ACRL sponsors new 'Interactive Open Educational Resources' book

CHICAGO  – The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) announces its sponsorship of the publication by Jossey-Bass of “Interactive Open Educational Resources: A Guide to Finding, Choosing, and Using What’s Out There to Transform College Teaching” by John D. Shank.

Recent faculty surveys show that some of the most difficult challenges instructors face when teaching are motivating and engaging their students, while making connections to critical course content. And today’s students are “digital natives”—a generation who like to be able to watch, listen, read and interact with their technology-rich environment. Consequently, interactive learning resources in various formats (including multimedia tutorials, modules, games and simulations) are rapidly becoming vital learning resources for faculty and students to enhance both classroom and online learning. Unfortunately, it is difficult and confusing for faculty, librarians and students to locate and utilize existing high-quality interactive learning resources.

Sponsored by ACRL, “Interactive Open Educational Resources” is the only resource to weed through OERs to identify which ones are effective. It helps decipher the best tools, resources and techniques for discovering, selecting and integrating interactive learning resources into the higher education teaching and learning process. Shank examines many of the best repositories and digital library websites for finding high quality materials, explaining in depth the best practices for effectively searching these repositories and the various methods for evaluating, selecting and integrating the resources into the instructor’s curriculum and course assignments, as well as the institution’s learning management system.

These new resources, and new activities revolving around them, will increase student engagement with the course content and enhance student learning. Additionally, instructors will learn how to employ and use interactive learning resources for student assessment.

“Interactive Open Educational Resources: A Guide to Finding, Choosing, and Using What’s Out There to Transform College Teaching” is available for purchase in print and as an e-book from the Jossey-Bass website.

Shank will be available to discuss the book from 12:30-1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 26., 2014,  at the ACRL booth (#1045) at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia.

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The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) is the higher education association for librarians. Representing more than 11,500 academic and research librarians and interested individuals, ACRL (a division of the American Library Association) is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to help academic and research librarians learn, innovate and lead within the academic community. Founded in 1940, ACRL is committed to advancing learning and transforming scholarship. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl.