If you’ve heard the term “Open Educational Resources” (OER), you may have been following the recent influx of state funding towards their development across CUNY and SUNY. Let’s take a look at some of the latest trends in conversations about OER.
Federal Support for Open Educational Resources – Earlier this year, OER advocates were cheered by the news that $5 million in federal funding was designated for a pilot program. The program will be developed though the Department of Education, and some experts see this as a sign towards greater interest in OER – “Obviously there are lots of other ways to save students money…by investing in OER, Congress is saying this is the one you should set your sights on” (Nicole Allen, SPARC).
Second Year of Funding from New York State – Following an initial round of funding in 2017, another $8 million was awarded in 2018 to be split between CUNY and SUNY towards OER efforts. This translates into potentially hundreds of thousands – even millions! – of dollars saved for students, providing immediate financial relief.
OER Adoption – Widespread integration of OER is increasing, but varies among institutions. An article from InsideHigherEd speculates that more faculty are using open resources, and that overall awareness is indeed growing.
Faculty Experiences – One faculty member shares their story, “How an OER Rookie Dove Deep Into a Zero-Cost Textbook Degree Program,” about developing a new OER textbook with the support of her institution, College of the Canyons.
Similarly, Robin DeRosa of Plymouth State University, had “never heard of open educational resources” until 4 years ago, but is now widely recognized for her work in the field of open pedagogy.
Free Museum Admission with CUNY ID
With your CUNY ID card, you instantly have free admission to a variety of major New York City museums!
Through the program CUNY Arts, you’ll be able to enter the following locations free of charge: The Frick Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, El Museo del Barrio, Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum, The Jewish Museum, Museum of the City of New York, Museum of Modern Art.
Let’s take a closer look at a few of these cultural institutions:
1.) The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum – Located at Pier 86 in Manhattan, this museum “showcases the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the submarine USS Growler, a Concorde SST, a Lockheed A-12 supersonic reconnaissance plane, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise.” A unique location, and definitely worth a visit!
2.) El Museo del Barrio – Located in upper Manhattan, the focus is on “Latin American and Caribbean art…and works from Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican community in New York City.” They also have fun public programming for kids, teens, and other members of the family.
3.) Museum of Modern Art – If you’re seeking a true immersion into the world of modern and contemporary art, this is the place for you. With their two locations – MOMA and MOMA P.S.1 – you’ll have access to the latest exhibitions, films, and more.
4.) Lastly, if you find yourself interested in pursuing a career in the arts, keep your eye on the CUNY Cultural Corps page. This exciting program ” creates opportunities for CUNY students to work in the City’s cultural sector,” and is an excellent way to explore opportunities in many fields.
Making buttons and tutorials at the library! — Update from the Instructional Design Intern
This week was a week of laying out plans and projects. While there are a variety of areas to work on, my first main project is to create a tutorial for how to search for materials in academic databases. The tutorial is going to be short and sweet and will focus on how to use keywords + boolean searching to find the stuff you need. The emphasis will be on a search strategy rather than on using a particular search platform/interface. While I’m not too sure of the design yet, it may or may not involve cats and will definitely be interactive. I’m aiming to have a draft by next week and go live the week after that.
Today was also City Tech’s Club Fair, which is when a bunch of student clubs have tables and students come to check them out. The library had a table and Nora brought down the button maker, which was a huge hit! I got to meet a bunch of students and took pictures of them with their custom buttons: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnrP6m7BNV5
I’m trying to up our social media presence so stay tuned for more regular instagrams and tweets!
OER vs. The $999 Textbook
Imagine if you were in class, and your Professor assigned a textbook…that cost $999! This is what happened at the University of Louisiana, when students discovered a truly unusual price for their Introduction to Accounting text, as reported by InsideHigherEd.
Such exorbitant textbook prices are rare, but the costs can run up to several hundred dollars per book, depending on the subject. Before you invest in purchasing each course text, consider the following options:
1.) Check the library catalog or ask at the Reference Desk to see if your course text might be on Reserve. This means that you could check the book out for a few hours at a time, or possibly up to 3 weeks. Faculty may put a book on reserve so that the entire class has access to it – and while you’ve checked it out, be sure to scan or photocopy the pages you need.
2.) Ask the professor if you can use an earlier edition of the book. Depending on the course, this may be possible – if so, it will be easier to obtain that previous edition at a CUNY library.
3.) Search for a “Zero-Textbook-Cost” (ZTC) course in CUNYFirst! These are courses in which the materials will be made available to you, for free. We have a handy guide on how to find these courses.
ZTC courses are made possible by relying upon Open Educational Resources (OER), which are developing as an alternative to the skyrocketing textbook fees. On this page, there are links to various OER textbooks that you can integrate into your own learning – for free, online, and quality-approved by faculty.
Exploring the CUNY Libraries
As a CityTech student, feel free to stop by the Ursula C. Schwerin Library, right here on campus. You can check out books (for free!), use scanners and photocopiers, print out materials for class, and get immediate research help at the Reference Desk.
And if another CUNY Libary is close by to your home or workplace, feel free to use it as a study space! You’ll just need to bring your valid CityTech ID to enter, and check out books or other items. Wherever you are in New York City, you’re never too far from one of the 25 CUNY campuses, which are spread out across the five boroughs.
This extensive network includes a federation of 31 campus libraries, all of which are open to you as a CUNY student (with the exception of the CUNY Law Library).
If you’re in Manhattan, you might check out the libraries of Hunter College – there are multiple options, such as the Leon & Toby Cooperman Library, Zabar Art Library, and Social Work & Urban Public Health Library.
In our own borough, there’s Brooklyn College, located conveniently near the last stop on the 2 train. The library offers ample study space:
Be sure to explore a CUNY library near you! And if you like, you can always click “Ask A Librarian,” for 24/7 research assistance.
Hello from the new instructional design intern
Hello! My name is Betsy and I’m the new instructional design intern at the City Tech library. I’m currently a student in the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at Queens College and previously worked on the Open Educational Resources initiative at the College of Staten Island. I’m interested in multimedia and interaction design and am excited to develop my skills through this internship!
Today (my first day!) I learned about the types of things I’ll be doing this semester. They generally fall into three main categories:
(1) Create additional fun and interactive resources for students. I will probably start with our library orientation, which is a modular tutorial on where to begin with your research.
(2) Develop relationships with students and faculty and generally spread the word about all the great things library has to offer!
(3) This third one is a more technical goal–enable interoperability between different educational platforms so that our LibGuide content can be incorporated into Blackboard.
As with the previous interns, you can expect weekly updates on my progress. Feel free to reach out to me via twitter and instagram (@citytechlibrary on both). I look forward to the rest of the semester and hope to hear from folks!
Micro Book Reviews by City Tech Librarians
Looking for something good to read? Check out our micro reviews of the best books we read this summer!
This summer I read You’re on an Airplane by Parker Posey. Posey’s memoir reflects on the absurdity of fame. The book is both candid and witty and was a delightful read.–Kim Abrams
In Exit West, Mohsin Hamid, paints a compelling and intimate portrait that captures the effects of civil war and what it means to be a refugee. Exit West manages to be at once a love story and a candid chronicle of the everyday violence faced by the citizens of an unnamed middle-eastern city under siege. Tinged with magical realism and hope, Hamid reminds us that displacement is not just about where we come from but also, who we are after our national identity is stripped away. —Nora Almeida
Chef Anthony “Tony” Bourdain was quite the storyteller: with a strong, confiding authorial voice, it’s not surprising he went on to a successful career in television. His memoir of becoming a chef, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, gave me insight into the high pressure and often decadent world of “back of the house” New York City restaurants. Be prepared for a high octane, opinionated look at the physically grueling, detail-oriented life of a chef. –Monica Berger
I re-read the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin off and on over the summer. I love to re-read books and this series in particular always reveals something new when you return to it. It is the perfect accompaniment to wildly obsessing over fan theories while impatiently waiting for the next, and last, season of the show to premier. —Wanett Clyde
I loved every page of Old in Art School by Nell Irvin Painter, professor emerita of US History at Princeton University, author of several books including the 2010 best-selling The History of White People, and now an artist. In her first memoir, Painter chronicles her education as an artist as she pursues a BFA from Rutgers and an MFA from RISD, both of which she earned after retiring from academic life. Throughout, she probes how age and race affect how she is seen, critiqued, and mentored as a full-time student of painting and an aspiring, and ultimately successful, gallery-exhibiting, fellowship-winning visual artist. I could not put it down for too long, so curious was I about the aesthetic, institutional, and personal challenges she would negotiate next. —Anne Leonard
Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown chronicles the captivating experiences of the American roaring team during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It is inspiring how they beat the odds and reminds one of the buoyancy of hope. At the end of the book, a novice learns everything about the sport. It is also a fine informative read about the American depression. —Nandi Prince
This summer I read the thought provoking and necessary book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, by Safiya Umoja Noble, library and information studies scholar and faculty member at the University of Southern California. Noble’s research reveals the troubling representation of girls and women of color in Google search results, results that software engineers often claim are unbiased and not within their control to determine. With the ubiquitous position that commercial search engines and internet platforms hold in our lives, this book is a worthwhile exploration of the ways that the corporation who develop these services assign meaning and shape popular opinion.–Maura Smale
This summer, I read Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, a fictionalized account of the Philippines under a dictatorship seen through the lens of several loosely related characters, including a little girl, a congressman, an actress, and a DJ. The writing is surreal at times making commentary on class, gender, the influence of American/western culture, and government corruption. —Junior Tidal
Nursing, Engineering, and Communications Resources
Welcome new and returning faculty and students! There are many exciting library resources for you to access here at City Tech, and here are three that might be of interest:
CINAHL Complete is an excellent research tool for health sciences students. http://cityte.ch/cinahlc
Communication & Mass Media Complete is your destination for communications research. http://cityte.ch/cmmcc
Studying Engineering? IEEE is a database with over 4 million engineering-related documents. http://cityte.ch/ieeec
If you have any questions, please contact Kimberly Abrams, kabrams@citytech.cuny.edu