Nominated by Janelle Sztuhar, Scholarly Communications and Copyright Librarian, University of the Fraser Valley
The BCcampus Award for Excellence in Open Education celebrates outstanding contributions to the open education movement in British Columbia. The newest recipients are Claire Hay, Specialist, Teaching and Learning, and Martin Warkentin, Collections Librarian, from the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).
Martin and Claire have been leading open education initiatives and providing support for projects at UFV for ten years. Martin provides open education support from the library, while Claire comes at it from the teaching and learning centre perspective. They have been vital in advocacy and education efforts on campus such as starting an institutional open education working group. They have also managed various funding opportunities for open education development at UFV including internal grants and an external grant from BCcampus. Their dedication to this work is truly inspiring and has had a major impact on where UFV is today.
As leaders in open education at UFV, their work has focused on creating an institutional culture of open education, raising awareness of open education, and supporting faculty and students in open education activities. Both have attended various levels of meetings to advocate for OER adoption at UFV. Their work in securing grants has helped faculty and students produce some amazing projects to support UFV students.
Martin was a member of the BC Open Education Librarians group for many years. He recently moved into a new role as the Collections Librarian and continues to provide support for open education activities at UFV.
Claire presented virtually at the annual Open Education Talks with colleagues in 2023 and in 2025. She has been the main supervisor of the OER student worker who has assisted in data collection and OER promotion efforts since 2023.
Martin and Claire first ran the UFV Open Education Faculty Fellows program with funding from BCcampus and UFV from 2020 to 2023. The goal of the program was to support short-term OER creation or modification projects that resulted in resources suitable for UFV courses. This program produced three OER projects for mathematics, statistics, and kinesiology. Part of the funding of for this program came from a BCcampus Open Education Institutional Grant for Institutions, awarded to UFV in 2020.
In 2022, by securing internal funding through UFV’s Strategic Initiatives Fund, Martin and Claire developed the Open Education Micro Grant Project program, which has run twice since with great success. Martin and Claire also developed the Open Education Working Group where members (faculty, staff, and students) meet informally throughout the year to share ideas and updates.
Most recently, UFV was awarded an BCcampus open education institutional grant for the 2025–2026 fiscal year. Both Claire and Martin are part of the team that will be working to accomplish UFV’s goals for this grant, which include an Open Education in Action initiative. Part of this initiative involves re-launching the micro grants program, as well as forming an institutional open education strategy. We look forward to following Martin, Claire, and the whole UFV team as they strive for excellence in open education for their entire institution!
“Claire and Martin are strong leaders and proponents of open education at UFV, and their enthusiasm is contagious. They helped me learn a great deal about open resources, and inspired me to publish in open education formats. They are great colleagues and so worthy of this recognition.” —Leah Douglas, Associate Professor, School of Social Work & Human Services, UFV
Relevant Links
- OER created for UFV Faculty Fellows program: Human Nutrition by Luisa Giles and Komal Dhaliwal
- BCcampus Awards Open Education Institutional Grants