't see any ethical problems with this one & I've seen how this *can* work... although I have no idea how much funding can be generated this way.

Model 5: Institutional Sponsorship - not very likely! It's been my experience that smaller ('sending') institutions tend to adopt the texts supported by the bigger ('receiving') institutions. I agree with the original author's observation that 'sufficient resources may not be dedicated to produce high quality texts' & 'If the initiative were not prioritized, it could die on the vine.'

Model 6: Subject matter Group Ownership -- this one I feel has the best chance for survival. If an articulation committee 'owns' the resource, members are more likely to buy in to the project & adopt the text. Articulation committees have a history of getting together to agree on curriculum; I think agreeing on text content would not be so conceptually different a task. Doing the actual WORK of maintaining the text would probably still require an input of funds; perhaps equivalent to what we historically have been getting via OPDF? (or is this overly optimistic?)

Gina

Hey Clint, that is SLICK!!! Just about a perfect way of introducing that additonal information, I would say.

Thanks!

Gina

Thanks Clint. I'm glad to hear that the 'reviewed' identifier will be added to the list of books in the future. I do understand that these things take time.

Yeah, I think I understand now how the display of 10 per page thing works. Thanks!

Gina