We are catching up – here is my Open Education News and Stuff from November 28.

Hi everyone!

Today I wanted to reflect a bit on some of the social justice perspective of Open Education both as presented in this year’s Open Education conference and in the courses I am taking from Kwantlen.

It should be of no surprise to anyone here receiving this email that Open Educational Practices (OEP) can go a long way toward addressing inequities in education.  In fact, the main goal of practitioners is to work towards a world where education is available to all, inclusive of the many diverse voices in our world, and accessible to anyone.  Lofty goals to be sure, and challenging given the complexity of our global community, and given the fact that so many of our educational institutions are built on, and sustaining of, colonial and elitist practices (and I recognize that I myself am the beneficiary of these practices given my own location in societal spaces.)  But OEP can help break down some of these old practices – and even integrating one or two can help move us, as members of the post-secondary education community, closer to those lofty goals.

At its simplest, OEP involve bringing cost savings to our students.  Open Textbooks and OER can go a long way to supporting students who have so many challenges when coming to post-secondary education.  My opinion is that it is well worth taking some time to investigate how you can reduce or eliminate course material costs for your students (librarians and folks in CETL can help you!)  And if you can work with colleagues in your department or program, all the better!  Institutions like KPU track which courses are ZTC (zero textbook costs) and students overwhelmingly appreciate not having to worry about paying for textbooks, or worse, worry about how their course and program outcomes may suffer because they can’t afford to buy their textbooks. 

Adapting or creating OER means you can bring in diverse voices into your course materials and share them with your colleagues and the world.  You don’t have to take a textbook on its face value, explaining to students why some of the material is irrelevant (or worse) to our Canadian/BC/Camosun context.  Find an existing open textbook and adapt it, fill in the gaps, work with others (including students) to be inclusive and to ensure that it becomes a living document, not a static book stuck in the past (and in this quickly changing world, even a 2-year-old book can be obsolete!)

Working our way to Open Pedagogy we start to bring in more student voices, to include their experiences, but also to give them more agency in their learning.  Think about it:  content is everywhere!  A quick google search brings you a world of information, so what do we as instructors bring to the table for our students?  Giving students choice in their assessments, asking them to identify (and potentially fill-in) gaps in your open textbook, or to evaluate the resources you have provided them are just a few examples of how to encourage students to take more control of their learning.  Choice is key.  Some students may not feel comfortable being given too much agency (especially if they come from very traditional – read Western – educational experiences).  Taking a more programmatic approach, we could scaffold students into finding their voice and confidence to contribute.  In other words, baby steps.

So many thoughts and ideas in my head around this, and I confess to being a little frustrated knowing that we, as an institution, aren’t probably ready to embrace all of this at once (remember baby steps?)  But we can start somewhere – how about talking in your departments and program groups about moving to open textbooks and/or ZTC for your courses and programs?  Reach out to your librarian or CETL to start a conversation about what you can do to bring open education to your students, your colleagues, your leadership.  And perhaps we can move Camosun towards those lofty goals of Open Education.

Around Camosun

Open Education Week is March 6-10, 2023, and Camosun is planning on putting on some events to celebrate this year!  We have some tentative things planned I wanted to share with you – and if you are interested in learning more, volunteering to help with something, or have some ideas of your own to share, let me know!

• Open Education “table sessions” in the Fisher foyer (poster sessions, resources, people to talk about Open Education and what is happening at Camosun)
• Open Education Conversation Café
• Open Educational resources display at the Lansdowne Library
• We will also be launching our new Open Education Libguide that week!

Around BC

Check out the BCcampus Book Club: The Open Edition.  Starting in January, join folks from around the world to discuss three different open books:

• January 9 – February 3: A Comprehensive Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning by Dr. Seanna Takacs and Junsong Zhang
  • One-hour synchronous session Jan. 31 at 11 a.m. PT

• February 6 – March 3: Teaching in a Digital Age by Dr. Tony Bates
  • One-hour synchronous session Feb. 21 at 11 a.m. PT

• March 6 – March 31: Selected readings from Designing for Care
  • One-hour synchronous session Mar. 28 at 11 a.m. PT

Around the World

Check out this article in the open access journal, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning: Impact of COVID-19 on Formal Education: An International Review of Practices and Potentials of Open Education at a Distance | The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (irrodl.org) in which the authors “after comparing examples of existing practice of open education at a distance, make recommendations and offer insights into how open education strategies can lead to interventions that are effective and innovative—to improve formal education at a distance in schools and universities in the future.”

Finally

I am still looking to find out who is using open textbooks and OER in their teaching at Camosun.  If you are using an open textbook in your course(s), or you know someone else who is, and I have not already had a chat with you, please send me an email because I would really love to talk to you more about your experience! 

Have questions?  Looking for an Open Textbook for your course(s), or OERs to take your course/program to ZTC (zero textbook cost)?  Want to talk about a potential Open Education project (or are your students interested in talking or hearing about OpenEd)?  Contact Emily Schudel and/or Gwenda Bryan! 

Share the joy – CETL (Emily) is available to come talk to your department/program about Open Ed – just shoot me an email to let me know if your department/program is interested in hearing more!

I think that is all for today – thanks for listening and see you in a couple of weeks!

Emily