Barbara Illowsky

Los Altos Hills, California,
UNITED STATES

Biography

Dr. Barbara Illowsky is Chief Academic Affairs Officer for the California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative. In addition, she has been a mathematics and statistics professor at De Anza College, Cupertino, CA since 1989. She was the first Project Director of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources and currently on the Board of Directors for the international Open Educational Consortium. She is a past president of the California Mathematics Council, Community Colleges (CMC3). Barbara spent two years at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, overseeing the Basic Skills Initiative, Middle College High School grants, as well as writing OER policy. She continues to meet with California government officials regarding OER state policy.

Barbara is co-author of Collaborative Statistics and Introductory Statistics, free and open textbooks published by OpenStax College. In 2013, the OpenEducation Consortium awarded her the Educator ACE Award, for her contributions worldwide in promoting, training, authoring, and advocating for Open Educational Resources. Barbara earned her BS in Mathematics from SUNY Albany, her MA in Statistics from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in Education: Instructional Design for Online Learning from Capella University.

EDUCAUSE Publications

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Policies
- August 13, 2018
- Briefs, Case Studies, Papers, Reports
- Contributor
The development of open education policies will help move OER and OEP from the periphery to the center of education practice.
7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Practices
- July 12, 2018
- Briefs, Case Studies, Papers, Reports
- Contributor
Open educational practices also give agency to students by giving them more control over the structure, content, and outcomes of their learning and by creating opportunities for them to create learning materials.
7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Content
- June 14, 2018
- Briefs, Case Studies, Papers, Reports
- Contributor
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or that have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others.