BCOER Librarians were well primed for today’s planning meeting and hackfest. Having just celebrated 2 years as a group and community of practice, it was great to get together and mark all we’ve accomplished to date and, happily, plan for the new year! Nine of us met at BCIT Downtown brimming with noteworthy news and stories on all things Open Textbook and Open Education from our respective campuses and organizations.
Post by Leva Lee, manager, Learning + Teaching, BCcampus
After our informal sharing of news, we moved on to work on identifying key priorities for the BCOER Librarians for 2016, starting with a critical discussion on our web presence and website needs. We were fortunate to have, Ju Dee Ang, from the SLAIS Professional Library student program, join us to help with this exploration and planning.
By lunch, we identified the following priorities for 2016:
- the development of a new website for BCOER Librarians
- the plan to offer presentations and workshops at BCLA, WILU & ETUG in late May/June (pending proposal acceptance)
- ongoing improvements to the BCOER MediaWiki site and completion of a work plan for the OER subject guides
- completion and sharing out of the BCOER’s Library Strategic Planning for Open Education Resources
- development of a B.C. Open Textbook promotional kit for libraries and a strategy for its distribution
- collaboration on an activity for Open Education Week in March
- Offering of a BCOER workshop for Open Access Week in October
The balance of the day was spent completing work-in-progress and creating a work plan for proposed activities. It was a productive day full of good conversation and thoughtful planning, setting BCOER Librarians on an excellent footing for the coming year. With the momentum for Open Textbooks and Open Education seeming to be taking hold in B.C. post-secondary, it should be very happy one for those of us who champion Open.
