UBC Library Open Education Impact & Activity Report
2022/2023
UBC Library’s Open Education services seek to support the UBC community in finding, adapting, and creating high-quality open educational resources, as well as planning and implementing innovative Open Education projects and Open Practices.
UBC Library’s Open Education services play an active role in moving forward UBC Vancouver Library’s Strategic Framework vision of,
…leading and collaborating to advance open scholarship…
Additionally, the supports and services for open education reinforce UBC Okanagan Library’s commitment to,
… support(ing) transformative learning experiences.
The following report was developed by Erin Fields, Open Education & Scholarly Communications Librarian (Vancouver Campus), Donna Langille, Community Engagement and Open Education Librarian (Okanagan Campus) and Leila Malkin, Scholarly Communications Assistant (Vancouver Campus) to highlight UBC Library’s combined impact on open educational practices at UBC for 2022/2023.
- Consults & Programs
- Partnerships & Collaborations
- Special Projects
- Professional Engagement
- Campus Initiatives
The core of UBC Library’s open education program is our focus on helping and supporting faculty, students, and staff in their open practices.
Total Consultations 2022/2023: 103
Consultations by Campus & Department
Okanagan Departments
- School of Engineering UBCO (4)
- Irving K Barber School of Sciences UBCO (2)
- Irving K Barber School of Arts and Social Sciences (2)
- Other (1)
- UBCO Employee (1)
Vancouver Departments
- Arts (31)
- Faculty of Medicine (28)
- Other (2)
- Applied Science (10)
- Forestry (2)
- Sciences (1)
- Non UBC (3)
- Land and Food Systems (4)
- Nursing (7)
- Law (1)
- Pharmaceutical Sciences (1)
- Music (1)
- Kinesiology (1)
Number of Open Education Consultations by Type
UBC Library organized 12 events with 264 participants to build awareness and advocate for open practices and resources on campus. Sessions included topics on creating OER using digital tools (e.g. Pressbooks, Scalar etc.), open licensing, sharing and discoverability of OER, and open pedagogy.
Open Carefully – Pursuing Open with an Ethic of Care
59 participants
Dr. Brenna Clarke Gray discussed the accessibility, ethical, and care-centred concerns that emerge in open practice, and offers some solutions for approaching the work with an ethic of care.
Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education
79 participants
Kayla Lar-Son explored some of the concerns around OER and Indigenous Knowledges and discussed the 6R’s of Indigenous OER, exploring tools, principles, and practices for engaging with Indigenous communities. Additionally, presenters discussed an ‘in the works’ edited volume which centres Indigenous ways of knowing, culture, experiences, and worldviews within the work of open education pedagogy and advocacy work.
UBC Library works with many internal and external partners in providing open education services, training, and advocacy. The following are highlights of collaborations that have had a significant impact on open education awareness and advocacy efforts this year.
UBC OER Collection
Developed in partnership with the UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT), UBC Library and UBC Okanagan Library, the UBC OER Collection is a curated database full of openly accessible teaching and learning materials. The UBC OER Collection showcases UBC open educational resources (OER) in a searchable interface to support both UBC faculty and the general community in incorporating open educational resources and practices into their curriculum.
The collection was launched March 7, 2022 and currently houses 83 OER developed by UBC faculty, students, and staff.
Watch the video to learn how to find resources and submit your own to the UBC OER Collection. Transcript [Word File]
OER Champions Recognition Awards
In partnership with the UBC Vancouver Alma Mater Society, Student’s Union UBC Okanagan, the VP Academic and Provost, and CTLT, the OER Champions Recognition Awards recognize individuals who have made a significant contribution to the use of open educational resources (OER) at UBC.
UBC Vancouver recognized 64 faculty and staff members and their OER efforts in an event hosted at the Gallery Patio and Lounge. Faculty and staff members enjoyed an evening of speakers and socializing with other open education advocates.
UBC Library supports open educational resource projects by faculty, including creating, finding, and sharing processes. The following highlights the projects supported by the library in 2022/2023.
Open Texts
UBC Library offered support and training for 11 projects creating OER, including technical support for Pressbooks, an open text publisher.
In support of sharing and discoverability of UBC community-created Pressbook texts, UBC Library created the Open UBC Open Text Catalogue. The texts in the catalogue were made with support from UBC Library open education service. The collection currently houses 22 texts, 5 of which were developed in 2022-2023, including:
Pathology: From the Tissue Level to Clinical Manifestations and Inter-professional Care (UBC Vancouver)
Faculty Lead: Jennifer Kong
Published: December 2022
1810 Visitors (December 2022- March 2023)
Pathology is a multimedia resource that provides the science behind the disease that a health care professional is managing and an explanation of the signs and symptoms a patient is experiencing, starting at the tissue level. Its content is presented in a format that is easy to comprehend, making it an ideal introductory resource for understanding various diseases.
Introduction to Engineering Thermodynamics (UBC Okanagan)
Faculty Lead: Claire Yu Yan
Published: August 2022
14,585 Visitors (December 2022-March 2023)
Introduction to Engineering Thermodynamics is most suitable for a one-term, introductory engineering thermodynamics course at the undergraduate level. It may also be used for self-learning of fundamental concepts of classical thermodynamics.
Current/Upcoming Projects
- Families Across the Life Course
- Disciplinary Approaches to Academic Integrity
- RxPid
- Hydrometallurgy
- Pathology: From the Tissue Level to Clinical Manifestations and Inter-professional Care
- داستان آسان (سطح پیشرفته – داستان کوتاه)
- داستان آسان ۱ – Orthography of Persian
Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education Edited Volume
UBC Okanagan Library is working with an editorial team to publish a edited volume on Indigenous Knowledges and open education. Many conversations around open education (OE) focus on a Eurocentric framework of copyright and intellectual property rights that are sometimes in tension with Indigenous knowledge systems, and the goal of this volume is to centre Indigenous ways of knowing, culture, experiences, and worldviews within the work of open education pedagogy and advocacy work. The volume will be licensed a under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) through this volume with Athabasca University Press in 2023.
Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners
With the recent release of a Research Data Management (RDM) policy by Canada’s Tri-Agency, RDM has become crucially important. With a grant form the OER Fund, UBC Librarian Eugene Barsky, along with Emily Carlisle-Johnston (Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian at Western University), Elizabeth Hill (Data Librarian at Western University), and Kristi Thompson (Research Data Librarian at Western University), is contributing to a Canadian RDM Open textbook. Each section will cover the fundamentals of RDM that have been identified as necessary by RDM practitioners and instructors. The resource will be peer-reviewed, copy- edited, and published in French and English via Pressbooks.
Redesign OER for the Learning Commons Website
The Learning Commons website is an evolving collection of student-curated learning resources to support academic success and wellness. With a grant from the OER Fund, UBC Librarian Alexandra Kuskowski, along with Emma MacFarlane (Learning Commons Coordinator, UBC Library) Lucas Wright (Senior Educational Consultant, CTLT), and Rie Namba (Educational Resource Developer-Open Resources, CTLC) are working on redesigning and developing Learning Commons student toolkits in H5P to make them more easily reusable and accessible, so that they could be easily embedded to other websites, Canvas courses, or other educational resources.
Foregrounding Indigenous Perspectives: Community and Collaborator Affinities and Conflicts in Open Education
UBC librarians Erin Fields, Kayla Lar-Son, and Donna Langille, along with Olenna Hardie (University of British Columbia) and Ann Ludbrook (Toronto Metropolitan University) are embarking on a new collaborative research project that aims to address a fundamental problem in how open educational practices approach Indigenous Knowledges. Together, the group will identify gaps in the open education communities’ understanding of Indigenous perspectives through surveys of OER creators and interviews with Canadian Indigenous faculty, academic educators, librarians and others involved in the creation of OER and OER initiatives at various universities and colleges.
UBC Library worked closely with faculty to incorporate open pedagogical practices into courses, engaging students as active participants in open knowledge creation and circulation. The following highlights open pedagogy projects in 2022/2023.
- UBC Library Vancouver supported APBI 490- Indigenous Land and Food Systems zine creation assignment. Students were asked to develop a zine on Indigenous food systems and share them with community partners.
- UBC Library Vancouver supported ACAM 320 – Health of Asian Diaspora in Canada Wikipedia-based assignment. Students were asked to perform a gap analysis, select articles, and edit to improve Chinese Canadian representation in Wikipedia articles.
- In fall 2022, UBCO librarians Christian Isbister (Indigenous Initiatives Librarian) and Donna Langille (Open Education Librarian) supported an open pedagogy assignment with zines for INDG 404. They offered a one-hour instructional workshop on Indigenous knowledges, intellectual property law, copyright, open licenses, and zines. Students were asked to create zines on topics related to Indigenous rights and share them at a zine fair in the Sawchuk Family Theatre at the end of the semester.
The Open Education Librarians on both the Okanagan and Vancouver campuses participate in a number of provincial and national committees and working groups to improve awareness, engagement, and funding potential for open education.
Brtish Columbia Open Education Librarians (BCOEL) Steering Committee
Member: Erin Fields, Open Education and Scholarly Communications Librarian (UBC Vancouver), Donna Langille, Community Engagement and Open Education Librarian (UBC Okanagan)
Both Open Education Librarians at UBC participate in BCOEL, a supportive community for British Columbian librarians to learn about open education practices. BCOEL is currently working on an open repository using OER Commons to share teaching, learning, and administrative materials related to open education.
CARL Open Education Working Group (OEWG)
Advocacy Working Sub-Group Member: Erin Fields, Open Education and Scholarly Communications Librarian (UBC Vancouver)
This year the Advocacy Working Group developed a National Framework for Open Educational Resources in Canada with 14 faculty members, librarians, and other education representatives, to advance discussions and facilitate, where possible, coordination on advocacy work at the federal level. The document is currently being used to inform and support the activities of the OER National Strategy – Stratégie nationale en matière de REL group when in discussion with federal bodies.
COPPUL Open Educational Resources Standing Committee
Chair: Erin Fields, Open Education and Scholarly Communications Librarian (UBC Vancouver)
The Open Educational Resources Standing Committee’s role is to identify and understand the intersections between the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) working groups and committees and open education initiatives and practices. The committee will make recommendations to the Board and Directors on Open Educational Resource initiatives.
Open Educational Resources National Strategy
Contributors: Erin Fields, Open Education and Scholarly Communications Librarian (UBC Vancouver)
Kayla Lar-Son, Indigenous Programs & Services Librarian (UBC Vancouver)
Written and reviewed by a diverse group of open educational resource practitioners and experts from Canada’s post-secondary education system, and intended to facilitate cooperation and coordination by OER stakeholders with regard to national OER advocacy, the National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources in Canada (CARL, 2023) outlines a series of arguments and considerations for involvement of the federal government in the area of OER.
As we look to the future of open education in the library, we recognize the importance of campus policies, recommendations, and granting opportunities that will directly impact educational resource selection,use, and creation within the classroom. We will work with faculty to address these directions through engagement with open education and open practices.
OER Campus Grants
Okanagan
The ALT-2040 Fund provides funding and support to UBC Okanagan faculty who wished to adapt or create open educational resources. Projects supported by the fund within the OER stream will be announced in the near future.
Vancouver
UBC Library is a full partner in the development and adjudication of the OER Fund. This past year the 3 OER Rapid Innovation Grant were awarded and 9 Implementation Grants. See funded projects.
Policies & Recommendations
Student Affordability Task Force Recommendations
In March 2022, the Student Affordability Task Force, consisting of Vice-President Students (Vancouver), Associate Vice-President Students (Okanagan), Provost and Vice-President Academic (Vancouver), and Provost and Vice-President Academic pro tem (Okanagan), published their Report and Recommendations. In this report, the use of open educational resources is cited to help minimize the cost of education materials (p.10).
