Sparky Award: People's Choice

Clueless Discovery from Aaron Ludwig on Vimeo.

"Washington, DC – Aaron Ludwig, a sophomore animation student at Brigham Young University, has won the first-ever Sparky Awards Peoples’ Choice prize for his short film, “Clueless Discovery.” The video was voted the best by students and others everywhere in an open online vote held earlier this Spring."

"Organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and adopted by campuses everywhere, the Sparky Awards contest calls on entrants to creatively illustrate in a short video the value of openly sharing ideas. “Clueless Discovery” is a clear presentation of how failing to share information and “reinventing the wheel” not only hampers progress, but can be harmful." -- Brigham Young Student Takes First Sparky

Learn more about SPARC, or the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, on their website.

Thanks to Rhonda Marker, Rutgers University, for posting this on Facebook yesterday!

SPARC Open Access Newsletter (January)

The January issue (#129) of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter is now available online. Topics in this issue include:

• Open access in 2008
• Round-up
• Coming this month
• Credits

SPARC & ACRL at Midwinter

SPARC and ACRL Announce Slate for Denver Forumon Open Educational Resources:

Washington, DC & Chicago, IL – December 15, 2008

Four pioneers from the Open Educational Resources community will offer their insights into “The transformative potential of Open Educational Resources (OER)” at the next SPARC-ACRL Forum, to be held during the 2009 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Denver, CO.

The forum, hosted by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), will introduce OER and the philosophy behind them to the wider library community, highlight examples of how different constituencies are currently advancing OER on campuses, and offer suggestions for how libraries can further engage to support OER.

OER are a logical extension of what the library community supports in the Open Access movement, and underscore the need for the larger playing field on which scholarly communication takes place to be made more equitable. OER focus not only on journals, but also on full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques that are critical in the learning environment.

Forum presenters will include:

• Richard Baraniuk, an architect of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration which aims to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education; founder of Connexions, an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the; and Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Rice University.
• David Wiley, also a leader of the Cape Town Declaration; Chief Openness Officer for Flat World Knowledge, a new approach to college textbooks offering rigorously reviewed textbooks online free of cost to students and Associate Professor of Instructional Psychology & Technology at Brigham Young University.
• Nicole Allen, leader of the Student PIRGs’ Make Textbooks Affordable campaign, which aims to develop a textbook market with both a vibrant used book market and a plethora of learning content that is priced and sold fairly.
• Mark Nelson, Digital Content Strategist for the National Association of College Stores, the trade association representing the higher education retail industry. He facilitates NACS three-pronged digital course materials strategy—partnerships, enhanced trade infrastructure, and education and awareness.

The 18th biennial SPARC-ACRL Forum will be held from 4:00 – 5:30 PM on Saturday, January 24, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Centennial D. The ACRL Scholarly Communications Discussion Group will also host an open conversation about issues that surface at the Forum from 4:00 – 5:30 PM on Sunday, January 25 in room 403 of the Colorado Convention Center.

The Forum will be available via SPARC podcast at a later date. For more information, visit the SPARC Web site at http://www.arl.org/sparc. - Jennifer McLennan, SPARC

SPARC Open Access Newsletter

The December edition (issue #128) of SPARC Open Access Newsletter is now available online.

Sparky Award Web Tools

A message from Adam Burling at ALA:

The organizers of the Sparky Awards video contest have released several new resources to help college instructors and librarians engage students in an exploration of information sharing and copyright by encouraging their participation in the 2008 contest, “MindMashup: The Value of Information Sharing.” Contestants are invited to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information on the Internet. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site, or software application that combines content from more than one source.

Educators at all types of institution – including 4-year colleges and universities, community and junior colleges, art and film schools, and others – are invited to incorporate the contest into fall curricula, whether as a formal assignment or extracurricular activity. The following new resources are available to facilitate adoption of the contest:

• Video invitation to enter the Sparky Awards
• Sparky Awards promotional poster
• Educators’ Guide to Using the Sparky Awards in Your Classes
• Librarians’ Guide to Introducing the Sparky Awards on Your Campus
• Banner ad art to promote the Sparky Awards on Web sites

All tools are available for download and customization through the Sparky Awards Web site at http://www.sparkyawards.org, along with complete details on the awards.

The 2008 Sparky Awards are organized by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and cosponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Campus MovieFest, Penn Libraries, Students for Free Culture, and The Student PIRGs.