Keynote Presentation:
Open Educational Resources: The Right Time at the Right Place

The Hewlett Foundation, a private foundation that frequently funds the study and usage of open education technologies, defines OER as teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. Open educational resources (OER) include courses, course materials, open textbooks, multimedia, tests, software, and assessments (Hewlett Foundation, 2002). OER are created by educators to be shared globally, allowing teachers and instructors to edit, combine resources, create new content, and retain the rights to the content. Because of this OER have been identified as a solution to student affordability but evidence is growing that OER could also lead to student academic success.

At the State University of New York (SUNY) many of our colleges have discovered that OER is a solution to the affordability issues and in response to the growing use of OER on our campuses in the State University of New York (SUNY), the SUNY System made a strategic investment in OER by standing up a service model called the SUNY OER Services (SOS) https://textbooks.opensuny.org/. The SOS promotes the usage of OER in SUNY and also provides professional development activities as well as integration of OER into the campus LMS. Campuses have also reported that they have seen an improvement in student grades and class retention when OER is used as a replacement to traditional course materials. This has caught the attention of many of our campuses and we are now seeing a remarkable upswing in OER adoption and creation in SUNY, because campuses have identified OER as one possible solution to help their students realize academic success.

The presentation will give a national look at the OER movement growing in Higher Education and what the data looks like from campuses who have moved forward with OER initiatives. The presenter will give a snapshot of the work being done currently in SUNY and what the future of OER could look like in SUNY.

Keynote Speaker:
Mark McBride, Open Education Research Lab & SUNY Libraries

Mark McBride is the Library Senior Strategist in the Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) at SUNY System Administration. In his role he helps SUNY Libraries to align their operational strategies to align with the broader SUNY System library strategies.He is recognized as an Open Education advocate and has worked tirelessly to help SUNY campuses realize the benefits of developing a strategy for Open Education Resources (OER) in their communities.Mark is the co-founder of the Open Education Research Lab at the University at Buffalo. Mark advocates for SUNY Libraries at the highest level of the SUNY System administration and across New York State.

FaCET Conference
Thursday, September 7, 2017

The Fall 2017 FaCET Conference, scheduled for Thursday, September 7, 2017, will focus on ePortfolios.
The conference is scheduled from 830-430 at the Kauffman Conference Center, 4801 Rockhill Road.

This day-long workshop will be led by Dr. Cathy Buyarski, the Executive Director for Student Success Initiatives and the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. Within these roles, Dr. Buyarski provides leadership and oversight for academic advising, career development, student employment, new student orientation, learning assistance, TRiO programs, and scholarship programs for students from at-risk backgrounds. With a background in student affairs and student development, Cathy has significant experience in building programs that support retention and student success. She holds a master’s degree in college student development from Oklahoma State University and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Minnesota. Her dissertation focused on collaboration between academic and student affairs as a way to enhance student learning.

The workshop will focus on the varied uses of ePortfolios for assessment of course objectives, indicators of competency based learning, and determining the achievement of course learning outcomes. The workshop will be hand-on and allow you to explore ePortfolios and determine their effectiveness for your courses.