Kolibri Project Update: Supporting BCcampus Open Content in Remote and Rural Communities

      Fiscal 2025-2026, Homepage, Open Education

By Alan Levine, Kolibri project coordinator

Comparison of the Vital Sign Measurement Across the Lifespan – 2nd Canadian Edition chapter on Why is Temperature Measured as published in Pressbooks (left) and in Kolibri (right) atop an image of a Raspberry Pi device that can provide access to this open textbook in offline environments. Image created by Alan Levine from screenshots and a photograph, shared as CC BY.

For most of us with always-on internet access in our homes, workplaces, and pockets, it’s easy to forget this is lacking for almost one-third of the world’s population who cannot benefit from the world of open educational resources such as the B.C. Open Collection. Given that more than 20 per cent of homes in rural and remote regions of British Columbia lack the connectivity to benefit from our resources, BCcampus initiated a project in 2023 to explore the potential of the offline-first learning platform Kolibri, which is provided by Learning Equality. The project was funded by the Willaim and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The goal of the Kolibri project is to convert more than 80 open textbooks from the B.C. Open Collection to a Kolibri-compliant format, as well as make the content more widely available as part of the Kolibri library. In addition to the open textbook content, Kolibri can also display native audio, video, and H5P interactive content.

Content from Kolibri is made available locally via a wireless network on low-cost devices such as an old laptop or Raspberry Pi, and also sent home with learners on a tablet device. The software provides tools for creating cohorts of learners and support via tutors along with potential progress synchronization when the device is moved to an internet-enabled location.

A Raspberry Pi 4 set up to demonstrate the BCcampus Kolibri content. It provides a local wireless network that users can join to access the Kolibri server running on the device. Photo by Alan Levine shared under a Creative Commons CC-BY license.

When connected to the internet, the Kolibri server can be loaded with a wide range of open educational resources from a large number of providers. You can explore the catalogue and experience Kolibri as a learner would see it. Kolibri is one of many solutions shared by the Offline Internet Consortium.

Sharing Our Work

Following a BCcampus webinar introducing the project in May 2024, we demonstrated and shared updates about the project at two conferences in the fall of 2024.

In September, Harper Friedman and I participated online in the 2024 Open Education Conference and presented a pre-recorded lightning talk titled An Online Presentation About Offline OER: The BCcampus Open Collection Meets Kolibri. We provided an overview of the project and simulated what learners might experience when accessing BC Open content in Kolibri. You can access the resources we shared or watch a recording of the talk.

We were also pleased to offer a hands-on workshop, Experience Open Education Without Internet: BCcampus Open Content via Kolibri, at OEGlobal 2024 in November. I was able to travel to Brisbane through my position with Open Education Global and Harper joined me virtually.

First, we asked participants to explore selected chapters from three of the titles that were converted for use in Kolibri. After opening the workshop materials from on online document, participants left the internet and joined the local wireless network broadcast from the Raspberry Pi that was set up in the conference room. Workshop participants were then only able to access the content on the local Kolibri server in the room.

A laptop computer accessing the server operating from a Raspberry Pi server (right) showing access to the Kolibri hosted version of Getting Ready for Work-Integrated Learning. Photo by Alan Levine shared under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence.

The workshop generated lively discussions and we made useful connections and received interest in our project from representatives of Teacher in a Box, an Australian non-profit that retrofits older laptops with content and platforms including Kolibri for use around the world in places lacking internet. We also exchanged ideas with representatives from MIT OpenCourseWare who are exploring the use of Kolibri to distribute their open course materials.

Project Status

After much experimentation and consultation with the technical leads at Kolibri we determined that there is no way to automatically convert Pressbooks content to Kolibri. In Kolibri, content is predominantly a directory structure of PDF files plus other media files. The only viable route to convert content is to use Adobe Acrobat to split the print PDF exports from Pressbooks into chapter level PDFs and then extract any H5P, audio, or video content that is worth including. Because the Pressbooks content is now split into separate files, we added a stop to insert a footer on every PDF that includes the attribution/open licensing information.

Another issue we encountered comes from the use of embedded YouTube videos in Pressbooks, which is allowable online by their terms of service. We are unable to download video and add it to Kolibri as a video file unless the video is explicitly licensed under Creative Commons. Likewise, we cannot use any references from titles accessible via an external hyperlink. However, we are able to include open-licensed media from the BCcampus media server.

We had more success converting titles that are mostly self-contained with content and activities that are printable. Even open textbooks that include media that cannot be transferred to Kolibri are still very useful. We focused on subjects such as trades and adult basic education that may potentially be of interest to other users of Kolibri globally.

Currently, the following BCcampus titles can be accessed in Kolibri:

Screenshot of the main directory of BCcampus open textbooks within Kolibri.

The BCcampus titles are not yet publicly available in the Kolibri library as they must be reviewed by Kolibri staff before they can be added to their collection. However, you can explore BCcampus Kolibri content by following our guide for setting up the Kolibri app on your computer. We provide a token or code in the document that allows you to import the BCcampus content and explore it fully.

Personally, this has been an exciting project to work on to address the first front of accessibility for online learning materials. I also enjoyed to getting to see the depth and breadth of BCcampus-published open textbooks–I even learned a bit more about plumbing and haircutting!

For more information about the Kolibri project, contact the team at kolibri@bccampus.ca