Sylla-brating open educational content

A new way to discover open access educational resources that are closely aligned with modules at Leeds is just one benefit of a new partnership between University of Leeds Libraries and Sylla.

With the growing number of open collections and educational resources now on offer for research and teaching, it is challenging to easily discover and evaluate which ones will be useful and could be adopted by educators. 

By improving both availability and discoverability of open content, we move closer to an institutional culture shift of truly open and personalised education.

Sylla is an innovative platform that aims to empower libraries to surface open and affordable educational resources at scale, so that they can be integrated into modules. A recent pilot between Sylla and the Libraries improved the discoverability and engagement with open educational resources (OERs). It provided benefits of cost and time savings, to both students and the Libraries, whilst ensuring access to high quality learning resources to enhance the student education experience. 

…we will obtain the data and insight to be able to develop flexible models and greater workflow integrations to support our faculty who are eager to contribute and include OERs in their teaching.

Advancing open scholarship and knowledge equity are key ambitions in the Libraries’ strategy. Increasing open and affordable content in the curriculum contributes to this goal, along with other initiatives, such as Open Books and the Knowledge Equity Network (KEN). 

Elly Cope, Head of Access & Acquisitions in the Libraries, said “Following our pilot we are excited by the possibility of matching module objectives to relevant high quality open ebooks and reducing the barriers to adopting open scholarly materials. 

Together with Sylla, we will obtain the data and insight to be able to develop flexible models and greater workflow integrations to support our faculty who are eager to contribute and include OERs in their teaching. Knowledge equity and open scholarship are fundamental elements that underpin our Library's vision "Knowledge for All" and our partnership with Sylla will contribute to delivering this vision.” 

While Sylla’s discovery engine already delivers granular recommendations for existing open access and open educational resources, certain domains would benefit from richer resources to support widescale adoption. Leeds and Sylla will co-develop evidence-based methods that help libraries to: 

• assess open access and OERs for classroom relevance and demand, before committing time or acquisitions budget
• invest confidently in perpetual-access models that align with faculty priorities
• surface resources through intuitive discovery tools that integrate with existing systems.

The Libraries and Sylla will also engage with the wider sector, publishers and initiatives, such as the Knowledge Equity Network (KEN), to grow the use of such open and affordable content in the classroom. 

“We’re thrilled to work with Leeds and partners to start closing the open content gap” said Max Mosterd, Co-founder & Director Content at Sylla. “By improving both availability and discoverability of open content, we move closer to an institutional culture shift of truly open and personalised education.” 

If you are interested in joining this effort to find and use open resources, please email Elly Cope at E.C.Cope@leeds.ac.uk.