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Fair Dealing Week Event: Copyright Update 2020

Posted on February 20, 2020 by Ann

The week of February 24th is Fair Use/ Fair Dealing Week – an annual event to highlight, celebrate and educate about fair use in the United States and fair dealing in Canada and other jurisdictions. As part of our celebration of Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week, the Library is hosting a panel discussion, Copyright, and Education: 2020 Update

At this panel presentation, the speakers will review significant legal developments in the areas of fair dealing and copyright, which impact on the educational use of copyright materials. This includes the ruling in the Access Copyright v. York University case, as well as an update on the federal government’s review of the Copyright Act, and recent decisions by the Copyright Board impacting higher education. These developments will be of interest to instructors, faculty, and librarians, and others looking to ensure legal compliance with copyrighted materials in the classroom. Participants will also learn about the available supports at the Library to ensure copyright compliance, including the Library’s E-Reserves service.

Date: Monday, Feb. 24th, 2020

Location: SLC508

Time: 2:00-3:00pm

Speakers:

Julia Shin Doi, General Counsel General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Governors

Carol Shepstone, Chief Librarian

Ann Ludbrook, Copyright and Scholarly Engagement Librarian

Register: https://forms.gle/dyFbPpEXqPS9yDQv7

Open Access Week Events Oct. 21-27, 2019

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Ann

Open Access Week is a global event held annually in October to raise awareness of the benefits of Open Access in the academic community. Open access materials are academic materials distributed online legally and free of cost. This year’s theme is Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge – a prompt for the academic community to consider the benefits of open access, which include increased access to knowledge in our own communities and around the world. Ryerson Library is hosting several Open Access Week events in the week Oct. 21-27. We encourage faculty and graduate students to attend open access events and learn more about how open access can benefit your teaching and research.

Open Access Week Keynote and Award

Day: Oct 21, 2019

Time: 12 p.m.- 2 p.m.

Location: Library Collaboratory, 3rd Floor (access via 3rd Floor, LIB/SLC)

Keynote – Open Access and Inclusive Infrastructure in Support of Epistemic Diversity and Knowledge Equity

Keynote Speaker: Leslie Chan, University of Toronto, Scarborough

Leslie’s talk will focus on why we need to think beyond Open Access and the common debates about business models and licensing options. As commercial interests have increasingly been monopolizing the essential infrastructure of knowledge production and distribution, this will have the effect of further narrowing the ways we think about the research processes, dissemination, and evaluation of impact. The implications for the reduction of intellectual diversity and means of knowledge representations will be discussed.

Leslie Chan Biography:
Leslie Chan is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Critical Development Studies, University of Toronto, Scarborough, where he is crossed appointed to the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media. His teaching and professional practices center on the role of “openness” in the design of inclusive knowledge infrastructure, and the implications for the production and flow of knowledge, and their impact on local and international development. An original signatory of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Leslie has been active in the experimentation and implementation of scholarly communication initiatives of varying scales around the world. He has served as Director of Bioline International, an international collaborative open access platform since 2000. Leslie was the principal investigator for the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet), funded by IDRC in Canada and DFID in the UK, and the PI of the Knowledge G.A.P project. He serves on the advisory board of the Directory of Open Access Journal, and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Recently he became a member of an international working group on Investing in Open Infrastructure. He has published broadly on open access, open science, and scholarly communications.

Award – 2019 Ryerson Library Open Access Wall of Fame

Dr. Jennifer L. Lapum

Dr. Jennifer Lapum is a Professor in the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing. She is a leader and social justice advocate in the development and curricular integration of Open Educational Resources (OER) in post-secondary education. She has been a lead author and editor in the production of several e-textbooks that have involved creating original content combined with adapting and remixing existing OER. These resources have included topics related to health assessment, vital sign measurement, scholarly writing, nutrition, nurse-client interviewing, and immunizations. In addition to reducing textbook costs for students, Dr. Lapum’s passion is to promote learner engagement and create accessible learning spaces by leveraging the multi-media and interactive elements of book authoring software programs. The collaborative nature of OER production has been a cornerstone of her work in which she has valued the joint efforts of students, educators, instructional designers, librarians, artists, among others.

Publish Open Access without Paying Fees & Distinguish Yourself with an ORCID ID

Date: Oct 21, 2019

Time: 2 p.m.- 3 p.m

Location: Ryerson Library Collaboratory (access via 3rd Floor, LIB/SLC)

Do you want to publish your scholarly work and make it openly discoverable on the Internet, AND also comply with your publisher agreement? The Library will show you how to “publish green” open access versions of your scholarly articles without having to pay extra fees. Using SHERPA/Romeo and the Library Digital Repository you can learn how to make your article available even if you have already signed a publisher agreement. In this workshop you will also learn how to set-up, use and populate an ORCID account. In order for scholarly work to be found in a global network of researchers, it is essential to easily differentiate authors. Many journal publishers and funding agencies now require or encourage authors to apply with an ORCID ID. In fact over 80 publishers now require an ORCID ID to submit papers, including IEEE, Sage, and Wiley.

Register for these Events

Film Screening: Paywall – The Business of Scholarship

Date: Oct 22, 2019

Time: 11 a.m.- 12:30 p.m

Location: Ryerson Library Collaboratory (access via 3rd Floor, LIB/SLC)

As part of Open Access Week, the Library will be screening Paywall: The Business of Scholarship. This documentary, which focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers. There will be popcorn! This is a drop in event open to the Ryerson community.

Engage Students with Social Annotation

Date: Oct 22, 2019

Time: 3 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Location: Ryerson Library Collaboratory (access via 3rd Floor, LIB/SLC)

Join the teams from the Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching and the Ryerson Library for a hands-on workshop on teaching with social annotation, a new way to engage students with their readings. Recent research has shown that social annotation, which allows students to leave comments, questions, and reflections in the virtual margins of digital texts, as well as interact with each other, builds community and improves students’ reading comprehension, motivation, and critical thinking.

You will learn how to use Hypothes.is, an open and free web annotation tool. Hypothes.is allows you and your students to collaboratively annotate websites and course readings. Hypothes.is can also be used for your own scholarly, research, and creative work.

Hypothes.is is one of many open pedagogy tools available for your teaching needs.

Register for these Events

2018/19 Toronto Metropolitan University Library and Archives OER Grants

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Ann

The Toronto Metropolitan University Library and Archives (RULA) is pleased to announce its 2018/19 RULA Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants to encourage the creation and adoption of open educational resources. OER are learning materials that are openly licensed such that they are freely available to be adapted, copied, and shared. OER can be: courses, modules, textbooks, multimedia, assessments, and supplementary materials.

These grants advance the University’s priorities to foster an innovation ecosystem and ensure excellence in student learning experiences, and build on RULA’s digital initiatives, expertise in Open Access and Open Education Resource publishing and dissemination, and academic priorities of access and openness. The Library and Archives is very pleased to collaborate with the Office of eLearning and the Learning and Teaching Office in the review and adjudication of the grants, and in the support of successful projects. A total of $35,000 is available in two categories of grants:

Category 1 – Creation or Adaptation

3 grants for creation or adaptation of an OER textbook or ancillary materials and its subsequent use in class- $10,000 each.

Category 2 – Review and Adoption

5 grants for peer review and adoption of OER, or creation of small-scale supplementary/ ancillary material for an existing OER – $1,000 each.

Objectives of the Grant Program

To support faculty members in the review, revision and adoption of open textbooks and other OER materials
To increase the use of open educational content, textbooks and OER at Toronto Metropolitan University resulting in pedagogical innovation, enhanced access for students, and reduced textbook and class material costs.

Eligibility

All TFA and CUPE Faculty members, Librarians and Post-Doctoral fellows, may apply for these grants.

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Curation and customization of OER that will be freely and openly shared within Toronto Metropolitan University and beyond
Impact on student experience, including high-quality materials, maximum access, open and innovative pedagogy, and cost savings to students
Active engagement of students with Faculty in the adaptation/adoption of OER
Improve discipline/subject OER coverage
Complete and viable budget and project outcomes, consistent with project objectives and appropriate administrative approval from your Chair or supervisor as necessary
Foster commitment to building equity, community and inclusion, advance the TRC Calls to Action, and alignment with Ryerson’s Academic Plan and priorities

Guidelines for Applicants

Complete the Application Form by 4:00 pm on September 28, 2018. Proposals must be submitted via this link prior to the deadline.
Selection Process: Proposals will be evaluated according to an established assessment rubric based on the criteria noted above. A RULA OER Grant Review Committee comprising representation from the Library and Archives (chair), the eLearning Office, and the Learning and Teaching Office will consider all applications. The results of this process will be communicated to each applicant in late October, and announced during Open Access Week 2018.
Funds will be available once a detailed budget is approved by the RULA OER Grant Review Committee.
- Funds may be used to be used to pay students; editors; graphic designers; videographers, with preference given to projects that employ Ryerson students. Funds cannot be used to purchase equipment or used for travel costs.
- This is not an equipment fund, however, if the substance of the project requires equipment, that component may be considered if it is demonstrated that such equipment is unavailable on campus and is instrumental to the project on a case-by-case approved basis.
- Faculty teaching release is not funded by this grant.
- Funds will be made available no later than November 30th, 2018 after recipients attend an introductory 2-hour on-boarding session. Category 1 funds must be expended no later than August 31st, 2019, and Category 2 funds must be expended no later than April 15th, 2019.
- Brief final reports at project completion and/or close of the granting period are required, including an outline of fund expenditures. Any unspent funds will be returned to the Library and Archives.

Reporting and Deliverables

For Category 1 – Creation and Adaptation grants:
A mid-term report is due April 15, 2019, and final reports and links to materials created must be submitted to the Library OER Grant Committee by August 31, 2019. Upon completion of the project, a presentation must be made during Open Access Week (October 2019).

For Category 2 – Review and Adoption grants:

Final two-page report and links to materials created must be submitted to the Library OER Grant Committee by April 15, 2019. Upon completion of the project, a short presentation must be made during Open Access Week (October 2019).

Acknowledgment and Licensing

Grant recipients are required to credit the RULA Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants in any publications, conference proceedings, or media appearances resulting from the funded project.

All materials created via these funds must be licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY license, or a CC-BY-NC license and indicate that they were funded by a RULA Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants.

Assessment

Groups will be interviewed at end of project for feedback and a follow-up interview will be done after in-classroom pilots.

Application Process

To apply for a grant, please submit a completed application form to RULA by 4 pm September 28, 2018. Grant recipients will be announced October 22nd, 2018. If you have questions, please feel free to contact either Ann Ludbrook aludbrook@torontomu.ca ext. 6910, or Sally Wilson swilson@torontomu.ca ext. 556898, or email librarygrants@torontomu.ca.

Open Access Textbooks: Open Education Week 2016

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Ann

A Guest Blog By Michelle Schwartz of the LTO for Open Education Week 2016

In February, Ryerson was excited to host Rajiv Jhangiani, a faculty member from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, for a talk on his research into the use of open textbooks to teach psychology. Open textbooks are defined as textbooks to which the copyright holder has assigned an open license, which allows anyone the right to access, reformat, and customize the textbook to best meet their needs. These textbooks can be downloaded or printed in hard copy for a small cost via print-on-demand. The author, rather than a publishing company, retains the copyright, and the textbooks are often peer reviewed.

Dr. Jhangiani is the author of two open textbooks hosted by the BC Open Textbook Project. The Open Textbook Project is an initiative by the government of British Columbia to make education more accessible. By developing open access textbooks for the subject areas with the highest enrollments in the province, British Columbia hoped to reduce the financial burden on students. The project has grown steadily over the course of the last few years, and as of March 2016, could boast of the following statistics:

Number of BC Open Textbooks: 139
Number of students using open textbooks: 12,159
Number of faculty adopting open textbooks: 110
Number of institutions adopting open textbooks: 26 (21 Public, 5 Private)
Student savings: $1,215,900 – $1,540,680

As an example of an open textbook, Dr. Jhangiani’s Research Methods in Psychology is in its 2nd Canadian edition. It can be downloaded for free in a multitude of formats, from PDF to epub, and it can be printed on demand for a small fee – $10.90 for black and white, or $32.25 for a colour version. As a comparison, a textbook on the same topic from a major publishing company is currently retailing on Amazon.ca for $276.

Though the importance of this cost difference to students cannot be understated, perhaps an even greater benefit of open textbooks was brought up by Dr. Jhangiani at his talk – by publishing with an open license, Dr. Jhangiani felt he had much more latitude to provide unique Canadian examples that he thought would be most beneficial to his students, without the pressure from a publishing company to try to address larger markets. Because the textbook is published with an open license, any educator can take the textbook, use the chapters that they like best, and replace Dr. Jhangiani’s examples and case studies with the material that is most relevant to their course. This flexibility is the strength of the open textbook model!

If you are interested in adopting an open textbook in your course, check out the offerings available at BC Campus, Open Stax College from Rice University, and the Open Textbook Library from the University of Minnesota.

If you have questions about adopting an open textbook or you have thoughts on how you might like to use them in your course, contact us at the LTO, michelle.schwartz@ryerson.ca, ext. 2094.

The Ryerson Library and Archives can also assist in finding open access educational resources to use in your teaching – please contact your Subject Librarian , call Ann Ludbrook at ext. 6910 aludbrook@ryerson.ca or have a look at the Ryerson Library Open Access Educational Resources Guide.

Happy Open Education Resources Week March 7th-March 11th!

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Ann

What are Open Education Resources (OER)?

OERs are educational works created by other instructors like lectures, tests, syllabus, assignments, textbooks, journal articles, case studies etc. that the author decides they want to let other educators use freely in their teaching. OERs can be used and reused freely for educational purposes because the author has freely released the work to the public for that use – usually using one of the six types of a Creative Commons licence. These licences allow different levels of use – some allow adaptation and even commercial use and some do not. All Creative Commons licences require citation. The best OER resources are governed by a principle of “The 5 Rs”.

“The 5 Rs” – in order for a resource to qualify as an OER users should be able to

• Reuse – use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)

• Revise – adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)

• Remix – combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)

• Redistribute – share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

• Retain – make, own, and control copies of the content

(The 5rs is based on original writing by David Wiley, which was published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221.)

In Canada there are some leaders of Open Educational Resources paving the way to support instructors who want to use resources like these that are free of copyright restrictions. One of these is the BCcampusOpenED resource that hosts Open Access textbooks, including peer-reviewed Canadian editions, and has had adoptions of these textbooks by more than 26 Canadian institutions, saving students over a million dollars of textbooks cost to date. In Ontario eCampus Ontario hosts Open Access educational resources and guides you to other open materials. Toronto Metropolitan University Open Learning has Open Access modules created by Ryerson instructors such as videos from The Naked Entrepreneur and a module Therapeutic Communication and Mental Health Assessment. Michelle Schwartz at The Learning and Teaching Office has created a great best practices resource for faculty and instructors who want to explore open access educational resources called The Open Access Classroom. Open Access Education resources are free for you to use and reuse and adapt to fit your teaching aims as long as you cite the source. Perhaps most importantly these resources are free of copyright restrictions and you can provide them to your students free of charge.

2014 Student Employee of the Year Award Winners

Posted on April 17, 2014 by

On April 15th, Ryerson Library hosted the annual Student Staff Appreciation Party. This celebration honours the Student Employee of the Year Award recipients. The Student Employee of the Year Award recognises students who have achieved excellence in their work environment, and the winners receive an award as well as a cash gift. The selection committee had a difficult time selecting just one recipient this year, and ultimately recognized two Ryerson students: Romana Naz and Sarah Hubbard pictured below with RULA’s chief librarian, Madeleine Lefebvre. This event also recognized graduating student employees including Hanny Sierra, who is the first recipient of the Emerging Professional Award offered by the Career Centre, and the first Experiential Learning Work Study Program Award. Congratulations to the award recipients, and we wish you the best of luck in the future!

Romana Naz & Sarah Hubbard pictured with chief librarian, Madeleine Lefebvre.

One-Stop Course Readings Team Wins Blue & Gold!

Posted on March 17, 2014 by

Congratulations to the One-Stop Course Readings Service Team for winning the President’s Blue and Gold Award of Excellence! The One-Stop Course Readings Service makes high-demand course readings available to students over the duration of their courses. This award recognizes the efforts of ten librarians and technicians in addition to several library assistants and four work study students at Ryerson Library who collaborate to provide faculty and students with convenient and copyright compliant access to scholarly articles for their course readings. This service team works alongside the Bookstore, with support from Digital Media Projects, Computing and Communications Services, and the Chang School to provide a service unique to Ryerson Library: one that exemplifies Ryerson’s values of collaboration, innovation, and integrity. Congratulations to all the members of the One-Stop Course Readings Service Team for winning Blue & Gold!

The 5th Annual Aboriginal Student Showcase

Posted on March 12, 2014 by

The 5th Annual Aboriginal Student Showcase is scheduled for Monday March 31st, and all are welcome to attend. This year’s agenda includes presentations by students across four faculties, Ryerson library and faculty speakers, and representatives from the Aboriginal Education Council. Light refreshments will be served.

Agenda

12:00 pm- 12:30 pm – Opening remarks by Madeleine Lefebvre, Chief Librarian; Dr. Cyndy Baskin, Chair – Aboriginal Education Council; Dr. Denise O’Neil Green – Assistant Vice President/Vice Provost – Equity, Diversity & Inclusion; and Joanne Dallaire, Elder – Aboriginal Education Council.

12:30 pm-1:00 pm – 1st presentation by Jeff Swartzentruber, Mechanical Engineering – presenting on his research and mentorship with Dr. Peter Lui of the OMAX Corp. in Seattle, Washington.

1:00 pm-1:30 pm – 2nd presentation by Nicole Wemigwans & Kathleen Longboat- presenting on their experiences attending the Child & Youth Care World Conference in St. Johns, Newfoundland.

1:30 pm-2:00 pm – 3rd presentation by Brittany Ryan -RULA’s very own student assistant, presenting on her mentorship with acclaimed actor, director, and choreographer, Michael Greyeyes.

2:00 pm – 2:30pm – 4th presentation by Caitlin Davey, Doctoral student of Clinical Psychology – presenting her project work entitled: Development, Implementation and Evaluation of a Knowledge Translation Strategy to Enhance Mental Health and Wellbeing Among Aboriginal Students.

The Jack Layton Book Club Series

Posted on March 4, 2014 by

The second annual Jack Layton Book Club Series is coming to the Toronto Metropolitan University Library and Archives this March and April. Join distinguished guest speakers and faculty as they discuss the books that influenced the late Jack Layton. Former professor of politics at Toronto Metropolitan University, Jack Layton’s collection of books was donated to the Library and Archives in 2011, and his collection informs this book club series. All book club meetings will be held on a Tuesday evening at 5:30 p.m. in the archives on the 3rd floor of the library building.

March 18^th join visiting practitioner, nurse, and social activist, Cathy Crowe as she discusses Layton’s work Homelessness : How to End the National Crisis

March 25th join associate professor Dr. Doreen Fumia as she addresses the AIDS epidemic and Randy Shilts’ film, And the Band Played On

April 1st join associate professor Dr. Henry Parada as he discusses social injustices and victim blaming in William Ryan’s book, Blaming the Victim

Whether or not you have read the book, you are most welcome to attend!

Freedom to Read Week

Posted on February 26, 2014 by

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Get involved by considering some of the titles that have been challenged or banned in Canada, and the reasons why.

The Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council has created a list of 100 books, magazine, and other written works that have been challenged in Canada in the past decades. Ryerson Library holds several of these titles in our collection including: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Alice Munro’s The Lives of Girls and Women, Timothy Findley’s The Wars, David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, and J.K. Rowling’s The Harry Potter Series. Check out a banned book today, and celebrate our freedom to read!