Librarians who want to help post-secondary educators find and use quality open educational resources have joined together to support each other and share their knowledge.
Undertakings like the B.C. Open Textbook Project, and flexible learning projects like those at University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University present more opportunities to use Open Education Resources (OERs) in post-secondary education. However, many educators aren’t aware of the benefits of OERs, the range of OERs that are available, or how to find the best ones to use (or revise, or remix).
The BCOER, a team of B.C. postsecondary librarians, has been discussing ways to collaborate on supporting faculty in adopting, using, and ultimately creating OERs. The group has started to identify and develop assessment tools for quality OERs, and has begun working to find aids for specific academic disciplines. Their first event was an OER Hackfest last May, when the group made significant progress in creating their first OER guides by developing and testing an OER assessment rubric and using it to review 40 open science resources. The team also designed an OER awareness poster for engaging faculty in conversation on the topic.
Further resources the group has started to develop include:
- more OER guides,
- a private listserv,
- a public web presence,
- a professional development event for librarians on OER in the fall 2014,
- tools for copyright and understanding open licenses.
The group’s next meeting is in September. Contact Leva Lee if you’d like to participate.
Further reading:
Notable quotes:
“UBC is investing a lot of time in flexible learning, including the development of open education environments and digital depots of OER content. A resource that supports OER environments is timely and needed.” -Erin Fields, Flexible Learning Librarian at UBC