Fulbright Specialist Anita Walz Visits AUCA

May 12, 2017

From April 19 to May 1, 2017, AUCA Library hosted Ms. Anita Walz, Open Education, Copyright, and Scholarly Communication Librarian at Virginia Tech.  Ms. Walz came to AUCA under the Fulbright Specialist Program, funded by the U.S. Department of State. 

Ms. Walz worked with AUCA Library and the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) to discuss goals, context and strategies for implementation of Open Education Resources (OER) at AUCA.  
OER are successfully implemented at many academic institutions worldwide. OER provide increased opportunities for universities to support excellence in student achievement, institutional sustainability, and impact on a larger community via sharing of learning resources.   

During her visit Ms.  Walz delivered presentations for several groups, including presentation on MOOCs and Open Online Resources for patrons of the American Corner Bishkek, presentation on excellence in scholarship for AUCA students, lecture on OER and Creative Commons licenses for faculty and students at Manas Kyrgyz-Turkish University.  

On April 27, Ms. Walz participated at AUCA Library sponsored “Focusing on Open Educational Practices and Open Educational Resources (OER): Teaching, Textbooks, Resources, and Copyright” panel discussion.  The event featured three speakers focusing on the open education practices, OER initiatives and copyright.  Ms. Walz discussed open pedagogy and Open Educational Resources (OER). Ms. Lira Samykbaeva from Soros-Kyrgyzstan Foundation's talked about strategy for OER and current initiatives in Kyrgyzstan, and Ms. Aisulu Chubarova, Assistant Professor of Law at AUCA,  presented an update regarding the amendment of Kyrgyzstan's Intellectual Property Rights Law.  The program, attended by faculty, administrators, students, librarians, and other interested parties, helped raise institutional awareness of OER.

AUCA is to make first steps in building the institutional culture of open education.  This initiative is supported by the President of AUCA, and aims at promoting the ethics of open education practices, institutional sustainability, and sharing of learning resources.  Open educational resources will be introduced in several introductory level courses starting from Fall 2017. 

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