Friday May 9th we are going to a Hackfest! Inspired by the sessions given by speakers at last month’s BC Open Textbook Summit, a group of BC postsecondary librarians (we call ourselves the BCOER Group) and UBC library students are gathering at SFU Harbour Centre to roll up our sleeves and  get down to work on our fav OER projects. SFU Library and BCcampus are sponsors of the event.
We’ve been planning a few project ideas in a wikispace and google document this past week. They include putting into action OER assessment tools and rubrics to create OER subject guides on a few selected subjects. Other possible projects include designing an OER poster and developing professional development resources for librarians on OER. And all in keeping with the 4Rs of OER of course!
Not having participated in nor organized a hackfest before, I did some research on “hackfests” or “hackathons”. The meaning of the word describes an event that comprises several elements: intense collaboration; playful exploration; and the freedom to work on what you want with an end product in mind. Sound like fun? I think so! Wish us luck! We’ll share what we did in a future post.