Committed to open practices
Enabling access to freely available content, information, and data is an essential part of an improved learning environment – for students as well as instructors. At BCcampus, we recognize and embrace the value of open technologies and actively evaluate open applications and resources to identify opportunities for our system partners and stakeholders.
Our Open Education team produces open educational resources (OER) – textbooks, toolkits, and other learning materials – in collaboration with the B.C. post-secondary system. We also develop and deliver workshops to increase awareness, adoption, and adaptation of OER by instructors throughout the province.
Open daily
Our commitment to open underpins our daily operations: the photos, notes, and resources acquired through events and conferences we participate in; keynote addresses we present and host; and policies, processes, collected data, and accountability reports we share on a regular basis. The information we develop and the data we collect is available in useful formats, so our stakeholders can employ them in innovative and value-added ways. Where possible, we share our source files in open and free file formats.
Open educational resources (OER)
We have earned a global reputation for our contributions and support of open educational resources by taking an active role in the creation, modification, distribution, and evaluation of open teaching, learning, and research resources. Open education delivers substantial value to our partner institutions in B.C. and improves accessibility for students.
BCcampus Open Education
The B.C. Open Collection offers a substantial selection of openly licensed textbooks, open course packs and associated resources, developed collaboratively in most cases and available electronically, free of charge.
Sharing. Reusing. Remixing.
In addition to the open textbook and other OER projects we support, we develop, facilitate and promote pedagogies that advance open education. We are heavily involved in promoting professional development and academic growth. We actively support the Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG), an online community of post-secondary educators in B.C. focused on using technology to enhance teaching and learning.
Accessible to all
One of the main motivations behind our involvement in the creation and distribution of OER is to ensure educational materials are accessible to all students. The rising cost of textbooks creates a substantial barrier to learning for many students, locally and in developing regions. OER projects such as BCcampus Open Education bring high-quality learning materials to students, creating opportunities for all who want to learn.