Dear colleagues,
BCcampus Open Education is preparing to post a Call for Proposals for the second offering of the Open Education Sustainability Grant<https://bccampus.ca/open-education-sustainability-grant-for-institutions/>. Last year, this call was opened on June 27 and included the following key dates:
* Closing date for proposals: Thursday, August 22, 2019 11:59 PM PDT
* Successful submission notification date: Thursday, August 29, 2019 11:59 PM PDT
* Grant recipient announcement date: Wednesday, September 11, 2019 11:59 PM PDT
We would like to hear from you about the timing of this grant's Call for Proposals. Do the above dates work well for potential applicants at your institution? Or would you suggest a different time frame, and why?
Please submit your suggestions to me no later than Tuesday, January 28.
Regards,
Lauri
Lauri Aesoph
Manager, Open Education, BCcampus
Cell: 250-893-0258<tel:250-893-0258> • Email: laesoph(a)bccampus.ca<mailto:laesoph@bccampus.ca>
Twitter: @lauriaesoph<https://twitter.com/lauriaesoph> • Skype: lauri.aesoph • LinkedIn: lauriaesoph<https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriaesoph/>
________________________________
Learning. Doing. Leading.
BCcampus.ca<https://bccampus.ca/> • @BCcampus<https://twitter.com/BCcampus> • #BCcampus<https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCcampus?src=hash>
For thousands of years the səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish), W̱SÁNEĆ, and the Songhees Nation of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) Peoples have walked gently on the unceded territories where we now live, work, and play. We are committed to building relationships with the first peoples here, one based in honour and respect, and we thank them for their hospitality.
During the past couple of months, we've made great progress toward providing Canada's post-secondary institutions and students with hardcover copies of OpenStax open textbooks at good prices. (See our October 18 blog: Hard-back OpenStax books come to Canada<https://bccampus.ca/2019/10/18/hard-back-openstax-books-come-to-canada/>.)
Canadian textbook distributor, Vretta, is now taking orders <https://www.vretta.com/ordering.html> for many of the OpenStax books hosted in the BC Open Textbook Collection<https://open.bccampus.ca/browse-our-collection/find-open-textbooks/>. Their order page lists: a pricelist, refund policy, and bulk order discount for organizations and individuals who order 10 or more books.
Buyers may also purchase these books through Amazon.ca<https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=openstax&i=stripbooks&crid=ET9CJMW4S2PN&sprefix=o…>. Look for Vretta as the distributor.
Please feel free to share this information with your community.
Regards,
On behalf of the OpenEd team
Lauri Aesoph
Manager, Open Education, BCcampus
Cell: 250-893-0258<tel:250-893-0258> • Email: laesoph(a)bccampus.ca<mailto:laesoph@bccampus.ca>
Twitter: @lauriaesoph<https://twitter.com/lauriaesoph> • Skype: lauri.aesoph • LinkedIn: lauriaesoph<https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriaesoph/>
________________________________
Learning. Doing. Leading.
BCcampus.ca<https://bccampus.ca/> • @BCcampus<https://twitter.com/BCcampus> • #BCcampus<https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCcampus?src=hash>
For thousands of years the səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish), W̱SÁNEĆ, and the Songhees Nation of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) Peoples have walked gently on the unceded territories where we now live, work, and play. We are committed to building relationships with the first peoples here, one based in honour and respect, and we thank them for their hospitality.
________________________________
From: Lauri Aesoph <lauri.aesoph(a)bccampus.ca>
Sent: September 10, 2019 9:41 AM
To: canadaoer(a)mail.bccampus.ca <canadaoer(a)mail.bccampus.ca>
Subject: Canadian distribution of hard back OpenStax textbooks - questions and feedback
Dear Canadian Colleagues,
OpenStax has identified a company in Canada, Vretta, that has agreed to distribute hard back copies of its open textbooks. This is the result of a discussion between OpenStax and BCcampus two years ago. Many Canadian instructors like/prefer these hardcopy versions vs. print-on-demand (PoD) books because of their layout and for their more durable hard cover. (Many PoD copies are soft cover.) Also, the cost of the pre-printed, full colour books are about 50% less than the colour PoD in the BC Collection.
I am currently working to establish a plan and process for providing this opportunity to students, faculties and bookstores at BC's post-secondary institutions (including how this might work for OpenStax books in the BC Open Textbook Collection<https://open.bccampus.ca/browse-our-collection/find-open-textbooks/>), as well as Canada's other colleges, institutes and universities. No formal announcement has been made to the BC or Canadian post-secondary sector, though OpenStax participated in a couple of press releases in July:
* Newswire/Cison News: OpenStax and Vretta partner to distribute OER print textbooks for Canadian students<https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/openstax-and-vretta-partner-to-distri…>
* Markets Insider<https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/openstax-and-vretta-partner…>
You will also find a link on the OpenStax page here: https://openstax.org/bookstore-suppliers
I will be meeting with Vretta, again, Thursday morning. If possible, please send me answers to one or all of the below items by late Wednesday (tomorrow)/early Thursday (before 9:30am).
* Is there interest at your institution or project in these books? Include specific titles and number of potential buyers if available.
* Would your bookstore would be interested in ordering these books for sale to students? (Bookstores will be offered a discount on orders.)
* Would your institution and/or bookstore be interested in providing a link to the order form on its website?
* How many lead up time does your institution/faculty need to order textbooks for a term?
* Other questions, comments, feedback.
If you are unable to respond in time for my meeting, feel free to send your comments later.
Thanks and regards,
Lauri
Lauri Aesoph
Manager, Open Education
[https://bccampus.ca/files/2018/10/dotted-line.jpg]
Cell: 250-893-0258 • Email: laesoph(a)bccampus.ca<mailto:laesoph@bccampus.ca>
Twitter: @lauriaesoph<https://twitter.com/lauriaesoph> • Skype: lauri.aesoph • LinkedIn: lauri.aesoph<https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauri.aesoph/>
BCcampus.ca<https://bccampus.ca/> • @BCcampus<https://twitter.com/BCcampus> • #BCcampus<https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCcampus?src=hash>
I acknowledge that the land on which I work and live is the traditional
territory of the Lkwungen-speaking people.
Dear Pressbooks User,
Today's scheduled upgrade has been postponed until further notice. When preparing for the upgrade, we encountered a number of issues that need to be addressed before we can ensure that the upgrade will go forward with minimal disruption. We will send out a notice once we determine a new upgrade date.
Sincerely,
The BCcampus Open Education Team and IT Support
BCcampus IT Support
BCcampus | Learning. Doing. Leading.
support(a)bccampus.ca | www.bccampus.ca<http://www.bccampus.ca/>
Dear Pressbooks User,
As a Pressbooks account holder in pressbooks.bccampus.ca, you have been placed on a mailing list to receive notifications about upgrades, service outages, and other events that affect your Pressbooks account. These outages will also affect open textbooks in the B.C. Open Textbook Collection that are hosted in BCcampus' internal instance of Pressbooks (opentextbc.ca).
UPGRADE NOTICE
On the morning of Wednesday, August 28, 2019, between 8:00 AM and 11:30 AM Pacific time, Pressbooks (pressbooks.bccampus.ca) will be upgraded to version 5.9.0. Your account will be unavailable during this time.
Open Textbooks Theme
With this upgrade, the Open Textbooks theme will officially be removed from pressbooks.bccampus.ca. If you have not already done so, please switch your books to one of the other themes. Clarke is the theme most similar to the Open Textbooks theme, but McLuhan is also a good option. For more information, see Retiring the Open Textbook Theme<https://open.bccampus.ca/pressbooks-updates/#theme>.
New Features
* New admin colour scheme: You can now select a colour scheme that increases accessibility of the Pressbooks Admin interface. This colour scheme increases the colour contrast and underlines all links in the Pressbooks Admin interface. This will not affect the webbook or export files. To enable, navigate to your profile in Pressbooks. Under "Admin Colour Scheme" select "Pressbooks a11y."
* Redesigned exports page: The exports page has been updated to make it easier to manage your exported files. Pressbooks will now store the last three exports of each file format. You can also now sort exports by file format, size, and date exported. You can also "pin" any files that you do not want to be deleted.
* Progress bars: Pressbooks will now display a progress bar when importing, exporting, cloning, and generating a cover.
* Clone h5p activities: H5P activities within books will now make it through the cloning process.
* MathJax Support: MathJax is a JavaScript display engine that translates mathematical markup into high resolution, accessible equations that can render in any supported book format on Pressbooks.
Bug Fixes and Changes:
* The "Import" tab is no longer accessed from the Dashboard Menu. You can find it under "Tools."
* "LO" KT" and "EX" buttons will no longer appear in Visual Editor toolbar, but those special textboxes can still be inserted from the "Textboxes" drop-down menu.
* A number of updates to increase the accessibility of the Pressbooks admin interface, Digital PDFs, and footnotes.
* Improvements to glossary tooltips. Definitions can now include links and bold and italic text.
* There is a new "Publish" tab in the Dashboard Menu where you can add links to where people can purchase POD versions of a book.
* Glossary terms will now alphabetize correctly
* Licences on chapters in the webbook will now list the book title rather than the chapter title, unless the chapter is under a different licence from the rest of the book.
* Additional table classes available from the visual editor.
* Unnecessary alert when saving parts will no longer pop up.
Sincerely,
The BCcampus Open Education Team and IT Support
BCcampus | Learning. Doing. Leading.
support(a)bccampus.ca<mailto:support@bccampus.ca> | www.bccampus.ca<http://www.bccampus.ca>
