OpenNJ is a statewide repository and referatorium collection developed for New Jersey higher education institutions for its educators to find and access materials. This resource builds a community of practice around OER, and allows educators to learn about who uses what materials already, and what they might consider for their own use. Educators may submit their own items through the OpenPublishing tool, for consideration, which will be reviewed by the OpenNJ Advisory Committee. Participating NJ higher education institutions have an individual collection that feeds into the overarching OpenNJ repository/referatorium. Institutional items within OpenNJ can be searched both at the top level OpenNJ and the individual collection level. To establish a new collection, please contact us.

OpenNJ  is intended to house:​

  • Openly licensed OER or public domain materials adopted, adapted, and created for use in NJ in full text.
  • Open and affordable materials adopted, adapted, and created for use in NJ. These materials may include copyrighted material, so OpenNJ will offer full text or a link to an external original source as appropriate.
  • Professional development tools and resources for advocating for OER and describing OER programs.

Initial items were identified and uploaded into the repository by the implementation team, including:Link to presentation

  • MCCDC subcollection Open Educational Resources Toolkit as initial content collection
  • Adopted textbooks from OpenStax
  • Known OER items solicited from faculty
  • Items discovered through bookstore and institution website review
  • Individual submissions submitted by faculty and librarians

 

 

OpenPublishing Tool

Funding from the United States Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Program awarded Decemeber 2020 supports the development of the integrated OpenPublishing tool to better support the OER principles of revision and remix completely online without downloading and reuploading. This publishing tool integrates seamlessly into the open-source, standards-based SobekCM digital repository.  For more information, please the OER Submission FAQ or contact us.

 

Development History

It was initially developed at Middlesex County College as an OER toolkit under the college's Digital Collections repository collection, the MCCDC OER Collection. The toolkit provided resources from statewide OER outreach activities, including the VALE Open Textbook Network Workshops in Spring 2018 and NJ Summit held at Raritan Valley Community College.

Under the leadership of VALE Executive Committee member and OER Ambassador, Marilyn N. Ochoa, the VALE OpenNJ instance in Summer 2019 merged the OER toolkit collection, and included links to the College's own OER Collection.

Development of the instance of the OpenNJ has been ongoing since Summer 2019 and included creation of subcollections for New Jersey higher education institutions. Content from the sources above were added using a standard protocol/template developed for OpenNJ. A breakout session at the 2020 VALE Users Conference on January 8, 2020 formalized the official release of OpenNJ. The session enabled the implementation team to address usability of the repository.

In January 2020, an OpenNJ Advisory Committee was established under the VALE OER Committee to address the sustainability of the resource to include collection/repository management and outreach for and training on the repository. More information about the committee's work and processes will be available soon. For questions, please contact Marilyn N. Ochoa. 

Credits

Sponsored by: The VALE Executive Commitee'  OER Committee and Middlesex County College

The Implementation Team | Summer/Fall 2019

Marilyn N. Ochoa, mochoa@middlesexcc.edu, project manager and lead developer
Mark V. Sullivan, mark.v.sullivan@sobekdigital.com, programmer, technical support, and lead designer
Emma Fasano, efasano@middlesexcc.edu, interface designer, record creator, and content reviewer
Alison Cole, ColeA@felician.edu, content reviewer and interface reviewer
Mohamad Sherif, msherif1@middlesexcc.edu, quality controller
Melissa Lala-Deliman, mlala@middlesexcc.edu, quality controller
Smit Shah, snshah@middlesexcc.edu, quality controller and usability test assistant
Matt Bridgeman, MBridgeman@middlesexcc.edu, content reviewer and usability test assistant
Laura Bishop, laurabishop@hunschool.org, content reviewer and usability test assistant
Mayra Aley, maley@middlesexcc.edu, usability testing assistant

OpenNJ Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the VALE OER Committee | January 2020-

Marilyn N. Ochoa, Middlesex County College, Chair
Alison Cole, Felician University
Matt Bridgeman, Rutgers University
Laura Bishop, The Hun School of Princeton
Mark V. Sullivan, Sobek Digital
Ray Vasquez, New Jersey Institute of Technology
If you would like to be considered for this advisory committee, please contact Marilyn N. Ochoa.  Subject experts along with a cataloger are needed.

VALE OER Committee | 2019-2020
https://vale.njedge.net/initiatives-services/oer-open-educational-resources/

Greg Fallon, Co-Chair
Steve Chudnick, Co-Chair
Marilyn N. Ochoa, OER Ambassador
Alison Cole, OER Ambassador 
Ken Karol, OER Ambassador
Janet Marler, OER Ambassador
Kurt Wagner, VALE Executive Committee Chair