Category: future education

So you want to publish your #edtech or digital learning book in an open access format?

On April 2, 2019

In future education, oer, online learning, open, scholarship, work

Every now and then someone asks me whether I know of any non-commercial publishers that don’t charge thousands of dollars in OA fees to publish open access books in the field. In this post, I’ll share two such efforts that I support:

A new venue for your open access book publishing in our area is EdTechBooks.org Not only is this project ingenious, I believe it will quickly scale and grow into something extraordinary. I have a long personal and professional connection to the people running this project, so take that prediction with a grain of salt. If you’re interested in publishing with them, contact them at admin@edtechbooks.org
Athabasca University Press publishes the award-winning Issues in Distance Education book series. Partly because AU Press is one of the few university presses that publish books in open access formats in our field and partly because I’d like to help expand the conversations that we are having in our field I recently agreed to co-edit this series with Dr. Terry Anderson. If you’re interested in publishing with AU Press feel free to contact me. As far as my personal interests go, I am keen to support and see more books from:

Under-represented authors, such as women and people of color, whose perspectives and research on topics pertaining to digital education challenge the dominant ways of thinking.
Authors who are interrogating various aspects of the history of the field.
Authors who are conducting rich ethnographic work (e.g., What’s life like as an instructional designer? What’s it like at an online program management company?)
Authors who are conducting critical investigations of various aspects of the field, such as for example, interrogating discourses pertaining to online learning, or interrogating issues relating to power and privilege.
Authors whose work provides practical recommendations for addressing the significant challenges and tensions that our community is facing.

Are there any other non-commercial open access publishers in the area that you would recommend?

Royal Roads joins MITx MicroMasters pathway

By George Veletsianos

On March 20, 2019

In future education, futures

I’ve been doing some work on higher education futures, which is where this post fits in. One would be remiss to explore what the future may or may not hold for higher education without first exploring their local contexts — a point that the Unbundled University project drives home through investigating unbundling in the UK and South African context.

The alarmist narratives around the disruption and transformation of higher education relied on the idea of imminent change. And even though sometimes things do change rapidly (e.g., see recent small university/college closures in the US, rise of public not-for profit online offerings/enrollments), more often than not, such change is gradual.

Royal Roads University has joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MITx Micromasters pathway. Under the pathway agreement, graduates will be able to apply 9 credits of their credentials in Supply Chain Management, Principles of Manufacturing or Data, Economics, and Development Policy towards completion of Royal Roads’ Master of Business Administration in Executive Management. “I’m very pleased to see Royal Roads University become the first Canadian university to offer pathways for students from MITx MicroMasters programs to master’s degrees,” said Krishna Rajagopal, MIT’s Dean for Digital Learning.
News Release