Winners of the Open Assets Awards 2021
By Gracie McDonough, Librarian at the College of Southern Nevada, and VP of the CCCOER website
Judith Sebesta has been a very busy woman this year; not only is she the President of CCCOER and working hard on the strategic planning pillars of our organization, but she and DigiTex just won the 2021 Open Asset Award of Excellence for Open Reuse/Remix/Adaption from OEGlobal.
Judith says, “We at DigiTex are so honored to have Texas Learn OER (TLO) recognized with an Open Education Excellence Award. We share it with our collaborator on the training, Carrie Gits, Head Librarian/Associate Professor, Austin Community College. I also want to recognize the work of the peer reviewers, who helped ensure a high level of quality for TLO, and our fellow awardees — such auspicious company! We are proud to be a member of the Open Education Global community, which has provided so much support to our work as advocates for Open.”
We are very grateful to Judith and all that she continues to do for the Open Community.
We also want to congratulate another CCCOER member, Kim Ernstmeyer of Chippewa Valley Technical College, for both of her 2021 Open Assets Awards for Best OER. She won for her Open RN Nursing Skills and Open RN Nursing Fundamentals textbooks. These projects were funded by a grant from the Department of Education, and over 100 international students and faculty members registered to review this OER textbook for comprehensiveness, accuracy, relevance, currency, clarity, consistency, accessibility, usability, and diversity. These two books are only the second and third books that have been created by the Open RN Project, which promotes student success in courses and on nursing licensure exams. Nursing textbooks are some of the most expensive textbooks that are published, and Kim doing everything that she can to make sure that nurses get access to the information that they need for their education is priceless.
Thank you, Kim, for all that you do to get nursing students the most accessible, affordable, and up-to-date information possible.
Visit the Open Education Awards website to learn more and see All of the 2021 Open Education Awards for Excellence winners.
Kim Ernstmeyer and the Open RN project were also awarded an OE Award for Excellence in 2020 for Nursing Pharmacology, in the Open Textbook category. Hear more from Kim in the October 8, 2021 episode of OEG Voices, Open Education’s podcast, with OEGlobal’s Marcela Morales, Una Daly, and Paul Stacey.