Open Policies

Intentionally Open

The Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology at UBC, where I work, has a long history of embracing open practices. We’ve openly licensed most everything on our website since 2014, created and openly shared many different teaching and learning resources, developed and supported open technologies, such as the UBC Wiki or UBC Blogs, which make sharing easy, run workshops on all matters of open pedagogies and resources, contributed code to open code repos, had a dedicated position for open education for many years — the list goes on and on. All of this openness was due to the efforts and heavy lifting of my fantastic colleagues, current and past.

This past year my colleague Lucas Wright and myself had the opportunity to pitch a more intentional strategy in this area and this past March, the CTLT Academic Director, Christina Hendricks, posted CTLT’s new Open Access Statement:

At the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, we create open and accessible educational resources, tools, and practices. When we co-create these with faculty, staff, students, and community partners, we encourage public sharing with an open license when agreed upon by all contributors.

I, of course, love this statement and encourage checking out the full post from Christina as it lays out the great work that has already happened at CTLT and the intention to continue and improve upon that work. I also really appreciate the important alignment of open with accessibility. Having intentionality about open, and stating that intentionality as part of a unit’s values, helps ensure that we will always be moving ahead and towards our aspirational goals in this area.

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Open UBC

Open Snapshots: Thoughts & Processes

 

I’ve been publishing reports that attempt to capture a snapshot of the impacts and trends of open textbook and OER use at UBC for a few years now. I occasionally get questions about the process for developing the report and, somewhat belatedly, I thought I’d occasionally post some of my documentation and thinking of how I do the reports here.

In terms of the cost savings and student impacts of using open resources, here’s some general notes on what I capture and the calculations and assumptions that I make:

Guidelines for Inclusion

  • To be included in the snapshot, there should be no textbook fees/costs for students
    • Many courses use OER to supplement paid materials, however, these snapshots attempt to track courses in which OER has replaced paid resources
  • To be included in the report, materials do not necessarily have to be openly licensed but should be freely and openly accessible at a minimum. At UBC, such resources often take the form of instructor created custom course notes, interactive media, textbooks, and other learning resources that the instructor has created and posted publicly online but which do not include a stated permission for reuse and/or an open license, such as a Creative Commons license.
  • Materials should be on the open web and linkable from the report appendix; if materials are not on the open web (i.e unique course notes that the instructor has developed), the instructor should be able to provide a copy of the materials to share.

Questions to ask specific course instructors:

  • Using OER in place of textbook (Y/N)
  • Specific sections using the OER – this is important as all sections cannot be assumed to use the same resources; specific sections must be confirmed.
  • Title and cost of displaced textbook (note, I also try to independently confirm cost)
  • Title and link to the specific OER being used
  • All past terms and specific sections (going back five years) that have used that OER
  • If they know other instructors using OER

Estimations and Assumptions:

  • Use Planing and Institutional Reporting (PAIR) enrolment data to look up actual enrolments on a per section basis (for specific year/term) – this is important as instructors can slightly off on the exact size of their classes
  • Per BCcampus & OpenStax formulations, cost savings should be estimated as a range to take into account all options students have for acquiring a text. To estimate the minimum cost savings range, use $100 for minimum savings range. Maximum savings should be estimated based on the actual cost of replaced book.
    • If replaced book was less than $100, use the actual amount for minimum savings range.
    • If cost or displaced  is unknown: Search the UBC bookstore to estimate cost; use $100 if price cannot be determined
    • If no text is identified as having been replaced in the last five years, use $100.
  • Note: only confirmed OER use should be included in the snapshot; reports on use from OpenStax, BCcampus should be confirmed locally.

I’m always looking to improve and refine these reports. If you have any suggestions, thoughts, questions, please let me know!

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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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