In April of 2019, Melanie Mark, Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training, announced funding of $3.26 million towards open education in British Columbia. This welcome infusion of financial support enables BCcampus to continue developing and distributing open educational resources—including open textbooks—that lower the cost of education for students while providing significant learning value.
The funding BCcampus received between 2003–2018 has made a significant impact for students in British Columbia, with total savings currently in excess of $14 million. Post-secondary institutions in B.C. have recognized the opportunities for access and affordability through the adoption of OER, and we at BCcampus believe that now is the time to further that work.
Working with institutions, stakeholders, and faculty, BCcampus will support the development of entire suites of freely available resources—including textbooks, homework systems, and ancillary tools—to replace costly commercial products in Health Education.
The primary goal is to launch Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) programs that will lower the financial barrier to post-secondary education for students by eliminating the cost of textbooks and other resources for their entire pathway to credential while providing faculty members with academic freedom to modify course materials to align with their curriculum.
Health Care Assistant
If you are interested in participating in an HCA OER Group, please contact Krista Lambert, Project Manager at klambert@bccampus.ca.
Nursing
The alignment of identified health OER with B.C. nursing competencies has been completed. There will be a forthcoming expression of interest in September to identify materials that can be adopted and adapted for a BC context.
The expression of interest to evaluate and review the newly released OpenRN pharmacology textbook for adoption in B.C. has closed. The successful candidate is a team from BCIT who plans to complete the evaluation before the end of November.
We are investigating the creation of open nursing videos. If you have nursing skills videos that you’d like to Creative Commons license and share, please reach out to Krista Lambert, Project Manager at klambert@bccampus.ca. If you have topics that you are keen to have produced as videos, you can also reach out to Krista with your suggestions.
We hosted the first Nursing OER Group meeting in July. This group is advising on the development of Nursing open resources. If you are interested in participating in this group, please contact Krista Lambert, Project Manager at klambert@bccampus.ca.
Advisory Group
To help guide the work, BCcampus has put together a system-wide advisory group consisting of individuals familiar with the identified health programs.
|
Name |
Organization |
|
Rhonda Benke |
Douglas College |
|
Katelyn Ranger |
Ministry of Health |
|
Kathy Harms |
Justice Institute of British Columbia |
|
Nirmal Dhaliwal |
Kwantlen Polytechnic University |
|
Neil Wereley |
Ministry of Health |
|
Brad Mladenovic |
Simon Fraser University |
|
Heather Hepworth |
College of the Rockies |
|
TBD |
Vancouver Island University |
Further Information
If you have questions about the project or ideas about OER in health please contact project manager Krista Lambert at klambert@bccampus.ca.
Download the following poster to share with colleagues, or contact us for print copies: