Dive Brief:
- Andrew Marcinek will advise colleges and universities along with K-12 schools about open educational resources as the U.S. Department of Education’s first “open education” advisor.
- Campus Technology reports Marcinek will work in the Office of Education Technology, offering schools a new resource just months after the discontinuation of free.ed.gov, which had links to digital teaching and learning resources.
- Marcinek has worked as a technology director at K-12 public schools and consults institutions about technology integration through EducatorU, which he co-founded.
Dive Insight:
The Education Department shuttered free.ed.gov in June, indicating institutions didn’t need as much help finding open educational resources because of other technology. Marcinek’s hire indicates a recognition that schools do, however, need some support in shifting to digital, customizable resources.
Some colleges and universities have gone entirely OER, getting rid of textbook costs entirely. Tidewater Community College in Virginia, for example, offers a textbook-free program in business administration called Z-degree. And Paul Quinn College in Dallas also scrapped textbooks institution-wide, forcing educators to find open source materials.
