2020 Leaders in Open Learning
Ben Cheung
Dr. Ben Cheung has been an advocate for Open Education on campus for many years. He uses open textbooks in his class, contributes to open literature, and raises awareness for OER implementation across campus. In Dr. Cheung’s own words: “Not only is this open textbook comparable to others in terms of quality, but it also gives me more freedom and control as an educator over what goes into the course and what students take away from the instruction.”
Jonathan Ichikawa
Dr. Jonathan Ichikawa’s text (co-authored by Dr. Magnus of SUNY Albany), forall x, was developed with significant student input and feedback through its use in PHIL 220, a large-enrolment course taken by undergraduates in many degree programs. The text forms the backbone for a course taught using pedagogy designed to engage students as they wrestle with difficult concepts during class. The success of his students in wrestling with complex topics speaks to the care taken by Dr. Ichikawa in creating and using open resources that engage successfully so many students in the study of logic.
Loch Brown
Dr. Brown has made a commitment to open learning by always providing open source materials for all of his classes is currently putting together an open source textbook. He goes above and beyond to provide his students with accessible resources and explains the value of open sourced learning in all of his classes.
Mark Turin
Dr. Mark Turin is a devoted advocate for open learning. He uses open educational resources whenever possible, creates opportunities for producing open access materials, and encourages students and scholars alike to think about how information is shared and with whom. In the courses he teaches at UBC, he uses 95% open educational resources. He edits the World Oral Literature Series for Open Book Publishers (OBP), where he also serves on the Editorial and Advisory Board. He has also been instrumental in creating open access archives in the form of the World Oral Literature Project, a global initiative to document and make accessible endangered oral literature, and Digital Himalaya, which archives and makes available ethnographic materials from the Himalayan region. In his work at the UBC Himalaya Program, he has helped to oversee the creation of open courses for Nepali and Tibetan languages. Dr. Turin is admired by his colleagues and students alike for his deep engagement with the issues of voice, representation, and equity which are at the heart of open access.
Sabina Magliocco
Dr. Sabina Magliocco reduced financial burdens on her students in her RGST200/ANTH202 course by ensuring that the learning materials were free and accessible for all. She also regularly shared open resources for additional learning and barrier-free mental health resources to support students during this challenging time.
Simon Lolliot
Dr. Simon Lolliot has been an early adopter of using open textbooks rather than paid textbooks in multiple yearsof the courses he teaches. His use of OERs has had a huge impact and cost saving for students (including eliminating textbook fees for more than 800 students one year).
Siobhán McElduff
Dr. Siobhán McElduff has created several open textbooks. Most recently, she worked with a team of CNERS students (Grace Guy, Danielle Lee, Keith Warner-Harder, James McKintrick, Sophie Roth, and Luoyao Zhang) to launch UnRoman Romans, an OER that brings together ancient sources on social outsiders in the Roman empire. This online anthology of sources explores depictions of those who did not fit in or were stigmatized in ancient Rome, from sexual minorities to ethnic groups to entertainers and beyond. Students in her CLST360E course later added to the project, each authoring a section or entry in the textbook. The book is an excellent resource on Romanitas in antiquity for individuals within or outside of the university, and a wonderful example of open pedagogy in action.
Somayeh Kamranian
Dr. Somayeh Kamranian is passionate about open pedagogy and seeks to learn both with and from her students. As part of her commitment to open education, Dr. Kamranian recently published Let’s Read French Books, an open textbook that aims to make learning French easier and more engaging for students by using public domain 19th century French literature. Alongside the text, she includes activities, glossaries and on-demand definitions that engage learners and make reading French fun, exciting and enriching.
Steven Barnes
Dr. Steven Barnes is a committed advocate of making education accessible. He has removed barriers to learning by using open textbooks in his courses in place of paid textbooks, designed a number of open online courses, and has pioneered open technologies to support open pedagogy and OER development. He has created a large body of stop-motion animations that deal with challenging topics for students of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, and because they are freely accessible on YouTube, they have been used by instructors around the world.
Craig Meadows
Mark Schaller
Nojang Khatami
Sara Doody
Taqdir Kaur Bhandal
David Gaertner
Dr. David Gaertner is leading the way for open education in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and educating his students on the implications of open knowledge. While Open Education finds more tensions in the humanities, Dr Gaertner has embraced this dialogue within his classroom by exploring traditional knowledge licenses vs. creative commons licenses.
Jon Beasley-Murray
Dr. Jon Beasley-Murray, Assistant Professor in Latin American Studies at the University of British Columbia, co-ordinated the Wikipedia educational project 'Murder, Madness, and Mayhem'. The collective goals were to have students write a selection of articles on Latin American literature and bring the articles to featured article status (or as near as possible). By project's end, after just one semester, they had promoted three articles to Featured Article status, eight to Good Article status, and one to B-Class status.
M.V. Ramana
Dr. M.V. Ramana used videos, online quizzes, news sources, and many open access articles as course materials for his class. He is also an advocate for open access and open education, imparting to students the value of online materials in accessibility and assistance with learning, as well as for expanding scholarship.
Michael Byers
Dr. Michael Byers does not use textbooks in his class, and has created a class website with links to all course materials that he uses. He believes in open access, and using open education as a form of knowledge sharing, and is committed to eliminating course material costs for students.
Andrew Owen
Dr. Andrew Owen understands the burden that textbook costs can place on students, and provides free and accessible course materials for his students to use. He puts in significant labour to create online educational modules with quizzes and more, meaning that course materials are not only available online, but interactive.
Jonathan Ichikawa
Dave Gilbert
Dr. Dave Gilbert is currently working on a project that combines a revision to an open textbook for Logic (forallx, UBC edition by Jonathan Ichikawa) with Carnap, an open framework allowing for the development of online (in-browser) formal reasoning exercises and activities, as well as automated marking support, created by Professor Graham Leach-Krouse (Kansas State). This project will support courses that teach students to use semantic tableaux for proofs, and offers an open source, web-based application for exercises and marking support. This will allow students to save money not only on a textbook, but also on homework software that they might otherwise be asked to pay for.
Kathryn Grafton
Dr. Kathryn Grafton has assigned a Wikipedia project in a Canadian Studies course, providing an excellent example of how students can get involved in revising and creating open educational resources. According to the Wiki Edu dashboard for the course, 45 student editors created 6 articles and revised 29 during the course.
Ben Cheung
Simon Lolliot
Steven Barnes
Siobhán McElduff
Siobhán McPhee
Dr. Siobhán McPhee works with open and emerging technologies, such as creating augmented reality apps for her courses or engaging her students in creating open resources, to expand the boundaries of education."I see education as the ultimate equalizer," she said. "Open is about that ability to take education as it was in the past--a very elitist idea--and making it available to anyone who wants it."
