Skip Navigation
Falvey Library
Advanced
You are exploring: Home > Blogs

Authoring an Open Access (OA) Interdisciplinary Textbook

  • Posted by: Linda Hauck
  • Posted Date: November 8, 2021
  • Filed Under: Library News

Book CoverTo celebrate Open Access Week, the Affordable Materials Project and Falvey Memorial library co-hosted a public lecture given on Oct. 27 by Michael Pagano, PhD, the Robert J. and Mary Ellen Darretta Endowed Chair in Finance, Villanova School of Business. Dr. Pagano reflected on co-authoring the open access textbook Liquidity, Markets and Trading in Action: An Interdisciplinary Perspectives: “I really would like to see more faculty consider Open Access books for their courses.”

The impetus for the project was the recognition that practical experience with trading and market liquidity were often missing from traditional finance, economics, and information technology courses. Dr. Pagano and his co-authors had individually developed materials covering these topics and had tested them in class over several semesters.  They recognized that making, not only the textbook, but also the simulation software TraderEx and ancillary materials in the form of presentation slides and review and self assessment questions were key to winning faculty adoption.  Affordability considerations are important for both students and faculty, so publishing the materials open access and free to students was the best choice.

According to Dr. Pagano, faculty that rely more on their own notes than published materials, teach a niche or subtopic area not well covered elsewhere, have the time to devote to authorship, and are concerned with the total cost of materials for their students ought to consider open access authoring.

The publication cost for this textbook was generously underwritten by the Robert A. Schwartz Center for Trading and Financial Markets Research. At Villanova, faculty may leverage VITAL Minigrants, the SOAR Fund, and the VSB Teaching Innovation and Development Grant for open access projects.

A recording of the presentation is available to view.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is the Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library


Like
1 People Like This Post

Factiva and Global Newsstream Trials

By Linda Hauck

 

The Library is hosting a trial to Factiva, an international news database, by Dow Jones. A wide range of news reporting formats, including newspapers, magazines, wires, podcasts, TV news transcripts, and blogs in multiple languages, are offered. Factiva is a one-stop shop for influential national news sources, such as the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times. All editions of key international publications, such as Der Spiegel, Le Monde and China Daily, are also available.  Many local papers, trade, and professional publications are included. Most of the content is archival, current and full text. A detailed title list is available. In addition, Factiva includes company and industry snapshots.

Factiva News Search Interface

Customization options abound in the form of Alerts and Newsletters. The News Pages tab conveniently groups top publications by industry and region to facilitate browsing and searching. The Search Builder tab employs boolean operators and filtering for efficiency and ease.

As the name suggests, Global Newsstream also provides coverage of local, national and foreign news publications. The search interface will be familiar to anyone who has used a Proquest database.

We simultaneously have trials to three competing news databases: Factiva, Proquest’s Global Newsstream and Newsbank’s Access World News. Put Factiva and Global Newsstream to test here. Please take a moment to share your feedback on these resources with the library. The trials run through Sept. 30, 2021.

 


Linda Hauck, MLS,  MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

 

 


 


Like
1 People Like This Post

OER Adoption Award Recipients

Jeanne Liedtka, JD, and Valentina DeNardis, PhD, are the Fall 2021 OER Adoption Grant recipients.  This pilot grant, generously funded by the Associate Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning, is designed to encourage faculty to select free, openly licensed textbooks as primary teaching materials.  Open educational resources (OER) improve affordability and support flexible, open teaching practices, and accessibility, which have been exposed at critically important for all students during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Applications for the Spring 2022 OER Adoption Grant are open until October 30, 2021.

Liedtka will teach BL 2185, The Law of Contracts and Sales with Introduction to Contracts, Sales and Product Liability by Mayer, Warner, Siedel & Lieberman supplemented by her lecture notes.  No stranger to teaching with OER, Liedtka had previously transitioned BL 2149, Intellectual Property Law for Business, to using a free, open access textbook.

DeNardis will teach Latin 3001, Reading in Authors using Dickenson College Commentaries, OVID,  Amores Book I, Poetry in Translation as well as scholarly articles. DeNardis, a leader in adopting digital materials, will use this as a model for  Greek and Latin literature classes.

Together these two classes will save students over $10,000 in the first year.

Valentina DeNardis, PhD

Jeanne Liedtka, JD


Like
1 People Like This Post

Audit Analytics Accounting & Oversight

The Library in partnership with the Villanova School of Business has added the Accounting & Oversight module to our basic Audit Analytics subscription. Audit Analytics structured data facilitate scholarly research on governance, shareholder activism, Sarbanes-Oxley controls, accounting and auditing firms, IPOs, corporate social responsibility, and cybersecurity and more.

All US public companies are included with historical data to 2000. The Accounting and Oversight module is of particular interest because of it’s Accounting Quality Risk Metric, which allows screening by the type, time, and severity of specific risk factors, such as litigation, insider changes, or financial and auditing reporting events.  It also provides cybersecurity disclosure notifications for ransomware, phishing, unauthorized access, and malware with links to original filings or reports.

Access Audit Analytics directly or via WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services), individual password required.


Linda Hauck, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.


Like

Euromonitor (Passport) Trial

We currently have a trial to three new modules of Euromonitor (Passport): Cities, Industrial and Mobility. At its core, Euromonitor provides data and analysis by and for consumer goods and services markets, internationally. Our basic subscription includes country-level profiles on business dynamics, economics, trade, and sustainability, consumer profiles and market research analysis and data for consumer goods and services.

The Cities module provides historical data, forecasts, comparisons, and analysis about the local economy and consumers.  The Industrial module offers historical data and forecasts, but not analysis about economy-wide industrial production, profitability, trade, and attractiveness. Use the Economies tab to access Cities and Industrial.

The Mobility reports present data and analysis on car ownership, sales, alternative fuel vehicles, public transportation, ridesharing, and autonomous vehicles. Use the Industries tab to access Mobility reports.

The trial runs through September 2021.  Please let me know if continued access to any of these modules is compelling.

 


Linda Hauck, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.


Like

PA GOAL Grants for Open Educational Resources (OER)

The second cycle of applications for PA GOAL grants encouraging open and affordable course materials in Pennsylvania opened on June 2.  These grants are funded by the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund.  They present a promising opportunity for Villanova faculty and departments to win resources needed to convert high enrollment courses to open educational resources (OER).

Grants will be awarded for designing or redesigning courses using OER, and for authoring OER, or substantially improving OER by creating problem sets, interactive modules, or assessments.

Projects applicable to courses offered in 2021–22 that fill gaps in existing OER or that benefit multiple courses, degrees, or institutions will be prioritized.

Lead eligible applicants must be continuously employed at a nonprofit institution of higher in Pennsylvania. The second cycle of applications will close on July 5, 2021. A total of $400,000 is available to be awarded.  Award amounts will be guided by budgeted costs, but there are caps on team member payments. Project deliverables must be completed by June 2022.  Now’s the time to ramp your project planning into high gear.


Like

Celebrating Faculty Adopting Open Educational Resources (OER)

The Affordable Materials Project celebrated the work of five faculty members who adopted open educational resources (OER) in the 2020–21 academic year.  OER are free, accessible, and openly licensed textbooks.

Alexander Diaz Lopez, PhD, Assistant Professor, Mathematics & Statistics; Stephanie Katz Linkmeyer, PhD, Assistant Teaching Professor, Chemistry; Sarvesh Kulkarni, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering; Sue McFarland Metzger, Professor of the Practice, Information Systems; and Motjaba Vaezi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, were motivated to adopt OER for a variety of reasons not limited to the significant cost savings for students. Faculty noted that the award inspired them to try OER.

Dr. Katz Linkmeyer appreciated the seamless integration of OER with Lab Archives, and Professor McFarland Metzger’s integrated with Blackboard. They liked that digital OER incorporated interactive features, but were also available as PDFs for offline use or in print. Professor McFarland Metzger noticed that by giving students the OER they all were on the same page with course content. One faculty member attributed improved Course and Teacher Surveys scores, in part, to the adoption of OER.

""

Several faculty remarked they supplemented OER with extra notes, problems, exercises, and figures to better align with their course objectives and that this was time intensive but worthwhile. Additional support for these projects would be welcome.

Students remarked that they liked having continued access to the book in contrast to e-book rentals. They admitted that the use of OER relieved students from weighing the risks involved in waiting to see if the assigned textbook is really used as a key resource for learning and assessments. They felt that the use of OER relieved financial pressures and hoped to see more widespread adoption of OER across the curriculum.

The 2021–22 OER Faculty Adoption Grant is accepting applications.  Visit this site to apply.

A recording of the full faculty forum, including student’s remarks is available to the Villanova community and a version with only the faculty presentations, is available for open viewing.


Linda Hauck is the Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library and Affordable Materials Project member.

 

 


 


Like

New Resource: Global Consumer Survey

By Linda Hauck

The Global Consumer Survey is a much needed addition to our Statista subscription.  This is a powerful tool for students working on projects involving consumer sentiment and behavior in foreign markets. Statista has conducted representative surveys in 55 countries since 2018, so trend analysis is possible. The survey covers the following list of topics: demographics, food, retail, e-commerce, social media, mobility, finance, media, household equipment, travel, health, insurance, and services. Custom target groups can be built or predefined target groups selected. Cross tabulations are supported. Market potential comparisons across economies can be made.

Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash

In addition to these twice yearly surveys, the module provides access to results of special surveys taken at a point in time conducted in specific markets. Recent examples include cancel culture in the U.K., sustainable consumption in China, and toys and games in France.

This international survey focusing on consumer sentiments and behavior related to goods and services fills a gap in our collection. We currently have access to Simmons Insight survey data from 2018 to present, but this exclusively includes U.S. adults. Likewise, Mintel Insights & Analytics databook presents results for points in time across various consumer demographic and product categories, but only covers the U.S. Other international surveys, such as the Gallup Analytics World Poll, World Values Survey or Pew Global Attitudes & Trends, capture perspectives more relevant for public policy and civic society then for commerce and marketing. Other information providers that do offer survey insights for non-U.S. consumers rather than citizens, such as eMarketer or Ipsos, only provide topline results rather than the underlying data that can be cross tabulated.

 

 


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

 

 


 


Like

Focus on Falvey Resources: Guidestar Pro

Guidestar Pro is a very useful database for students hoping to work in the voluntary sector, taking a course incorporating a nonprofit/public policy consulting project, or studying nonprofit organizations. It offers a search engine for US third sector organizations built on the Internal Revenue Service’s financial form 990, the Exempt Organization Master File with cumulative information and Publication 78 of organizations eligible for tax exempt donations. These official sources are enhanced with verified self-reported data and Guidestar’s “Seal of Transparency.” Giving hands with coins

You can use Guidstar to find nonprofits leaders by name, role, compensation level, location, and organization cause.  People searches can be used to effectively boast your networking activities.

The organizations search is most useful for learning about potential employers, understanding the nonprofit environment of a given locale, or researching nonprofits. Searches by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) or cause category, by location (state, MSA, city, county, zip code), by IRS subsection type, number of employees, and financial benchmarks, such as revenue, expenses, and assets are all supported. The keyword search can be used to find organizations with very specific interests that may not neatly fit into a cause category.

The level of detail and currency of information provided for each nonprofit varies, but they generally cover mission, personnel, programs, outcomes, financials, compensation, and operations. When available trends are presented. Links to annual reports and the 990 are provided. The data is easily downloadable to Excel.

In addition to this powerful organization database, Guidestar Pro’s Blog is a collection of best practice articles on everything related to running and growing a successful nonprofit. Want tips on volunteer recognition? Wondering what key performance indicators a nonprofits should be measuring?  Looking for advice on recruiting diverse boards? All of these topics and many more are covered.

Of course, you can simply use Guidestar Pro to verify your favorite charities!


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is the Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

 

 


 


Like

Presentations & Panels

  • Posted by: Linda Hauck
  • Posted Date: October 9, 2020
  • Filed Under: Library News

During the Fall semester, Affordable Materials Project members participated on panels and presentations highlighting Villanova’s innovative and collaborative approaches to improving course material accessibility to state, regional and national professional library associations:


Like
1 People Like This Post

« Previous PageNext Page »

 


Last Modified: October 9, 2020

Ask Us: Live Chat
Back to Top