The Rise of OER: A Look at Equity and Quality

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The Rise of OER: A Look at Equity and Quality

The spring semester has started and students are back to the classroom. And with this return to the classroom comes some of the debate over the physical and the virtual that has been brewing recently: in-person versus remote classes, print books versus ebooks, and the effectiveness of using Open Educational Resources (OER).

Over the last several years, higher education has witnessed a rise in the use of OER, though adoption plateaued slightly in the 2019-2020 school year as faculty focused more on pivoting their lessons plans to remote learning. As noted in our recent publishing predictions, we expect to see more adoption and creation of OER materials because of the proven value of OER in making higher learning more equitable. Yet while access to materials might become more equitable, adapting to digital instruction can still create a learning divide.

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Education Publishers Rise to the Challenge of Lockdown Learning

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Education Publishers Rise to the Challenge of Lockdown Learning

In our recent “Publishing as an essential business” post we looked at how the industry has been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly focusing on how publishers are contributing to global efforts to confront the crisis and prove their value. There has undoubtedly been a concerted effort from every corner of the industry, whether that’s by making critical content accessible when it’s needed most or by making these distressing times more tolerable and entertaining for isolated readers.

Of all the industry sub-sectors, education publishing in particular has been in overdrive in recent weeks, as worldwide lockdowns have flung parents, students, teachers and educational institutions into the unfamiliar territory of home schooling and distant learning.

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Digital Equality for Distance Learning

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Digital Equality for Distance Learning

Accessible content ensures that students with disabilities don’t fall behind during the Great Shutdown

Here at KGL, we have long championed accessibility in publishing. Ensuring that your books, journals, digital products, websites and other content are either remediated or “born accessible” is essential to readers with disabilities. Many publishers by now appreciate that the same technologies and guidelines that improve access to materials for people with visual or hearing impairments, limited mobility, perceptual and cognitive differences can also open opportunities to better reach and serve all users. But if there has ever been a time to acknowledge the consequences of digital equality, it is the great experiment in distance learning of 2020.

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Publishing as an Essential Business

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Publishing as an Essential Business

A round-up of how the industry is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

In these challenging times, there has been much discussion of what qualifies as an “essential business.” There is the debate around which establishments should be allowed to continue physical operations during a social distancing shutdown (are liquor stores, bike shops and video games as essential as grocery stores and the healthcare supply chain?). Some organizational habits like meeting culture, long commutes and digital red tape have already been exposed as decidedly nonessential for a post-crisis world. But while the majority of us adjust to working from home (a luxury obviously not afforded to many frontline professions), the coronavirus pandemic is unfolding as an occasion for the industry to prove its worth.

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W3C Publishing Summit 2017

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W3C Publishing Summit 2017

The first-ever W3C Publishing Summit took place in San Francisco, November 9 to 10, to discuss how web technologies are shaping publishing today, tomorrow, and beyond. Publishing and the web interact in innumerable ways. The Open Web Platform and its technologies have become essential to how content is created, developed, enhanced, discovered, disseminated, and consumed online and offline.

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