Civitas Adds OER Search to Course Schedule Planner

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 11/07/18
closeup of hands typing on laptop, search box

A new open educational resources (OER) search tool has been directly integrated into Civitas Learning's academic planning platform, letting students know if OER materials are available as they build their course schedules.

Civitas' College Scheduler enables students to pull their courses from a current degree plan and block non-class times to generate all possible schedules. Then they can customize and visually review the results to set up the optimal schedule and minimize the number of "filler" classes they need to take. The new OER search technology was recently added to the Scheduler.

Both the California State University system and Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan have piloted the search tech. College Scheduler was created by a CSU-Chico alumnus and runs in nearly every CSU campus. CSU also runs MERLOT, a major project to make OER materials available to its faculty.

"As faculty incorporate the use of OER in their classes, students need easy-to-use technology to help them quickly identify course schedules and degree plans that are most affordable," said Lisa Petrides, founder and head of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education and a member of the Civitas Learning National Advisory Board, in a statement. "Civitas Learning's College Scheduler is consistent with ISKME's efforts to make OER more discoverable. The tool will now empower students to make their own decisions about OER as a cost-saving mechanism."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • student reading a book with a brain, a protective hand, a computer monitor showing education icons, gears, and leaves

    4 Steps to Responsible AI Implementation

    Researchers at the University of Kansas Center for Innovation, Design & Digital Learning (CIDDL) have published a new framework for the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence at all levels of education.

  • glowing digital brain interacts with an open book, with stacks of books beside it

    Federal Court Rules AI Training with Copyrighted Books Fair Use

    A federal judge ruled this week that artificial intelligence company Anthropic did not violate copyright law when it used copyrighted books to train its Claude chatbot without author consent, but ordered the company to face trial on allegations it used pirated versions of the books.

  • server racks, a human head with a microchip, data pipes, cloud storage, and analytical symbols

    OpenAI, Oracle Expand AI Infrastructure Partnership

    OpenAI and Oracle have announced they will develop an additional 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity, expanding their artificial intelligence infrastructure partnership as part of the Stargate Project, a joint venture among OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan's SoftBank Group that aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of computing capacity over four years.

  • laptop displaying a phishing email icon inside a browser window on the screen

    Phishing Campaign Targets ED Grant Portal

    Threat researchers at cybersecurity company BforeAI have identified a phishing campaign spoofing the U.S. Department of Education's G5 grant management portal.