Content Expansion

During the Pilot Implementation phase, you should continue to seek out new sources of content for your repository. In addition, you may have new opportunities or avenues to solicit content now that your repository is operational. Users are always searching for new items to use in their teaching. It is also a measure of repository success to have users contribute content. While generally new users begin by searching for and using content, they should be encouraged to eventually create their own items and place a copy in your repository. You can also suggest that they submit the URLs to and high quality content that they may be using for their courses. You should also continue to explore other opportunities for harvesting or federation with other repositories (these issues were discussed earlier in the operational planning section) In this section, we will discuss multiple content sources and strategies for acquiring content including:

• Open Textbooks
• Faculty/Institution Developed or Produced Content
• State Developed, Licensed or Grant Funded Content
• Federal Grant Products

1. Open Textbooks. Open textbooks are receiving a lot of attention. Open textbooks are licensed to allow free and flexible use without expressed permission from the author. This is typically done via one of the six Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons allow materials to be reproduced, customized, or distributed as long as attribution requirements are met. Instructors may choose to use a particular edition of an open textbook indefinitely, or may customize a text to suit their individual course needs. Open textbooks are also a part of the open educational resources (OER) movement that strives to make educational materials freely available to all.

With the rising cost of textbooks for university and community college students, interest in open textbooks is growing. The problem of textbook affordability is being examined by a variety of groups including student organizations, higher education communities, and state governments, with open textbooks being one perceived solution. For more information on this isssue, visit the Community College Open Textbook Project.

Open textbooks are a good source of content for a digital repository. In addition to providing a centralized location for the books, a repository can add value by indexing the material for easy discovery and use. A repository can also partner with an on-demand or other type of press to offer printed version of the textbooks. . Printing Open Textbooks by an on-demand publisher can also provide a modest revenue stream for a repository and university press. One example of this new relationship is between the Rice University Press and Connexions. repository that have forged a strong relationship which has brought financial viability back to the Rice University Press.

Faculty members can select one of the open textbooks available in the Connexions repository for use in a course. Students may then download a PDF version of the book from the repository for free. Or, if students prefer to have a bound, printed version of the book, there is a link from the resource to Qoop, an on-demand publisher with which Connexions has partnered. As an example, students can have a bound copy of the text, Collaborative Statistics, delivered to their door for under $35.

The Orange Grove is exploring a similar model to reduce textbook costs for Florida students, encourage use of the repository, and secure stable funding. Repository administrators are working with many of the OER resource groups as well as The University Press of Florida (link) to develop a strategy to provide affordable textbooks to Florida students.

Open Textbook resources

• Make Textbooks affordable campaign: http://www.maketextbooksaffordable.org
• Student PIRGS: http://www.studentpirgs.org/
• Community College Consortium forOpen Educational Resources: http://cccoer.wordpress.com/ or http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/

2. Faculty/Institution Developed or Produced Content. Institutions and individual faculty members may be creating digital content or other instructional items as part of their research and teaching. Now that your repository has been implemented, faculty will be able to explore the resources and see how the system works. As they become more familiar with the repository, they may want to share items they have created.

By including their content in the repository, faculty members can reach a wider audience and increase their profile within the scholarly community, particularly if their institution recognizes digital publishing as evidence of scholarship. For other users who may not be familiar with the creation of digital content, it may be beneficial to offer some training in this area. (This will be discussed in detail in the next section, workshops and training). Educators appreciate the opportunity for their teaching resources to be reused by others in the educational community. For example Alex Dickison, an instructor at Seminole Community College in Florida, recently gave permission for 298 of his digital instructional resources to be contributed by staff to The Orange Grove for use by any educator.

3. State Developed, Licensed or Grant Funded Content. If finances permit, you might also consider offering grants to create content to fill specific needs. As part of the request for proposals, be sure to communicate clearly that your repository must serve as a dissemination vehicle for these resources. As the granting entity, you can decide how open or restrictive you choose to be with the items that are created. In some cases you may want to make the resources freely available or license them under one of the less restrictive Creative Commons licenses, such as “attribution only” (link to cc). In other instances, it may be necessary to limit access to the items. For example, if state money is used to create the resources, you might have to limit access only to state educators. The Kentucky Learning Depot has developed some language that details this type of agreement between the repository and the content creators.

Language for State-funded Digital Content to Be Contributed to The Kentucky Learning Depot Draft (October 20, 2008)
The grant recipient hereby agrees that in accepting funds for the development of digital content that it will adhere to the standards established by the Kentucky Learning Depot, including metadata (http://kylearningdepot.org). The developers of the digital content will be oriented by the Depot staff if needed.

The grant recipient further agrees that any and all digital content developed in conjunction with this grant, shall be made available free of charge through the Kentucky Learning Depot for the non-commercial use of the Kentucky P-20 education community. The Kentucky Learning Depot shall use all reasonable care to ensure that only members of the Kentucky P-20 education community have access to the content. Options to extend the use of this content free of charge to the SREB members and others are available if so chosen.

The Kentucky Learning Depot acknowledges that the grant recipient of the digital content retains ownership of and intellectual property rights in the content developed with the specific exception of the availability of this content to the Kentucky P-20 education community.

It is the intention of the Kentucky Learning Depot to make additional distribution arrangements available to a grant recipient, but the Kentucky Learning Depot at this time makes no guarantees or claims that such options will be available at a date certain.

In addition to these strategies, you will want to encourage members of your stakeholder group or user community to contribute any content they may have created. Additional ideas for pursuing this source of content will be discussed in the sections “marketing and training”

4. Federal Grant Products. The federal government requires grants disseminate their work products. For example the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) policy states, “ NSF advocates and encourages open scientific and engineering communication. NSF expects significant findings from research it supports to be promptly submitted for publication, with authorship that accurately reflects the contributions of those involved.” Your repository can serve as the dissemination vehicle for these projects. Work with grant offices at various institutions in your state to offer your repository's services.