Want to share news about a new open ed development? Can’t find the open educational resource (OER) you need? Have a question about open education in B.C. but don’t know who to ask? Then it’s time to try BCOpen, a new community of practice email group for open education in B.C.
By Lauri Aesoph Manager, Open Education Operations
Anyone in the B.C post-secondary sector whose work involves OER, open pedagogy, or open education in general is invited to join. Members can ask questions about open education, promote OER projects, post opportunities and events, and ask for ideas about resources and pedagogy.
The idea for this listserv began with individual mailing lists offered to B.C.’s post-secondary institutions five years ago. BCIT, Capilano, Douglas, and Kwantlen Polytechnic signed up and continue to use these listservs today.
In 2019 BCcampus was ready to take the next step toward simplifying the sharing of open education information by creating a mailing list fashioned after the popular American CCCOER Community Email. Not only would this new listserv expand lines of open ed communication between the provinces colleges, institutes, and universities, but also it would focus on the specific needs of the B.C. open education community, a service that faculty and staff had been asking BCcampus about for years.
Unfortunately, when it came time to make this dream a reality, efforts were stalled when the pandemic arrived. Listserv setup resumed this spring and included approaching the 170 members of the two main BCcampus open education listservs and asking if they would consent to joining the new mailing list. The vast majority did.
We launched the BCOpen Community Email service on March 9, 2022. Less than 12 hours later, Colin Madland, manager of Online Learning and Instructional Technologies at Trinity Western University, used it to send this message: “Does anyone have a suggested format for citing an open course? We are building the structure for an attribution page and would like to include a suggested citation.” When asked later what he thought about the BCOpen listserv and the responses he received, Madland said, “I received info that was very helpful and timely from someone who I would never have thought to connect with. And I think that is key.”
If you want to send a message to the BCOpen community, email bcopen@lists.bccampus.ca.
If you would like to subscribe to this listserv, submit a request on the BCOpen Info page or contact us.
Notable Quote
“I’m pleased to be part of the new BCOpen Community email listserv. We have had an Open BCIT listserv, managed through BCcampus, since 2017. Although some of the messages are local to BCIT, many of them are relevant to the wider community, such as upcoming events or announcements of new relevant open learning materials. It is great to have a larger community listserv so we can see what our open colleagues are thinking about and doing province-wide and beyond and also contribute to the dialogue.”
— Lin Brander, open education librarian, BCIT