Everyone in education knows September is the real start of the new year. The academic year is, in all ways that count, more important than January 1. At BCcampus we’ve been looking ahead at the topics and events we think you might be interested in. Here’s an advance look at what we’re covering in the next few months.

Phase 1 (reviewing existing texts) of our groundbreaking Open Textbook Project is complete and we’ll be on to Phase 2 (adapting for B.C.-specific use) soon.

We’re planning some exciting new projects in online health care education – but shhh! We can’t tell you about them yet. Soon we will have news to share about innovative ways of delivering health education across institutions.

This era of “open everything”  (open admissions, courses, curriculum, content, research, journals, software, etc.) presents a number of issues for established online learning systems that are now ubiquitous. That’s why BCcampus’ David Porter was asked to give a keynote speech to the COHERE (Collaboration for Online Higher Education & Research) conference in late October.  The conference is an opportunity for practitioners in blended and online learning to discuss these issues and opportunities with those engaged in various aspects of open education. We’ll have an advance look at David’s presentation before the conference starts.

The 10th annual international Open Education Conference, which BCcampus hosted in Vancouver last year, is in Utah November 6-8. We’ll check in with David Wiley and conference organizers to see what sessions are on the final schedule.

We’re anticipating the launch of OERu (Open Educational Resources University)in Kamloops November 1, 2013, at Thompson Rivers University. OERu is a virtual collaboration of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways for OER learners to gain formal academic credit.The proceedings will be web cast – but we’ll have an overview of the development of this intriguing international project.

Looking ahead to 2014, we’ll be covering Open Education week in March, and anticipating more news and innovation in online and blended learning brought to you by BCcampus and our partners in B.C. and all over the world.

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photo credit: Marty Portier via Flickr cc