Orange Grove Projects

High-quality Multimedia Content Available

The Florida Distance Learning Consortium (FDLC) is pleased to announce that 675 multimedia resources in a range of disciplines are now available to all Florida educators through The Orange Grove, Florida’s Digital Repository.

These resources, licensed from the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), support distance and classroom instruction in Algebra, American Government, Biology, Calculus (English and Spanish versions), Environmental Science, Physics, Psychology, Statistics and U.S. History. To increase the discoverability of resources for Florida educators, faculty reviewers have added descriptive information to the resources, such as applicable Florida Statewide Course Numbers. These resources are accessible to Florida educators by searching the repository, or searching/browsing the NROC Resources collection in The Orange Grove.

Learn more about the NROC content in The Orange Grove (PDF, 285 KB).

Integration

By integrating The Orange Grove with their learning management systems, institutions are now enabling their faculty to add repository content to their web pages and documents with a single click. The repository integrates with Blackboard/WebCT, Angel, Sakai, and Moodle. Learn more about integration.

OnCoRe Blueprint

The OnCoRe Blueprint project is developing a national model for digital repositories. Funded by a three-year grant from Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) the project is producing a blueprint to guide other states or institutions in developing statewide repositories. This project is sponsoring an international conference, Digital Repositories for Learning, on August 11, 2009, in Vancouver, British Columbia. For more information about the conference or project, please see the OnCoRe Blueprint website.

Open Access Textbooks: A FIPSE Grant Project OATB”

The Open Access Textbooks Grant Project is working with others involved in open content to create a sustainable model for Florida and other states to discover, produce, and disseminate open textbooks. This two-year initiative is funded by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The project will build on efforts in Florida and across the U. S. to create a sustainable open textbook model and a collaborative community to further implementation of open textbooks.

Open Textbooks

Across the U. S., faculty, students, and institutions are expressing concern over the high cost of textbooks. For some Florida courses, textbook costs may exceed the cost of tuition. A potential solution to this problem is “open textbooks.” These texts are freely available with nonrestrictive licenses for faculty to use, re-mix, improve, and redistribute to their students.

The Florida Distance Learning Consortium is a member of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCOER). This is a joint effort by the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, the League for Innovation in the Community College, and other community colleges and university partners to develop and use open educational resources (OER) in college courses. More . . .

Open Access Textbook Task Force

The 2009 Florida Legislature requested (HB 7121 or SB 844) that an Open Access Textbook Task Force (OATTF) be created to: create an inventory of existing open access textbooks; make recommendations for encouraging and promoting faculty development and use of open access textbooks; and identify barriers to the implementation of open access textbooks. Learn more about the Open Access Textbook Task Force.

The Orange Grove Scholars Program

The Orange Grove Scholars are faculty members who operate on their individual university and college campuses around the state. They reach out to individual faculty members and departments to increase their awareness of digital resources (including open textbooks) available in The Orange Grove repository.

Scholars demonstrate and publicize The Orange Grove, and assist their fellow faculty members in adding and using digital content. Scholars are nominated by FDLC members or The Orange Grove institutional liaison for their leadership capabilities and their interest in digital content. Orange Grove Scholars have enhanced repository credibility and interest at the campus level, which is critical for adoption of the repository resources for use in teaching. A list of the Orange Grove Scholars and a list of sample Scholar tasks is available.

SCORE

Learn more about this project:
http://www.sreb.org/programs/EdTech/SCORE/index.asp