In 2019, eight OER projects at a community college in British Columbia received provincial funding, enabling faculty members from a variety of programs to develop and/or redevelop their courses using open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP). Through this funding and matching funds from the college, this project has brought together 11 faculty members, as well as librarians, copyright experts, instructional designers (with expertise in Universal Design for Learning, OERs, educational technology, etc.), curriculum developers, indigenization specialists, and others in an extensive (and exceptional) collaboration to work towards creating a framework for best practices in bringing OER sustainably into every-day practice at the college.
The eight projects were: development of OER ancillary resources (including an open question bank) for basic math education, development of open textbook modules for Sheet Metal and Woodworking, creation of an open textbook for The Physics of Medical Imaging (applicable across multiple programs), revision of an open textbook on Marketing, creation of a set of Nutrition modules (transferable to multiple programs), revisions and additions to an open Human Anatomy WordPress site, and creation of a resource package for Patient Management courses (to provide consistency across multiple programs). For many of these projects, the added complication of moving courses online during COVID gave faculty a chance to use their resources immediately, and to get feedback from students before the projects were completed.
This session will showcase the projects and the benefits they are bringing to students, to the community, as well as to other programs around B.C. and beyond. As the first project of its type at this college, grant recipients will serve as examples to their fellow faculty around what it means to collaborate and design for Open, as well as advisors for future OER development projects. In addition, the support network created from this project will be able to better provide sustainable support for future projects, provide advice to the college around sustainable practices in OER, and advocate for the creation of policies and strategies for embedding Open Education into the college’s framework.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to discuss and contribute ideas for potential next steps in this project, related to developing resources (e.g., a course redevelopment template for integrating OER and OEP into courses), creating an Open Community of Practice at our institution, and building a support network for OER work at our college (and beyond).
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Consider how they might also build capacity in their own institutions through supporting projects like those discusses here
- Discuss and contribute ideas for building resources, creating communities of practice, building a support network for OER work at small institutions
