Virginia Open Education Foundation
Encyclopedia
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
dedicated to bringing curriculum and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al content resources to the K-12
K-12
K–12 is a designation for the sum of primary and secondary education. It is used in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where P–12 is also commonly used...
students of the Commonwealth of Virginia through open education
Open education
Not to be confused with Open educational resourcesOpen education is a collective term that refers to educational organizations that seek to eliminate barriers to entry. Such institutions, for example, would not have academic admission requirements. Such universities include Open University in...
. It was started and is currently directed by Middlesex County
Middlesex County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 9,932 people, 4,253 households, and 2,913 families residing in the county. The population density was 76 people per square mile . There were 6,362 housing units at an average density of 49 per square mile...
Public Schools Technology Director Mark Burnet.
Stated mission
- The mission of this non-profit organization is to bring curriculum and educational content resources to the students of Virginia. The manner in which this is accomplished will be to assess, fund and deploy materials and content held in creative commons.
- Delivery and collaborative tools and methods would be provided to educational institutions within the Commonwealth. It is not intended that this would supplant or encroach on the mission of other educational organizations, but to foster an interoperable framework for resource users of a license-free learning environment.
- It is the philosophy of this organization to support a service business model using open sourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
content, softwareComputer softwareComputer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
and systems. This philosophy extends to support global adoption of the best practices of this model as it supports facets of education. - Methods and systems proposed by this organization must be reviewed and adopted in a framework of the scientific method.
Virginia Open Textbook Project
VOEF aims to establish a Creative CommonsCreative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
of educational resources produced by private and public funding and aligned to the Virginia Standards of Learning
Standards of Learning
Standards of Learning ' is a public school standardized testing program in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It sets forth learning and achievement expectations for core subjects for grades K-12 in Virginia's Public Schools...
. These resources would then be used by individual school systems through print on demand
Print on demand
Print on demand , sometimes called, in error, publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
technology for paper textbook
Textbook
A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...
s and would be accessible online
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
through content management system
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
s.
Burnet advocates that switching to open source content would greatly reduce textbook prices for Virginia and would allow up-to-date content to be generated and distributed quickly. Because the content would be in the creative commons, private school
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
s would have full rights to use the content, and would be able to modify it for their purposes before use. Also, because content would be generated within the state, it could be based on Virginia's own learning standards instead of those from states like Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, which are currently used to produce many of Virginia's textbooks. It is the view of the organization that educational resources and implementation would be greatly improved, giving children better access to content, including, eventually, online access. While the initiative is primarily focused on Virginia, all content would be free for use by anyone around the world.
Legislative efforts
In January 2007 VOEF worked with State Delegate Christopher PeaceChris Peace
Christopher Kilian Peace is an American politician of the Republican Party. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Virginia House of Delegates...
to propose to the House
Virginia House of Delegates
The Virginia House of Delegates is the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbered years. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House, who is elected from among the...
of the General Assembly
Virginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members,...
Joint Resolution 702, which would form a joint subcommittee to consider open education implementation in the Commonwealth. This bill was eventually scrapped in favor of an Open Education Resources advisory committee within the Joint Commission on Technology and Science. This committee first met in Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
on June 20, 2007. Members were interested in lowering costs, providing materials to a broader group of learners, and speeding the process of content distribution via electronic delivery and print on demand.
For the 2008 session, a full subcommittee was formed. An early priority was to unlock some of the production and procurement processes for school textbooks in both K-12 and higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
. To this end, VOEF submitted a proposal to Peace that culminated in work by the Virginia Department of Education to create Virginia House Bill 137, which redefined textbooks to include all electronic versions so as to remove restrictions to paper-bound volumes. The bill passed unanimously in every vote, and was signed by Governor
Governor of Virginia
The governor of Virginia serves as the chief executive of the Commonwealth of Virginia for a four-year term. The position is currently held by Republican Bob McDonnell, who was inaugurated on January 16, 2010, as the 71st governor of Virginia....
Tim Kaine
Tim Kaine
Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine is a Virginia politician. Kaine served as the 70th Governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011...
on March 7, 2008.
In conjunction with VOEF, Chris Peace introduced two more bills in January 2009. The first, HB1940, would authorize the establishment of open education resource centers. Such centers would be able to be either privately or publicly funded, but the legislation would expire if no funding is provided within two years. The second, HB1941, is a proposal that would encourage educational materials produced by the state to be released under a Creative Commons license.