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Announcing the 2024 OpenHawks OER Grant Recipients
University Libraries has awarded 14 OpenHawks grants for the development of open educational resources (OER). OpenHawks is a campus-wide grant program that funds faculty efforts to replace or avoid high-cost textbooks with OERs for enhanced student success.
The projects, which are set to be completed in summer of 2024, will save UI students nearly $200,000 in the first year alone. These funded OER projects, which were selected through a competitive application process, will benefit students in a wide range of disciplines, including Spanish language learning, law, otolaryngology, dentistry, finance, teaching and learning, social work, library and information science, Chinese language learning, and more.
The next call for proposals will be in the spring of 2024. For more information, visit www.lib.uiowa.edu/openhawks.
You can read more about each project below.
Rachel Klevar, OER Creation Grant
Semillas II: An Elementary Spanish II OER Textbook
Klevar will develop the second in a sequence of OER Spanish language textbooks that all sections of Elementary Spanish classes at the University of Iowa will use. This project will benefit students by providing educational savings and increasing the quality of Spanish language learning.
Mark McDermott, Travis Henderson, and Ann Browning, OER Creation Grant
Developing an OER for Secondary Orientation and Classroom Management
This team will design an OER specifically for a new course. It will allow instructors to provide a clear repository of the specific, updated and relevant resources, all in one source, for the concepts they encounter in class and provide the flexibility to add and revise these resources as course development continues.
Jason Rantanen, OER Creation Grant
Introduction to Intellectual Property: An Integrated Approach
Rantanen will develop an integrated open educational resource for teaching intellectual property law. The OER will consist of a written text, video lectures, knowledge assessment quizzes, and problem sets for in-class use. The coursebook and quizzes will be made available for free via Pressbooks, while the videos will be published on a publicly accessible platform and integrated into the Pressbooks site.
Michelle Higgins and Rustin Kashani, OER Creation Grant
OpenOto: Open-source, Online Dissection Courses for Otolaryngologists
Higgins and Kashani will create a single massive open online temporal bone dissection course that helps trainees learn otology through a series of videos showing human ear anatomy and surgical approaches. The MOOC will replace learners’ cost of enrollment in expensive commercial simulation courses.
Erica Teixeira, OER Creation Grant
Concise Dental Materials- Iowa OER
Teixeira’s objective is to develop an open and concise dental materials book. Currently, most open sources of dental materials books are a compilation of different research papers that do not address foundational concepts of applied materials science. This OER will fill these gaps.
Bonnie Sunstein and Jessica Kraemer, OER Creation Grant
Teaching Nonfiction Writing Pressbooks Resource
Sunstein and Kraemer will work with the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio to create a resource that can serve as a pillar of the Teaching Nonfiction curriculum. It will make existing but scattered resources searchable so future teaching assistants, students, and outside scholars can access pertinent materials reliably as they build curriculum. This resource will be a living document for the program, to be updated annually.
John Lewis and Yash Diwate, Course Redesign Grant
Introduction to Quantitative Finance Using Python
Lewis and Diwate plan to provide a comprehensive guide in practical quantitative techniques which will not require supplemental texts. The material will be an expansion of material used by John Lewis in his FIN 4340, 9160, 9200 and 9350 classes. The book will include the quantitative material for each course.
Julia Kleinschmit, Course Redesign Grant
Social Work Leadership Practice: Policy Analysis and Advocacy for Programs, Organizations, and Communities
Kleinschmit will create an OER to emphasize leadership skill development, requiring students to dig into current issues and develop policy analysis and advocacy projects and products that will leave them with abilities they can take beyond the course and into communities they serve. This OER will support a new required course, in which social work graduate students will develop policy analysis skills to understand how policies impact individuals, communities, and organizations.
Stephen Cummings, Course Redesign Grant
Death and Dying Course Redesign
Cummings will redesign an online class with OER materials to cover key theories, case studies, interactive learning modules. This will require reformatting modules that used to rely on lengthy text passages for surveys on principle theories, professional engagement, and various patient populations.
Jennifer Burek Pierce and Nancy Henke, Course Redesign Grant
Librarians Learning Together: Developing an OER Introductory Library Science Textbook
Pierce and Henke will begin developing an OER textbook for first semester library science students in a core course, generating a minimum of four chapters, so that issues in this dynamic field can be adequately addressed.
Huiqiang Zheng, Support Materials Grant
Interactive Activities for Chinese Learning
Zheng will create OER micro videos recordings of every single sound and common combinations in Chinese pronunciation, which will lower the anxiety of learners and also provide models in learning pronunciation. She will also create user-friendly interactive pre-lesson and post-lesson activities and games. These activities will replace a commercial workbook.
Jared Stiles, Support Materials Grant
A Virtual Experience in Radiation Therapy
This grant continues a 2023 OER Creation Grant by Stiles and Emily Heithoff. This project will add virtual reality videos simulating the localization and treatment procedures described in the OER content. The videos influence on students understanding of the content will be tremendous.
Sruti Prathivadhi-Bhayankaram, Boulos Nassar, and Shareef Mansour, Support Materials Grant
POCUS Anki: A Consolidated Resource for Point-of-Care-Ultrasound
Grantees will consolidate information and design flashcards on the topics of cardiac ultrasound, lung ultrasound, and abdominal ultrasound, as well as methods to measure hemodynamics and the volume status of patients. These flashcards will review the anatomy, technique, and pathologies for medical students. The project will be published under a Creative Commons license on Eyerounds.org.
Erica Kaldenberg and William Lloyd, Jr., OER Adoption Grant
Secrets to College Success
Kaldenberg and Lloyd will be using College Success, the OpenStax OER by Amy Baldwin in their first-year seminar. According to their proposal, the text aligns perfectly with the grantees’ course objectives.
John Martin Rare Book Room expanding, receiving new reading room
Changes are coming to the John Martin Rare Book Room (JMRBR) in the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences that will provide researchers more access to books and space for hosting classes and events.
A new, separate reading room will be constructed in the area just outside of the current JMRBR as part of a larger project to renovate the fourth floor of the library. The current JMRBR will be converted to a shelving space, helping to maintain the security and preservation of all JMRBR materials.
Access to the JMRBR collection will be limited during the remodel, but Curator Damien Irhig will be available to assist researchers and instructors with their needs. Requests to use material will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The project is expected to begin in June 2023, with completion anticipated during spring 2024.
Additional work on the fourth floor as part of the larger area remodel project is moving forward, with much needed updates being made to individual studies as well as the open study areas. To accommodate the change, print books published before 2010 have been moved to the Library Annex, where they can be easily and quickly retrieved.
The fourth floor improvements are made possible by a generous grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust. The JMRBR improvements are made possible with support from the Friends of the UI Libraries.
Hardin Library is also undergoing a refresh in other areas and remodeled restrooms are now available on the third and fourth floors of the building near the elevators. In addition, work has started on the 24-hour study restrooms and progress is being made on the first and second floor restrooms.
All changes to the library are expected to be completed by fall 2025.
UI Libraries Celebrate Mahrya Burnett, Benton Award Recipient
Mahrya Burnett has been named the 2022 recipient of the Arthur Benton University Librarian’s Award for Excellence for her impactful contributions to the future of Open Educational Resources (OERs). As a scholarly communications librarian at the University of Iowa Libraries, Burnett champions advancing OER efforts that allow students to use textbooks and other resources without paying hundreds of dollars per semester.
Burnett, a member of the Scholarly Impact Department, accepted the award during celebration in her honor where Jack B. King University Librarian John Culshaw expressed gratitude for Burnett’s contributions.
“Through her dedication and ingenuity, Mahrya has changed the landscape of higher education for the better,” said Culshaw. “By championing OERs, she has also proven herself to be a persistent advocate for equity and accessibility.”
In her role, Burnett has made a far-reaching impact on the field of OERs at the UI and beyond. She continues to advocate at the state level for increased access to OERs since they can impact equity, removing unnecessary hurdles for students for whom textbook costs can be prohibitive.
To encourage and support the increased use of OERs, Burnett spearheaded the creation of OpenHawks, a grant project that helps UI faculty access and update OER resources for their courses. In the last four years, OpenHawks has funded more than 50 OER projects across a broad range of disciplines and saved students more than $1 million to date.
Ted Neal, professor of science education in the College of Education, shared he first met Burnett about five years ago, when she approached him about designing an OER for his elementary science methods course.
“She helped me with design, content, resources, legality, formatting, and everything else needed for this resource,” said Neal. “This online text has grown into an invaluable piece for my course, having morphed into many new classes and sections.”
The Regents OER Grant Program is also a direct result of Burnett’s advocacy, and has brought together instructors from the UI with their peers at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Her nominator, Giovanni Zimotti, director of Spanish language instruction, attested that Burnett’s contributions to OERs made it possible for him to collaborate more effectively with other academics.
By pooling resources, Zimotti and his colleagues have been able to evaluate and disseminate the best and most up-to-date materials for students statewide, resulting in an OER textbook that is projected to save the UI student body an estimated $100,000 per academic year. In his nomination letter, Zimotti called Burnett “an incredible resource and inspiration for me and for all my colleagues.”
Each of Burnett’s letters of support emphasized her genuine enthusiasm for her work and the collegiality she brings to her professional partnerships. They also highlighted her proactive support of faculty, beginning with outreach and continuing with comprehensive guidance as they navigate new terrain.
Rachel Klevar of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese called Burnett’s assistance “indispensable” to her work, and noted that Burnett’s promotion of OERs “has made a tremendous impact on the future of learning.”
The Arthur Benton University Librarian’s Award for Excellence is awarded each year to a member of the UI Libraries’ professional staff who has demonstrated outstanding commitment and leadership in furthering its mission to serve the university community. In addition to formal recognition, the award includes a grant of $2,000 award for professional development that will support Burnett’s research projects or publications related to library services.
The late Dr. Arthur Benton, professor of psychology and neurology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, established the endowment to make this annual award possible.
Regents OER grant celebration
The Iowa Regents university libraries are proud to announce the upcoming publication of 5 new free, openly-licensed textbooks developed by faculty teams from across our institutions. These textbooks, including topics as diverse as public speaking, Spanish, musicianship, early literacy, and science education, were funded by the Regents Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant Program, a one-time grant supported by the CARES Act Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund.
We would like to invite you to attend the launch party for these textbooks, scheduled for April 20, 2023 at 4:00pm CST.
Register to attend the launch event via Zoom: https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIldeurqDwiGtwbuLVvF167mv9odjezQhjU
Linda Walton Receives the Marcia C. Noyes Award from the Medical Library Association
Linda Walton has been recognized with the 2023 Marcia C. Noyes Award, the highest distinction given by the Medical Library Association (MLA). This competitive national award is presented to a nominee with a longstanding and sustained record of excellence in medical librarianship.
Walton’s nomination was supported by colleagues from throughout her distinguished 38-year career as a medical librarian. She has served 16 years at the University of Iowa Libraries and her primary nominator was Janna Lawrence, director of the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences. “A person of utmost practicality, most of Linda’s accomplishments have directly served the needs of health sciences librarians and those we serve,” wrote Lawrence in her nomination letter.
“It is a well-deserved distinction, and the UI Libraries are immensely proud and grateful for Linda’s continuing contributions—not only to us, but to the field of medical librarianship as a whole,” says John Culshaw, Jack B. King university librarian.
Walton’s nominators all emphasize her adaptability, humor, and commitment to problem-solving in an evolving space. These qualities have made her an indispensable contributor to the wider field of medical librarianship, according to Lawrence. By pairing her natural enthusiasm with pragmatism, Walton has garnered millions in grants and contract awards for the institutions she serves.
The criteria for the Marcia C. Noyes Award include utility in the profession, durability of influence on the field, comprehensiveness of achievements, and ethical propriety. Walton’s nominators all attested to her excellence in each category. In his letter of support, University of Arizona Associate Dean Gerald Perry wrote: “Linda has left an indelible mark on health sciences librarianship, and she has done so with a kind and generous heart, and an insightful sense of humor that is always compassionate.”
After earning her Master of Library Science from Indiana University in 1980, Walton began her career as a reference librarian at the Indiana State Library. She took her first step into medical librarianship in 1982, when she became director of the Butler Hospital Library in Providence, RI. Having found her vocation, Walton continued to deepen her commitment to medical librarianship. Over the decades to come, she worked extensively as an associate director and consultant with the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) across three regions, and took her first roles in higher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University.
Walton joined the University of Iowa in 2006 as associate university librarian and director at the Hardin for the Health Sciences. In this role, she worked to advance the interests of Hardin and the UI Libraries by securing approximately $12 million in funding from the NNLM from 2016 to 2021; this funding was later renewed in full through 2026, totaling $24 million. She has repeatedly proven herself to be a nimble problem-solver in the face of unexpected setbacks, including helping the UI Libraries respond to the 2008 flood and serving on the Critical Incident Management Team that guided the Libraries’ response to COVID-19.
In 2018, Walton moved into a new role as associate university librarian for the UI Libraries system as a whole. In this position, she administered the Libraries’ annual collections budget of $16 million and supervised the work of nine directors. Her role in steering Libraries’ operations, particularly during the height of the pandemic, created a more efficient and communicative working environment. In January 2023, Walton transitioned to serving as the associate director of the NNLM for Region 6.
Throughout her long career in medical librarianship, Walton has consistently been entrusted with leadership roles in the NNLM and the MLA, where she has served as a member of the board of directors and as MLA president from 2014 to 2015. Walton’s leadership during a time of organizational and technological transition “set the stage for the entire evolution of the Medical Library Association to where it exists today, as a more inclusive and engaged association,” wrote nominator M.J. Tooey, associate vice provost at the University of Maryland’s Health Sciences and Human Services Library.
From early on, Walton has been an advocate for the implementation of new technologies, including internet resources and e-publications. At the University of Iowa, she has served on technology-focused advisory boards, including the Academic Technologies Advisory Council and the Teaching and Learning Information Technology Executive Team at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.
Walton has presented at multiple nationwide conferences, secured dozens of grants, and authored or co-authored more than 20 publications. Her work in collections management has directly increased the accessibility of crucial medical information at the Hardin Library and beyond. In 2006, the MLA recognized her with the Estelle Brodman Award for Academic Librarian of the Year, a mid-career award for excellence in librarianship. In 2021, Walton was made a Fellow of the MLA, a rare designation offered for “outstanding contributions to health sciences librarianship and to the advancement of the purposes of MLA.” Now, she has received the highest honor the MLA can bestow: the Marcia C. Noyes Award.
Walton will officially receive her award during an MLA online awards ceremony on April 20.
Earth Day Collections Highlighted at Main Library
Please stop by the 4th Floor Focus Collection Area (middle of the central corridor – near elevators C&D) of the Main Library to see a curated collection of titles that highlight the celebration of Earth Day 2023. Founded in 1970, Earth Day continues to remind people of our shared planet and our connections to one another. Check out this list of titles and see different ways people from around the world have encountered our world and responded to the challenges of sustaining it and creating opportunities for future generations of all species. Feel free to take a book from the display to check out at the 1st floor service desk. There are many more books on the environment, sustainability, planning, governance and related titles in the UI Libraries collection (InfoHawk+). If you find a book you like you may also want to browse the stacks to see related titles.
For a local take, visit Caroline Gaske’s 2020 article, “Old Gold: Remembering Iowa’s First Earth Day, 50 Years Later”
For more ways to connect with Earth Day at the University of Iowa, see the Office of Sustainability’s Earth Month 2023 calendar of events.
Contact Brett Cloyd for questions about this collection or for research help related to these topics.
DMPTool Helps Researchers Write Data Management and Sharing Plans
Because funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) now require data management and sharing plans as part of grant applications, researchers tasked with writing these documents may feel at a loss about where to start. Luckily, University of Iowa researchers have support in this process. Not only does Research Data Services at the UI Libraries offer workshops, consultations, and web resources to facilitate the writing of data management and sharing plans, we’re also partnering with DMPTool to offer even more assistance for researchers.
DMPTool is a free, open-source web platform designed specifically to help users write data management and sharing plans. Originally created by eight research institutions (including UCLA, UC San Diego, University of Virginia, and the Smithsonian Institution), DMPTool now has over 300 partners – including the University of Iowa.
Here’s how DMPTool can be useful:
- It offers step-by-step instructions. DMPTool walks users through the process of writing their plans with a click-through wizard. It has fill-in fields for the basics, like project title, abstract, and contributors, while also guiding users through describing their data types, standards, and preservation strategies. It even offers example wording someone can use as they craft their plan.
- It includes funder-specific templates. Since different granting bodies require different elements in their data management and sharing plans, DMPTool offers templates tailor-made to meet the needs of various funders. In addition to heavy hitters like NIH and NSF, DMPTool also has built-in templates for many other agencies – including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), United States Geological Survey (USGS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and dozens more.
- It integrates local help from the University of Iowa Libraries. Because Iowa is a DMPTool partner institution, our researchers have access to some added features – like the ability to submit your plan directly to a data librarian at the Libraries so you can receive feedback on it. When writing your plan you can also see UI-specific tips by clicking the box under “Select Guidance” in the Project Details tab. If you have questions at any point in the process, DMPTool also includes links to Research Data Services’ email and website at the top of every page. Just ensure you set up your account with your UI email address and these services will automatically be integrated into your dashboard.
If you’re ready to try out DMPTool, our website has some tips for getting started. Whether or not you use DMPTool to write your data management and sharing plans, Research Data Services is here to support you. We’re available by email, offer guidance on our website, put on workshops, and do one-on-one consultations as well.
Preserving Hawkeye sports history, one digitized film at a time
The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections and Archives and Conservation and Collections Care have an initiative to digitize about 530 films of football, men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling, and track films that date back to the 1930s and go through at least 1989.
The films’ state of degradation is dramatic, especially for the older material, and many of these films don’t have much life left in them. Due to the nature of film, degradation products induce further deterioration. It affects the plastic support, causing it to become acidic, to shrink, and to give off an acetic acid producing a vinegary odor, otherwise known as vinegar syndrome.
Projecting an original 16mm film can be risky and ultimately, we will no longer be able to view the originals, so digitization is critical. The digitization process helps create an exact and high-quality duplicate of the original, which can then be accessed online via the Iowa Digital Library.
The initiative is one way for past, present, and future Hawkeye fans to easily re-live memories such as watching the full game of the Hawkeyes prevailing over the California Golden Bears in the 1959 Rose Bowl. Currently, you can only watch highlights of the game thanks to the UI Sportsfilm production “The Evy Era of Iowa Football.”
You can donate to the UI Libraries Special Collections Fund, which will assist with the film digitization project, as part of One Day for Iowa here https://1dayforiowa.org/fa-libraries23.
You can also check out the many wonderful collections already digitized at the UI Libraries here.
CADRE platform to be retired, assistance available during transition
The library directors of the Big Ten Academic Alliance recently made the decision to sunset the CADRE platform and its associated services due to low usage and continued challenges in resourcing technical support for the platform. As a result, the CADRE platform will be retired on June 30, 2023. Continued access to the CADRE Gateway and its datasets will remain available through that date.
Users will retain full access to existing files through June 30. Please be sure to download by June 30 offline copies of any data and scripts in your Jupyter notebooks to which you’d like to maintain access.
If you have any questions about the transition and how it might affect your research, or need assistance in downloading your data and scripts, please reach out to CADRE or contact Brian Westra, data services librarian.