Open Education Advocacy

Committed to Open Practices

Enabling access to freely available content, information, and data is an essential part of an improved learning environment – for students as well as instructors. At BCcampus, we recognize and embrace the value of open technologies and actively evaluate open applications and resources to identify opportunities to share with our system partners and stakeholders.

Our Open Education team produces open educational resources (OER) – textbooks, toolkits, and other learning materials – in collaboration with the B.C. post-secondary system. We also develop and deliver workshops to increase awareness, adoption, and adaptation of OER by instructors throughout the province and around the world.

Open Daily

Our commitment to Open underpins our daily operations: the photos, notes, and resources acquired through events and conferences we participate in; the keynote addresses we present and those we host; and the policies, processes, collected data, and accountability reports we share on a regular basis. The information we develop and data we collect is available in useful formats so our stakeholders can use it in innovative and value-added ways. Where possible, we share our source files in open and free file formats.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

We have earned a global reputation for our contributions and support of open educational resources by taking an active role in the creation, modification, distribution, and evaluation of Open teaching, learning, and research resources. Open education delivers substantial value to our partner institutions in B.C., as well as improved accessibility for students everywhere in the world.

Open Textbook Project

Our open textbook development project has resulted in the creation of a substantial collection of openly licensed textbooks and associated resources, developed collaboratively and available electronically, free of charge.

Sharing. Reusing. Remixing

In addition to the open textbook project, we develop, facilitate and promote pedagogies that advance open education. We are heavily involved in promoting professional development and academic growth. We actively support the Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG), an online community of post-secondary educators in B.C. focused on using technology to enhance teaching and learning, and SCoPE, an online repository of freely and publicly shared programs and resources for professional development.

Accessible to All

One of the main motivations behind our involvement in the creation and distribution of OER is to ensure educational materials are accessible to all students, no matter where they are in the world and regardless of their economic status. The rising cost of textbooks creates a substantial barrier to learning for many students, locally as well as in developing regions. OER projects, such as BCcampus Open Education bring high quality learning materials to students around the world, creating opportunities for all who want to learn.

Matters of Privacy

Notwithstanding the above, BCcampus is committed to protecting the privacy of students and members of the public in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY)

We follow the guidelines established through Creative Commons, and freely share as follows:

We retain copyright on our work, but you are free:

to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
to make derivative works
to make commercial use of the work

as long as you attribute the original work to the copyright holder (BCcampus).

Attribution — Please attribute to BCcampus with a link to the content’s original page on this web site (but not in any way that suggests we endorse you or your use of the work).

With the understanding that:

Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:

Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;
The author’s moral rights;
Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to the CC-BY 4.0 International web page.