congress

Open College Textbook Act (S. 1714) promises seed money for the open education cause

The Open College Textbook Act proposes "to authorize grants for the creation, update, or adaption of open textbooks."

Specifically, it would authorize the Secretary of Education to award 1-year grants on a competitive basis to higher education institutions, professors, non-profit, or for profit-organizations that produce textbooks. The textbooks would be open licensed and available to be downloaded, redistributed, changed, revised, or altered by any member of the public.

Learn more here and then please sign our petition supporting the Open College Textbook Act.

H.R. 1464 — The “OER Bill”

The open educational resources movement has been picking up steam lately, even attracting the attention of legislators. What’s hot in the new Persian year (aka the start of spring) is the recently introduced “OER Bill“. What’s that, you say?

Well in its own words, it’s a bill “To require Federal agencies to collaborate in the development of freely-available open source educational materials in college-level physics, chemistry, and math, and for other purposes.”

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Senator Cardin Introduces Bill to Allow Newspapers to Operate as Nonprofits

United States Senator Benjamin Cardin today introduced legislation that would allow newspapers to become nonprofit organizations in what he described as "an effort to help the faltering [newspaper] industry survive."

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