Algorithms can help faculty discover and select open educational resources for a course, map the concepts covered in a particular text, generate assessment questions and more. By David Raths 10/04/17 The basic definition of machine learning is that it allows a computer to learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. One obvious example: the way a Netflix algorithm learns our TV-watching habits to make suggestions of other movies we might like. We come into contact with dozens of such machine-learning algorithms every day. Algorithms are even starting to make an impact on university campuses, taking on time-consuming tasks to ease faculty and administrator workloads. For example, RiteClass's predictive admissions platform uses machine learning to produce a "Prospective Student Fit Score" by ingesting data about current students and alumni. The Fit Score will determine how similar (or different) a prospective student is to current students and alumni, according to the company, helping institutions make data-driven admissions decisions. And in support of faculty members, several efforts are underway to use machine learning to analyze the contents of open educational resources (OER) for their fit in a particular course. Algorithm-Assisted Content California State University, Fresno has been urging its faculty members to seek out appropriate no- or low-cost course materials. The problem: Replacing costlier course material with appropriate OER content is time-consuming, said Bryan Berrett, director of the campus's Center for Faculty Excellence. To ease the process of selecting material, CSU-Fresno has been piloting an analytics solution from Intellus Learning, which has indexed more than 45 million online learning resources and can make recommendations of matching OER content. "If I am teaching an English course and I have a standard textbook, I can type the ISBN number into Intellus," explained Berrett. "Broken down by chapter, it will say here are all the OER resources that are available that match up with that content." The faculty member can then upload the resources directly into the course learning management system. Intellus says it can also index the millions of learning objects in use at an institution and provide real-time analytics on student usage. A similar homegrown effort at Penn State University has branched out into new directions, said Kyle Bowen, director of education technology services. PSU's BBookX takes a human-assisted computing approach to enable creation of open source textbooks. The technology uses algorithms to explore OER repositories and return relevant resources that can be combined, remixed and re-used to support learning goals. As instructors and students add materials to a book, BBookX learns and further refines the recommended material. Bowen explained that the work was inspired to some degree by more nefarious uses of machine learning. Looking at examples of researchers using algorithms to generate fake research papers begged the question: If you can do something like that to create fake research papers, could you use it to create real ones or real content? "What better problem to try to solve than looking at open content?" he said. "How could we simplify or expedite the process of generating a textbook or a textbook replacement?" In the process of training machines to search for appropriate content, the PSU researchers discovered that algorithms often surface content the faculty member may not have known about. Even if you are an expert in a topic area, there are still elements of the field you may not be as familiar with, and the algorithm is not biased by knowledge you already have. Describing the process of fine-tuning the algorithm, Bowen said it works less like a Google search and more like a Netflix recommendation. "With a Google search, you provide a term, and if you don't like the results you change your terms. Here you are changing how the machine is thinking about those terms," he explained. "You are telling it 'more like this, less like that,' and you keep iterating. It begins to focus on what you are looking for and what you mean by that term. It goes by the meaning the faculty member is trying to get to." Next Steps Although PSU is continuing its work on the OER textbook project, Bowen said, "What we uncovered was that using this machine learning approach to generate textbooks was potentially one of the least interesting things we could do with it." The institution's data scientists have moved into three other areas with the intent of taking on even more complex issues: 1) Prerequisite knowledge. In terms of sequencing how material is presented, machine learning might help instructors understand the prerequisite knowledge a person would need in order to understand a particular body of text. "We want to make sure that as you are coming into a class, the prerequisite knowledge has already been introduced," Bowen said. "You could do that yourself by charting out the concepts to see how they relate across the material. But in this case, the machine can more effectively construct concept maps and identify disconnects inside of them." 2) Generating assessment questions. Anybody who has crafted a multiple-choice midterm or final exam knows how challenging it is to make it representative of the work and create distractors to effectively assess understanding of a topic. PSU is working on a prototype algorithm that, given an OER chapter or a textbook, can suggest multiple-choice assessments. "This gets into an area of machine learning called adversarial learning, which comes out of security. It is how the computer identifies spam messages," Bowen said. Spam e-mails aren't real e-mails, although they are trying to look like they are — they are trying to exploit a vulnerability. With the creation of a spam filter, machine learning identifies pattern matches. "We want to do the opposite," he said. "We want to identify things that don't fit the pattern but look like they would. What are some things that might exploit gaps in someone's knowledge? What we have found is the machine creates really difficult multiple-choice tests. It shows very little mercy." PSU has not yet begun testing this solution with faculty. "It is important to explain that it is not the goal to replace what the person is doing, but rather to assist the faculty member," Bowen said. The goal would not be to have the machine generate multiple choice assessments on the fly, but to help a faculty member craft a multiple choice test that is representative of the material and help simplify the process of creating those tests, he added. The same is true with prerequisite knowledge. It is not to replace the work being done by faculty members, but to support them as they think about prerequisite knowledge. 3) Brainstorming with your computer. A third conceptual area PSU is working on is letting the computer help you brainstorm. "We all have friends who are really smart and who we go to to bounce ideas off of," Bowen said. Such a friend might ask if you have thought about other concepts. "You can do that with your computer," he explained. If you are thinking about a topic, the machine can say, "well based on that, have you thought about x?" It can help you brainstorm an activity and also form or prototype ideas and come out with a concept map or outline that helps you explore new areas. "So although the original algorithm was designed to generate texts, when we look at it, these three areas are potentially higher value problems to work on. We have moved away from our original research to look at how we can provide more targeted assistance on pain points in developing OER material." About the Author David Raths is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer focused on information technology. He writes regularly for several IT publications, including Healthcare Informatics and Government Technology.  ... View more

Early this year, the Association of College and Research Libraries compiled their top 5 articles about open educational resources (OER). The topics of these five posts focus on how libraries can participate in the integration of OER at their school from simply supporting the integration of these resources to becoming more vocal about their availability to actively engaging in OER adoption and authoring. Each of these topics are relevant to today’s librarians as they work toward ensuring they offer beneficial resources to students as well as faculty to make content accessible. According to an article posted on EdSurge, more colleges are setting up support systems to encourage OER adoption, using the campus library as the pitch center for OER. At the University of Texas at Arlington, a full-time Open Education Librarian is employed on staff. A recent project she did to bring OER to the forefront was create a series of videos promoting professors who replaced commercial textbooks in their courses with OER. These videos also addressed common pain points associated with traditional textbooks and how OER can help remedy those issues. Marilyn Billings, the Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian at University of Massachusetts Amherst, spearheads the Open Education Initiative (OEI), a faculty incentive program that encourages the use of OER to support student learning along with the creation of new teaching materials and the use of library subscription materials. The library has a dedicated space on their website for OER and accepts grant proposals which require an anticipated OER implementation date. The importance of the role of the librarian in establishing OERs into curriculum was evaluated in a study done by the Centre for Academic Practice & Learning Enhancement (CAPLE) and Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards (CETIS), at the University of Strathclyde. This study looked primarily at higher education OER projects worldwide. The main objectives, according to the study, for these projects were:     Implement repository or content management/publishing system for OER release     Release existing institutional content as OER     Raise awareness of OER and encourage its use Findings showed that in three out of four project teams, at least one librarian participated, and from those teams, the library was either leading or a partner of the initiative 50 percent of the time. The expertise librarians are able to offer related to content-focused OER initiatives can greatly benefit teams working to create new curriculum or content management processes as their relate to OER. Advocating effectively for faculty to incorporate OER has many benefits for students and educators, but it can also lead to additional responsibilities for librarians when their workload is already full. In the paper, Librarians and OER: Cultivating a Community of Practice to Be More Effective Advocates, librarians in British Columbia, Canada came together as a community (BCOER Librarians) to focus on education and professional development that would help libraries facilitate the use and decampment of OER. Through a monthly, virtual meeting, the librarians in this group share ways to support the use of quality OER by collaborating on ideas, tools and strategies. To date, according to their website, there are 40 institutions participating in OER and students have saved over seven million dollars. In an article from the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), it’s recommended that librarians integrate open practices and cultivate leaders who can share their knowledge about OER policies and practices. An example of how this works can be seen at Granite State College in New Hampshire where a new Library Media Specialist certification program enables faculty and advisors to integrate open education practice and OER creation and improvement into course creation workflows. Additionally, OER courseware is being utilized for the certificate course itself. Regardless of the educational model being used in conjunction with open content, it’s important to note, says Stephen Downes in Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources, that the nature of the content must be taken into consideration. Content needs to have longevity, and to do so should be flexible and adaptable to local needs. It also needs to be modifiable and adaptable based on licensing models. Think of content in a local context, how it pertains to your school and to the course it will be used for, and whether it requires changes in order to be relevant and appropriate. With so much discussion going on around OER and effectively utilizing it for academic purposes, there’s no shortage of content around these five key topic areas. The common thread, however, when thinking about how you, as a librarian, can bring OER into the curriculum at your school is collaboration. Connect with your local faculty to gain support, but also see what other schools are doing and how their strategies are working for them. ... View more

~Collaboration Will Aggregate and Assemble Relevant Open Education Resources and Institution’s Library Materials to Improve the Teaching and Learning Experience ~ The collaboration with Intellus Learning allows for interoperability that enables libraries to increase use and efficiency of their collections. IPSWICH, MASS. (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 05, 2018 EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) and Intellus Learning, an educational platform as a service company, have partnered to provide academic libraries with a content curation, assignment, recommendation and analytics tool. The collaboration will benefit college and university customers as they strive to offer affordable, reliable and relevant resources to students, while supporting faculty’s teaching and learning goals. Intellus Learning empowers instructors to access high-quality open education resources (OER) and other openly licensed content, as well as their institution’s academic library materials to help meet budgetary goals. By offering curated content, Intellus Learning enables instructors to quickly capture robust and affordable course materials. Students can seamlessly engage with assigned course materials via the institution’s learning management system, including all EBSCO resources to which the library subscribes. According to Craig Bleyer, the General Manager of the Institutional Business at Macmillan Learning, “Our customers are rightfully focused on providing the most affordable learning experiences that engage and retain students. Yet, finding the right mix of content and tools that answers both teaching and institutional objectives can be challenging because of the amount of time it takes to curate and assemble course objects. Via this partnership with EBSCO, we are providing a powerful search and discovery tool, which enables instructors to identify the highest-quality and best-rated free and openly-licensed content, as well as access library content to make the most efficient use of content already available at their institution.” The technology integration between EBSCO and Intellus Learning helps institutions launch and maintain affordability initiatives by facilitating efficient and insight-laden access to high quality, free learning content. Through an intuitive interface, faculty can curate and quickly assign pertinent OER and library content to students. The Intellus engine also offers a robust reporting dashboard that provides real-time insight into students’ engagement with the assigned materials. This pre-built feedback loop enables faculty to tweak the curriculum on the fly to suit students’ needs. EBSCO Information Services Senior Vice President of Business Development, Mark Herrick, says the integration will help libraries promote their valuable resources and improve the workflow process for faculty. “The collaboration with Intellus Learning allows for interoperability that enables libraries to increase use and efficiency of their collections. By integrating technologies, the content selection process works better and faster for faculty while enabling them to select from library resources in the context of their courses and already subscribed to by their institution.” To learn more about EBSCO and Intellus Learning, please visit: http://www.ebsco.com and http://intelluslearning.com. About Macmillan Learning  Macmillan Learning improves lives through learning. Our legacy of excellence in education informs our approach to using user-centered design, learning science, and impact research to develop world-class content and pioneering products that are empathetic, highly effective, and drive improved outcomes. Through deep partnership with the world’s best researchers, educators, administrators, and developers, we facilitate teaching and learning opportunities that spark student engagement and lift course results. We provide educators with tailored solutions designed to inspire curiosity and measure progress. Our commitment to teaching and discovery upholds our mission to improve lives through learning. To learn more, please visit http://www.macmillanlearning.com or see us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN or join our Macmillan Community. About Intellus Learning  Intellus Learning empowers instructors to quickly access high-quality open educational resources (OER), other openly-licensed content, as well as their institution’s academic library materials to help replace expensive course materials, while providing powerful, real-time insight into students’ engagement with the assigned content. To learn more, please visit: http://intelluslearning.com. About EBSCO Information Services  EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 11,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 1,000,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: http://www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944. For more information, please contact:  Nikki Jones  Sr Director, Communications  Macmillan Learning  862-596-2325  nikki.jones@macmillan.com Jessica Holmes  Communications Director  EBSCO Information Services  978-356-6500 ext. 3485  jmholmes@ebsco.com ... View more

By David E. Hubler, Contributor, Online Learning Tips, and Andrea Dunn, Associate Vice President of Electronic Course Materials, APUS There once was a bookstore owner whose media pitch was short and simple. “Books cost too much,” he said, explaining why he founded his discount bookstore chain. However, he wasn’t thinking of the ever-increasing cost of college textbooks. Perhaps stirred to action in part by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) call for free college tuition for all, American colleges and universities today are looking for ways to reduce the cost of higher education tuition, room and board, and of course textbooks. Institutions of higher learning are examining steps they can take, so students won’t have to make the hard choice between paying all their fees and eating. Above all, they hope to reduce the overwhelming average student debt of $39,400 that can follow college graduates for decades. New York University recently made national news when it announced that its School of Medicine would provide full scholarships to all current and future students in its doctor of medicine program. The free tuition includes the current incoming class and all students in their second or third year as well. However, “most medical students will still foot the bill for about $29,000 each year in room, board and other living expenses,” NPR noted. Bill Conerly, writing in Forbes in 2016, reported that 38 community colleges were developing curricula to use Open Educational Resources (OER). As Conerly explained, “Think of public-domain textbooks, but textbook is too narrow a term. Many courses involve interactive learning modules as well as tools for professors. It’s no surprise that this move came from community colleges, which are more sensitive to student costs than traditional four-year colleges are.” Totally Free Online Textbooks Are Available for Common Undergraduate Courses Totally free online textbooks are available for many common undergraduate courses, such as economics and biology. Courses that require non-textbook readings can be inexpensive if the material is out of copyright. For example, Plato’s Republic is available online for free, Conerly said. APUS’ book grant program provides textbooks and/or e-books at no charge to doctoral students and students earning undergraduate academic credit. OER brings together teaching, learning and resource materials in any medium that has been released under an open license. APUS Converted 222 Courses to Open Educational Resource Status in 2017 Open Educational Resources include textbooks, curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation products. In 2017, APUS converted 222 courses to OER. “With publishers having more flexible options these days, it’s getting better for students,” says Andrea Dunn, Associate Vice President of Electronic Course Materials at APUS. These options help lower the cost of purchasing class materials. Students can access free materials – textbooks, articles in journals, and articles written by professors specifically with OER in mind – through the university’s online library and open Web. “We’re not just adopting a resource because it’s free. We’re using it because it’s of equal or better quality than a mainstream textbook publisher such as a Pearson or a McGraw-Hill can provide,” Dunn explains. Last year, APUS made the OER initiative a priority for all academics. That extends now to graduate students and instructors. “There are five APUS programs that don’t have any associated textbook costs with them at the graduate level. The term for that is the ‘Z-degree’ for zero-cost degree,” Dunn explained. Currently there are five Z-degree programs in APUS master’s programs: Management Political Science Environmental Management International Relations Public Policy “We’re reducing the cost to the student while maintaining the quality of the learning materials,” Dunn said. One advantage of using timely online articles and government documents rather than textbooks for courses in International Affairs, for example, is that current events change too rapidly for textbooks to stay current. APUS is partnering with Intellus Learning, which has integrated some of the university’s library collection so faculty and students can search for and access OER materials as well as licensed library content. The company has an index of digital assets available from OER repositories — video, ebooks, text, audio, interactive, assignments — that support teaching and learning. The Intellus website explains that its “simple interface improves the usability of digital content by connecting faculty and students with resources aligned to specific learning objectives. All digital content is then matched with faculty and student learning objectives.” “It’s kind of a soup-to-nuts solution that takes the heavy lifting away from those who are not familiar with the Open Educational programs in repositories,” Dunn explained. College Libraries Are among the Leaders in OER and Lowering Higher Education Costs College libraries are among the campus leaders driving the OER movement at APUS and elsewhere. For example, in Ohio, a library consortium called OhioLink is part of a statewide effort to curate and enhance a set of OER course materials for 21 course subjects. The University of Texas at Arlington has a full-time OER librarian. The University of Minnesota has an Open Textbook Library from which textbooks can be downloaded for free or printed at low cost. Cooperation among University Libraries and Private Learning Companies Are Creating a New Era in Information Services and Academic Research Cooperation among university libraries with private learning companies like Intellus is creating a new era in information services and academic research that are significantly reducing the cost of higher education for all students. APUS librarians and course materials staff work closely with faculty to find suitable resources for their classrooms. The collaborative, cross-departmental approach supporting the OER initiative involves faculty, program directors, deans, course material support staff, project managers, compliance staff, information technology specialists, and instructional designers. The APUS faculty has created open textbooks that are still in use in undergraduate courses and are free for other institutions to adopt as well. If suitable resources cannot be found in the OER realm or within the library, there could be more of in-house content creation. APUS aims to use Open Educational Resources and library materials in all courses where it makes sense to replace current textbooks. While OER may not fully support some courses, the great majority will utilize these kinds of resources to lower costs for the University and students alike. ... View more

Calls to adopt and support open educational resources (OER) are on the rise across higher education. Because of the interdisciplinary and often abstract considerations that accompany an institutional embrace of OER, early expectation setting is important for everyone involved. In this first webinar in our On the Open Road series, participants will learn about some of the early planning and ongoing practices that have led to successful university initiatives in OER.   Watch Recording ... View more

Open Educational Resources are, by definition, free to learners. Still, running an effective OER initiative to get these free resources into the hands of students in a meaningful and pedagogically sound way takes time, energy, and money. In this webinar, TJ Bliss will explore the various ways colleges and universities are financing their successful OER initiatives, including methods for internal funding and an exploration of the external funding landscape.     Watch Recording ... View more

Faculty are continuously searching for textbooks and materials that fit course requirements and their teaching style. Before the availability of open educational resources (OER), faculty were restricted to commercial publications designed for broad audiences with general theories and concepts across a wide array of topics. Though these resources offer relevant information and supplemental materials, they do not always meet the needs and interests of faculty and students. Adopting and creating free, openly licensed resources (OER) offers faculty the freedom to reuse and remix materials that complement their teaching style and approach based on their discipline training, expertise, and knowledge of their students. In this webinar, faculty will learn about free open educational resources, benefits of going OER, and ideas on their use and application.   Watch Recording ... View more

As the open educational resources (OER) movement matures, questions continue to emerge about how to best support and sustain the use of OER at scale. Instructors and librarians maintain valuable partnerships for managing OER adoption but may need additional assistance when it comes to ensuring ongoing use and (re)development of resources. Instructional designers and technologists, in particular, have the skills, resources, and experience necessary to shepherd sustainable simple OER adoptions into long-term learning innovations. In this webinar in our On the Open Road series, participants will learn how those who support the design, implementation, and technology of teaching and learning on campuses might further expand the potential of OER in higher education.     Watch Recording ... View more

Implementing an institutional OER initiative takes planning, communication, and coordination across stakeholders, sufficient funding, and faculty, staff, and administrators. In this webinar, Dr. Gerry Hanley will present the California State University system’s strategy for implementing its Affordable Learning Solutions program which showcases the adoption of OER and other affordability solutions to better meet the needs of California's students. Watch Recording ... View more

Join us as we walk you through the new Intellus Open Course: Chemistry. Intellus Open Courses are pre-built, fully-customizable courses that make adopting and implementing open educational resources (OER) easy. Courses are: Created and curated by a team of subject matter experts and Macmillan Learning’s editorial team Built to leverage Intellus Learning’s native customization and analytics tools, both of which enable you to meet the unique needs of your students Delivered via your campus LMS, which simplifies student access to the content Supported in and out of the classroom by a suite of instructor resources, including PowerPoint slides, a 500+ question test bank and on demand support materials. Watch Recording ... View more

Many instructors have embraced Open Educational Resources (OER) as a way to take charge in addressing the rising expenses that their students bear en route to a college degree. Framing the value of OER around textbook cost, however, is only recognizing one of the qualities that make OER such a valuable innovation. In this webinar in our On the Open Road series, participants will learn how OER may sponsor new pedagogical strategies, dynamic learning environments, and improved student outcomes. Watch Recording ... View more

Clickers can dramatically improve your students’ engagement in the classroom. But, like all teaching tools, there are more and less effective ways of incorporating them into your class. This webinar will include a brief review of the motivations for using clickers, as well as practical guidelines for ensuring their success, including writing effective questions, facilitating student discussion and choosing a grading policy that minimizes stress for you and your students. Enrollment will be limited to ensure all participants have time to ask questions and share experiences. Watch Recording ... View more

Join Macmillan's Learning Science & Insights team as they share new research and insights on attendance. In this webinar, Dr. Kara McWilliams, Vice President, Impact Research, will discuss the learning science behind the benefits of taking class attendance and what trends sophisticated data mining reveal that have guided the development of new attendance features in iClicker. Dr. McWilliams will also share experimental research conducted with instructors and partner institutions into how using iClicker to take attendance improves important student outcomes like engagement and course performance. Watch Recording ... View more

Studies show that engaging students through activities, discussion and collaboration is more effective than traditional lecturing. iClicker is pleased to invite you to an Composition & Literature-specific webinar led by Blake Westerlund. Attend this webinar to learn key strategies, ideas and best practices as they relate to the English classroom! Watch Recording ... View more

Studies show that engaging students through activities, discussion and collaboration is more effective than traditional lecturing. iClicker is pleased to invite you to a Developmental English-specific webinar led by Natalie Dougall, Faculty Advocate and Trainer for iClicker. Attend this webinar to learn key strategies, ideas and best practices as they relate to the English classroom! Watch Recording ... View more