The following is an excerpt from the CTLT April 2025 Edubytes Newsletter:
The University of British Columbia has long demonstrated its commitment to open educational resources (OER) as a way to reduce student costs and lower barriers to access. This commitment is reflected in several key initiatives, including OER Fund grants that support the development and integration of OER into credit courses, collaborative support from the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) and UBC Library, and formal recognition of OER contributions as evidence of educational leadership in the university’s Senior Appointments Guide to Tenure and Promotion.
Building on this foundation, last year the offices of the Vice-President Academic at both UBC Okanagan and UBC Vancouver launched the UBC Open Education Resources Excellence and Impact Awards to recognize outstanding work by faculty who have materially advanced the use and impact of OER at UBC. These awards are intended to recognize excellence in faculty use of OER in teaching and learning, the positive impact of their work on student affordability at UBC, and their contributions to the broader open education community on campus.
Defining excellence in OER
According to the UBC OER Awards criteria (pdf), excellence in OER includes more than just student cost savings. It reflects a sustained commitment to accessibility, inclusion, and pedagogical innovation. Excellence may also involve active student participation in creating or improving resources, the use of OER to support innovative teaching strategies, and efforts to make the materials easily discoverable by others. A strong commitment to integrating diverse perspectives and ways of knowing, relevant to the discipline, is also part of excellence in this area. Once the OER is in use, evidence of impact includes student cost savings, improved learning outcomes, adoption of OER by others, and measurable contributions to the broader open education community through leadership, collaboration, and capacity-building activities.
“Creating, implementing, and deploying OER within the curriculum requires substantial time and effort,” said Dr. Simon Bates, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Teaching and Learning. “UBC faculty are undertaking this work because they are committed to providing students with affordable learning materials of high quality —and they are achieving excellence in both outcomes and impact.”
