Weigel Health Promotions will host information sessions on the Buffalo State Tobacco-Free policy on the following dates. Come and learn about the history and purpose of the policy. Opportunities to become a tobacco-free ambassador are also available. Ambassadors acquire the knowledge and skills needed to respectfully approach and speak with others about the campus's tobacco-free policy. All sessions are open to faculty, staff, and students and will be held in Ketchum Hall 200. 

Wednesday, March 11, 3:00–4:00 p.m.
Friday, March 13, Noon–1:00 p.m.
Friday, April 3, Noon–1:00 p.m.
Wednesday, April 22, 2:00–3:00 p.m.

For more information, please contact Paula Madrigal, wellness and prevention coordinator, ext. 4719.

Early morning system maintenance scheduled for Wednesday, March 11, will make both the Blackboard Learn and Banner systems inaccessible between midnight and 7:00 a.m., while work is being completed by our service provider.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Buffalo State Dining is conducting its spring semester customer satisfaction surveys and would love to hear from you. Take the short survey and earn a coupon for a free fountain beverage in the Campbell Student Union Food Court. 

Please note: you may provide your feedback on any dining location based on your experiences during the spring 2015 semester.

For more information on Buffalo State Dining, please visit our website.

Buffalo State faculty and staff donors received “I Give” pins at the end of February in celebration of national Student Philanthropy and Engagement Month. Buffalo State’s Student Philanthropy Council (SPC) will kick off its 2015 Student Giving Campaign March 9–20. Please lead by example and help establish a culture of giving for our students to follow by wearing your pin during this time. Thank you for your participation and leadership.

If you did not receive your pin, please e-mail the SPC. For more information about the SPC, please visit the Giving website. Thank you.

SPC Development Ambassadors

March 9–13, 2015, is Open Education Week, a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its purpose is to raise awareness about open education and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. To promote awareness of open education resources, Instructional Resources, Butler Library, and the Faculty Development Center will host webinars each day next week in Bulger Communication Center 120.

Please join us to view the webinars and for a discussion afterward. Light refreshments will be provided.

Unable to join us? Use the links to view the webinars on your own.

Monday, March 9, 3:00 p.m.

• Sustainability Strategies for Open Educational Resources

Tuesday, March 10, 2:00 p.m.

• The Battle for Open

Wednesday, March 11, 2:00 p.m.

• Can I Actually Use It? Testing Open Textbooks for Accessibility

Thursday, March 12, 2:00 p.m.

• Education Innovations with Creative Commons: From OER to Pedagogy to Policy

Friday, March 13, 2:00 p.m.

• The Open Web: (a) Lost (b) Reclaimed (c) Co-claimed (d) All of the Above

Employees in the CSEA and PEF bargaining units are reminded that any vacation accrual balances that exceed 40 days on April 1, 2015, must be adjusted downward to stay within the maximum allowed by the NYS attendance rules and the agreements between the public employee unions and the State of New York.

If your vacation balance exceeds 300 hours (for employees who work a 7½-hour day) or 320 hours (for employees who work an 8-hour day), you may wish to request to use vacation time prior to April 1 to avoid losing leave accruals.

Join Buffalo State and SUNY for the webinar The Open Web: (a) Lost (b) Reclaimed (c) Co-claimed (d) All of the Above today, March 13, at 2:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center 120.

Interested in using OER in your course? The first step in adopting an OER could begin with finding a free open textbook to replace a traditionally published textbook for use in your course sections. Faculty members can begin their search on the Open SUNY ALS Free Textbooks page or Butler Library's OER page to see if any existing OERs would be a good fit for their course.

If faculty members find that the materials needed for their course are not already available, and they are interested in creating and sharing a course or its contents as OERs, they can work with their campus librarian to assign the best Creative Commons license for their work and catalog it in an open repository.

With a Creative Commons license, faculty members can share content and still maintain ownership and receive attribution for the materials. They can also select instances in which the materials they have created can be used for a fee.

Interested in learning more about OER? Please join us today to view the webinar and stay for a discussion afterward. Light refreshments will be provided. Unable to join us? Use the link to view the webinar on your own. This webinar is part of Open Education Week (March 9–13) to raise awareness about the benefits of open educational resources (OERs).

Join Buffalo State and SUNY for the webinar Education Innovations with Creative Commons: From OER to Pedagogy to Policy today, March 12, at 2:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center 120. This webinar is part of Open Education Week (March 9–13) to raise awareness about the benefits of open educational resources (OERs).

Did you know that all original work is protected under copyright when it is created? Even the notes students take during class are protected. By default, all rights, including the rights to copy, distribute, edit, remix, and revise, are protected by copyright. Creative Commons (CC) licenses provide a way for creators to decide which rights they want to keep and which rights they want to give away.

Interested in learning more about Creative Commons? Please join us today to view the webinar and stay for a discussion afterward. Light refreshments will be provided. Unable to join us? Use the link to view the webinar on your own.

Are you unsure about whether or not you can use online material for teaching? Use this copyright flowchart to make an informed decision. Please visit the Creative Commons website to learn more about Creative Commons Licenses.

Join Buffalo State and SUNY for the webinar Can I Actually Use It? Testing Open Textbooks for Accessibility today, March 11, at 2:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center 120. This webinar is part of Open Education Week (March 9–13) to raise awareness about the benefits of open educational resources (OERs).

According to a student survey conducted by Florida Virtual Campus in 2012:

• 23 percent of students regularly go without textbooks because of cost.
• 35 percent of students take fewer classes because of textbook costs.
• More than 60 percent do not purchase textbooks at some point because of costs.

The high costs of textbooks are a barrier to student success. Interested in learning more about OER? Please join us to view the webinar and for a discussion afterward. Light refreshments will be provided. Unable to join us? Use the link to view the webinar on your own.

Open SUNY Affordable Learning Solutions (ALS) is a service to assist SUNY faculty, librarians, instructional designers, and other staff members who are interested in learning about, locating, evaluating, and using open educational resources. See a showcase of faculty who are using or creating OERs, learn about IIT grant funding for OER projects, access Open SUNY MOOCs, check in on Open SUNY Textbooks, and learn how to launch an affordable learning solutions initiative on your own campus.

Learn about OERs through the self-paced tutorial Introduction to OERs. Instructions for locating open textbooks and evaluating OERs are available for use and re-use. The quest for OERs can begin with Open SUNY ALS using a variety of search forms, including MERLOT’s federated search that searches multiple repositories simultaneously.