Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, praises OER efforts

Arne Duncan, Education Secretary, delivered the commencement address to graduates of Foothill and De Anza colleges in California. He praised the efforts of faculty in the Foothill De Anza Community College System for using free and low cost open textbooks in their classes. One of the most popular is Collaborative Statistics in Connexions, authored by Foothill De Anza faculty, and purchased and made open by the Maxfield foundation. You can read more about Dr. Duncan's speech where he discusses the kinds of students benefiting from community college (and open textbooks) in this Mercury news article, or on the Community College Consortium for Open Education Resources blog.

Creative Commons Lauches Catalyst Fund Drive

From now through June 30, Creative Commons is raising money to fund their Catalyst Grants program. Their goal is to raise $100,000 to provide grants of $1000 – $10,000 to innovators, educators and researchers around the globe that are working to make knowledge easily, freely, and legally available to everyone. You can read all about their campaign here.

And hopefully later, you might consider applying for a catalyst grant yourself.