UBC Library Open Education Impact & Activity Report
2023/2024
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, 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 2023/2024.
- 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 2023/2024: 76
Consultations by Campus & Department
Okanagan Departments
- School of Engineering UBCO (1)
- Irving K Barber School of Sciences UBCO (2)
- Southern Medical Program (1)
Vancouver Departments
- Arts (24)
- Faculty of Medicine (12)
- Other (3)
- Applied Science (6)
- Forestry (1)
- Science (7)
- Nursing (1)
- Pharmaceutical Sciences (14)
- Kinesiology (2)
- Education (1)
- Social Work (1)
Number of Open Education Consultations by Type
UBC Library organized 23 events with 847 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.
Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back
248 participants
In this Open Education Week keynote talk, Cory Doctorow discussed how the collapse of the internet into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of text from the other four” wasn’t inevitable. From privacy to harassment to garden-variety ripoffs, the internet’s degradation was the result of identifiable policy choices that can – and must – be reversed. Learn how they broke the internet – and how we can fix it.
Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education Webinar Series: The Practices of Indigenous Knowledge in Open Educational Resources
224 participants
The principles of OER can be in tension with Indigenous Knowledges that are deeply rooted in community defined ethics and protocols and relationships. The Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education Webinar Series focused on building knowledge, supporting a space for discussion, and engaging both theoretically and practically on how open education (OE) and Indigenous Knowledges can intersect in a respectful way.
The series of three open webinars covered 1) issues, concerns, policies, and approaches to Indigenous Knowledges and OE; 2) case studies of current Indigenous OER development across Canada; and 3) Indigenous student perspectives on the value of Indigenous OER.
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 91 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
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 30 faculty and staff members and their OER efforts in an event hosted at the Great Hall in The AMS Student Nest. 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 6 projects, 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 30 texts, 6 of which were developed in 2023-2024, including:
Building Resilient Rural Communities – Responding to Climate Change & Ecosystem Disruption (UBC Vancouver)
Faculty Lead: Centre for Rural Health Research and Rural Health Services Research Network of BC
Published: March 2023
3,389 Visitors (August 2023- July 2024)
The goal of this work is to outline the realities of climate change in rural Canada, specifically in reference to health and healthcare delivery, but also, and arguably more importantly, we hope to inject a sense of optimism and a way forward into the discourse. We have highlighted the contributions of a number of rural physicians and medical students because we believe the medical profession has an important contribution to make in responding to the threats of climate change and ecosystem disruption.
Indigenizing the Japanese Language Curriculum
– Materials to Introduce the Ainu Culture in Japanese Language Classes (UBC Okanagan)
Faculty Lead: Nina Langton
Published: August 2023
867 Visitors (August 2023 – July 2024)
The Ainu are the Indigenous Peoples of Japan who have traditionally lived in the northern island of Hokkaido, the north part of Honshu, and several islands and territories north of Hokkaido in what is now known as Russia. This online textbook aims to introduce (or deepen knowledge of) the Ainu to students of the Japanese language, and to invite students to reflect with care on the history and contemporary situation of both the Ainu and the Indigenous Peoples in other colonized cultures.
Current/Upcoming Projects
- Ecosystem Modelling with Ecosim (EwE)
- User Guide for Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE)
- Aqueous Pathways: The Principles of Hydrometallurgy
- Discipline-based Approaches to Academic Integrity
- But I Live Educators’ Resource
- Grimm’s Fairytales – A Reader (Title TBD)
- Community Engagement Programs and Events Toolkit
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 titled, Research Data Management in the Canadian Context – A Guide for Practitioners and Learners. 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 2023/2024.
- 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 PPGA 591C Lind Initiative Seminar – Pop Politics: Making Cultural Lives and Livelihoods in the United States zine creation assignment. Students were asked to develop a zine based on the lecture series offered through the Lind Institute
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, Open Education Librarian (UBC Okanagan) (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), Donna Langille, Open Education Librarian (UBC Okanagan)
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.
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.
Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources Webinar Series & Summit
The Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources Summit was held on February 22, 2024 at the University of British Columbia. The purpose of the summit was to bring together Indigenous and OER stakeholders to discuss issues related to federal advocacy for Indigenous open education, with a focus on developing principles establishing how Indigenous OER should be appropriately and respectfully created, collected, protected, used and shared.
The Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education Webinar Series was developed to provide vital background to support participants at the Open Education Summit: Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources. The series of three open webinars covered: 1) issues, concerns, policies, and approaches to Indigenous Knowledges and OE; 2) case studies of current Indigenous OER development across Canada; and 3) Indigenous student perspectives on the value of Indigenous OER. The sessions were held in February 2024 with a total of 224 participants. The sessions were recorded and can be found – https://www.carl-abrc.ca/advance-teaching-learning/open-education/oewg/
The Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources Summit and webinar series was brought to you by by the Open Educational Resources (OER) National Strategy group, with financial support from eCampus Ontario, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, University of British Columbia Libraries, University of the Fraser Valley, and Campus Manitboa, the Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries, York University and McMaster University.
Conference Presentations
- Fields, Erin, Hardie, O., Langille, D., Larson, K., and Ludbrook, A. Foregrounding Indigenous
Perspectives on Open Education (October 16, 2023) OEGlobal 2023 - Fields, Erin, Hardie, O., Langille, D., Larson, K., and Ludbrook, A. Foregrounding Indigenous
Perspectives on Open Education (November 7, 2023), Open Education Conference 2023
Publications
- Engle, Will and Erin Fields (March 2024) “Critical Information Literacy and Open Pedagogy “in Scholarly communication librarianship and open knowledge. Association of College & Research Libraries.
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. In 2024, 2 ALT-2040 OER stream funds were awarded and this past year 1 ALT-2040 OER stream fund was awarded. See funded projects.
Vancouver
UBC Library is a full partner in the development and adjudication of the OER Fund. This past year the 2 OER Rapid Innovation Grant were awarded and 6 Implementation Grants. See funded projects.
OER Excellence and Impact Awards
This year was the inaugural OER Excellence and Impact Awards. The awards, a collaboration between the Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, UBC AMS, SUO Okanagan, UBC Vancouver and Okanagan Library, are teaching and learning awards that recognize outstanding work done by faculty at both UBC campuses who materially advance the use and impact of open educational resources in credit courses at UBC. The award program consists of one individual and one team-based award of $5,000 each year per campus.
Congratulations to the 2024 OER Excellence and Impact Award recipients. Learn more about their work.
UBC Vancouver: Individual Award
- Suborna Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Forest Resources Management Department
UBC Vancouver: Group Award
- Trevor Campbell, Associate Professor, Statistics
- Tiffany Timbers, Associate Professor of Teaching, Statistics
- Melissa Lee, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Statistics
- Joel Östblom, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Statistics
- Lindsey Heagy, Assistant Professor, Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
UBC Okanagan: Individual Award
- Bowen Hui, Associate Professor of Teaching, Computer Science
UBC Okanagan: Group Award
- Tamara Freeman, Associate Professor of Teaching, Chemistry
- W. Stephen McNeil, Associate Professor, Chemistry
- Riley Petillion, Educational Consultant, TA and Student Development, Centre for Teaching & Learning
