In the fall of 2010, a grant of $36,000 allowed Portland Community College Library to purchase and place on reserve a copy of every required text at one of its campuses. A smaller college “center” also placed all required texts on reserve. The program was very popular with students and parts of the reserve collection received heavy use.
On October 8 2015, a bill was introduced in Congress to support open textbook pilot programs at colleges and universities. This fact sheet provides information on the bill, its history, and significance.
California is the first state to pass open access legislation. The California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act requires that articles funded by the California Department of Public Health make their articles publicly accessible within 12 months of publication.
On the third anniversary of the Open Government Partnership, President Obama announced four new initiatives, one of which is promoting open education to increase awareness and engagement.
In September 2012, Governor Brown signed legislation that provides for both the creation of 50 open textbooks for lower division courses in California's three higher education systems and a digital library to house them. The project is now underway.
The Winnower is an exciting open scholarly publishing platform that has a special interest in student publishing. Read this essay to learn more about why students should be encouraged to publish their work.