The BCOER Librarians are 2 years old! Since forming in December 2013, this small, but active group developed as an answer to a collegial call for more awareness and advocacy for open textbooks and open education resources, and for working together to support B.C. faculty and instructors in using them.
Post by Leva Lee, manager, Learning + Teaching, BCcampus
As we look back over the past 2 years, we see many exciting milestones. Here are some of the highlights:
Year 1 2014
- Interested academic librarians meet to discuss how they are addressing open textbooks and OER
- BCOER group agrees to meet informally to share ideas, resources and work together
- April: members attend and are inspired by speakers at the B.C. Open Textbook Summit (See Five lessons learned at the Open Textbooks Summit 2014)
- May: the First BCOER Spring Hackfest where the OER Repository Rubric is tested; participation from SLAIS students and new grads
- June: ETUG Spring workshop session for feedback from the post-sec community on barriers to adopting OER
- October: Cross-promotion of Open Access Week at various B.C. post-secondary campuses
- October: the First BCOER professional learning event: “Open Education Resources: Librarians, Leadership and Opportunity” hosted at Douglas College
- October: Webinar for the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) October:
- December: creation of OER Primers (team collaboration on content for these guides)
Year 2 2015
- January: Working with UBC Co-op students from SLAIS
- February: Webinar for the Council of Atlantic Libraries (CAUL) and Summary
- March: BCOER OER Primers adopted by Dalhousie, St. Xavier and New Brunswick College and Council of Atlantic Libraries (CAUL)
- March: Webinar for Open Education Week
- April: Published OER tools and guides: OER awareness poster, Faculty Guide for Evaluating OER/Checklist, and OER Repository Rubric
- Launch of BCOER MediaWiki site for co-creation and maintenance of subject guide content; Good practice and how-to guide to using the MediaWiki by SLAIS student
- April: Open Textbook Summit – big shout out to BCOER Librarians by the keynote and B.C. Open Textbook Faculty Fellow
- April: Open Textbook Summit presentation “Think Locally…”
- May: BCLA presentation: “Academic Librarians and OER: Access, Advocacy and Activism”
- May: working with a Library Co-op Student from SFU on how to cite an open textbook
- May: Mention by OpenOregon in post and Webinar presentation to OpenOregon
- June: ETUG Spring workshop – BCOER poster/demo session and use of LibraryBox
- July: Summer Hackfest – Creation of an OER strategy plan for libraries (to be shared soon!)
- August: the work of BCOER is cited in the 2015 Horizon Report – Library Edition
- Sept: new academic year with new ideas for BCOER Librarians!
- October: participation in Open Access Week across various B.C. post-secondary campuses; BCOER member panelist for Open Access Week event hosted at SFU
- November: Conference paper submitted for the upcoming Distance Library Services Conference, April 2016 on librarians and OER and cultivating a successful community of practice
- BCOER Librarians have a strong presence at Open Ed 2015 and mentioned in the keynote by David Porter and Mary Burgess
- Meeting and info session with the Association of Alberta Academic Librarians via skype during OpenEd 2015
- BCOER member panelist at a post-OpenEd event #openupTRU inspiring more twitter accolades for BCOER!
- Invited to be a country champion for the OER Worldmap
- December: Happy Birthday, BCOER!
Year 3 2016
- Coming up! BCOER Happy New Year Hackfest on January 11th
- Cheers to another great year!