Spotlight on UBC Open: Three things you need to know about right now

Each day last week, as part of Open Education Week 2014 we featured some of our best open textbooks (those with ratings of 80% and higher based on peer reviews) currently available to instructors and students on our BCcampus OpenEd site.

Today, we’re turning our attention to the University of British Columbia’s open learning programs. UBC’s open learning is based on the belief that knowledge should be free and open to use and re-use. Here are three items that piqued our interest:

1. We’ve written about UBC’s partnership with Coursera previously: MOOCs and UBC Top 12 things you need to know right now. The partnership with Coursera has been so successful that UBC is adding four new courses to its fall 2014 semester. The four new courses are:

The Global Water Crisis
Reconciliation Through Indigenous Education
Foundations of Chinese Thought
Forests, Poverty, and Livelihoods: Current Topics From Across The Developing World

2. Grad students in the math department developed a UBC Math Exam/Education Resources Wiki. This open and free educational resource is volunteer-driven. It features 956 questions with hints sorted by 97 math categories. The wiki has become a go-to resource for undergrad students requiring help studying for their midterms, especially students enrolled in first and second year courses.

3. UBC’s Video Game Law course offers online access to its content, including course video and notes. The class is one of the only courses offered on video game law in North America. The course garners international attention and is an invaluable resource for tech-savvy entrepreneurs and start-ups.

If you’re interested in intellectual property, copyright and privacy issues (especially as it relates to the media, entertainment and communications industries), you will want to subscribe to adjunct professor Jon Festinger’s news of the week pages.

Notable Quotes:

British Columbia is home to amazing open education efforts and learning innovation due to the hard work and dedication of BC institutions, educators and students who strongly believe in the benefits of increasing access throughout the province. – Will Engle, Strategist, Open Education Initiatives, Centre for Teaching, Learning & Technology, UBC

Almost all instructors that I talk to who are engaged in open education efforts feel that their teaching has been vastly improved by making it open. – Will Engle, Strategist, Open Education Initiatives, Centre for Teaching, Learning & Technology, UBC

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photo credit: “Thinker taking a bite of red apple” by jaci XIII via photopin is licensed under creative commons license.