Open UBC

Significant Commitments to Open Resources at UBC

In the fall of 2019, the Office of the Provost and the Vice-President Academic at UBC Vancouver committed one million dollars, $250,000 in annual funding for four years, to support the adoption, use, and sustainment of open educational resources (OER) at UBC. This grant funding initiative builds upon significant contributions and commitments that UBC faculty, students and staff have already made to using OER at UBC.

In the 2019/20 academic year (September 2019 to April 2020), an estimated 18,440 students enrolled in courses using open resources in place of paid textbooks or readings. This replacement of traditional textbooks with open resources has potentially saved UBC students an estimated $1.8 to $2.5 million this academic year. In acknowledgement of these efforts, the UBC Vancouver Alma Mater Society (AMS), the Provost and Vice-President Academic, and the UBC Library recognized over 55 UBCV faculty and staff as “OER Champions” who have made a significant contribution to the use of open educational resources at UBCV.

Read my full report here…

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Open Snippet

Questions & Answers

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by my colleagues on the CTLT Indigenous Initiatives team around the intersections of open and Indigenization, Wikipedia, and more:

How did you become interested in learning about Indigenous engagement, specifically connecting to your own role at CTLT?

I have had the opportunity to work with great colleagues on the CTLT Indigenious Initiatives team as well as with UBC faculty and scholars engaged in this area – I’ve learned a lot and have been challenged, in the best way, by being asked such critical questions as “What does open education mean when it is practiced on unceded territory?”.

There are often tensions within open – for example, a large component of open education is grounded in the use of open copyright licenses, such as those developed by Creative Commons, that can give legal permission for the reuse and modification of materials and resources that have those licenses. Such open licenses are not apart from copyright but work within it; however, copyright law is often based on settler colonial legal frameworks which can be in conflict with traditional knowledge and ways of knowing as well as with community and cultural protocols.

Read the full interview…

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Open Policies

New UBC OER Fund Launched

I’m very excited to see the launch of UBC’s new OER Fund. The Office of the Provost has committed $250,000 in annual funding for the next four years to support:

  • The adoption, adaptation or creation of open educational resources which address affordability and access to learning resources within UBCV credit-based courses.
  • Course enhancements using open educational resources, including assessment materials.
  • Activities and events that seek to engage the UBCV community in increasing awareness and capacity for supporting open educational resources.

The UBC Vancouver OER Fund was established through the UBC Academic Excellence Fund to support affordable and inclusive access to learning materials through the adaption, adoption, development, and integration of open educational resources in UBC credit courses.

The OER Fund consists of two grant pathways:

  1. OER Rapid Innovation Grants: Grants of up to $1,000 which are available to the UBC community for innovative activities that increase open educational resources development, awareness and capacity building. The application cycle for this pathway will be available on a rolling basis until the funds allocated each year are exhausted.
  2. OER Implementation Grants: Grants of up to $25,000 for UBCV faculty who wish to incorporate open educational resources as the primary materials into their UBCV credit courses.

The UBC OER Fund is guided by the following principles:

  • Increase the creation, adaptation, adoption and integration of high-quality open educational resources, including assessment materials, in UBC credit courses.
  • Reduce student costs for learning materials and assessments.
  • Enable instructors to modify, edit, or adapt high-quality open educational resources to fit their unique specifications and goals in order to help provide meaningful, contextualized learning materials for UBC students.
  • Engage with the UBC community to increase awareness of open educational resources.
  • Grow capacity at UBC to support and sustain open educational resources activities.

To learn more, application forms, criteria, and support for both grants are available at http://open.ubc.ca/oer-fund.

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#OpenUBC

UBC Senate Endorses Principles for Learning Materials Used for Assessment

At their May 2019 meeting, the UBC Senate endorsed principles for digital learning materials used for assessment. The principles attempt to address affordability of compulsory materials, student agency and support for open resources and platforms. The endorsement of the principles contribute to UBC’s continued strategic support for open resources.

Read the full principles at the Open UBC site.

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Purpose

Examples of Open Scholarship

Open Scholarship is an umbrella term that encompasses some of the commonalities found in open education, open research, open access publishing, etc. Here’s a list of some examples of open scholarship:

  • scholarly outputs such as educational resources, research findings, software, data, etc., made openly available and shared free of access barriers
  • application of open copyright licenses, such as Creative Commons or GNU gpl licenses, to encourage reuse of created outputs
  • use of existing open education resources, open source software, open data, or open platforms
  • transparency and openness in scholarly processes and practices (e.g. open pedagogies, research methods, course design or development processes, etc)
  • use of open access publishing, open code repositories, open scholarly or educational repositories to facilitate reuse
  • collaboration with students as scholarly partners who have agency to be creators or share their work openly
  • adoption of inclusive and accessible practices
  • involvement in open government initiatives
  • advocacy for open scholarship and open sharing of scholarly outputs and practices
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