This past year, TLC and UFV Library have been working on supporting Open Education initiatives at UFV overseen by Martin Warkentin and Janelle Sztuhar (UFV Library) and Claire Hay (TLC). This is a growth area for UFV with about 25% of all Winter 2023 sections offered with ‘no textbook required’ options for students.
Open Education Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are created with the intention of being freely available for anyone to use – educators, students, and the public. They may include, but are not limited to, textbooks, readings, multi-media files, software, assessment tools, lectures, syllabi, and even entire courses. Most are covered by licenses that allow for using, re-mixing, and sharing, such as Creative Commons.
To support growth in this area, funding opportunities for faculty creating OER have been available through the Open Education Micro Grants Program funded by UFV’s Strategic Initiatives Fund from the Office of the Provost. In the 2023-24 round of funding, six faculty OE projects received $2500 to support an Open Education Student Assistant.
These projects were:
- Faculty of Health Sciences
- EDI, Indigenization, and Accessibility updates in a nutrition OER for undergraduate students: Project Lead: Luisa Guiles
- Faculty of Science
- Open Educational Resources (OER) Adoption for Biology 105 : Project Lead: Gregory Schmaltz
- College of Arts
- The Global Development Case Study Collection: Project Lead: Chelsea Klassen
- Faculty of Education, Community, and Human Development
- A review of existing/related open education resources: Trauma-informed conversations about mental health issues related to extreme weather and climate events: Project Lead: Leah Douglas
- Faculty of Applied and Technical Studies
- Creating a quiz/assignment bank for PHYS 111 (Mechanics): Project Lead: Jeff Chizma
- Faculty of Business and Computing
- Workplace Health and Safety Activities: Project Lead: Masud Khawaja
Congratulations to all faculty and students involved in these projects.
In the spring, UFV hosted an Open Education Resource Sprint as part of OE Week 2024. This event partnered UFV Library and TLC members with faculty interested in open education. This session provided information on OER and included refreshments and time to connect. Thanks to BCcampus for funding to support this initiative. We were also able to support the UFV Food Bank through this event.
The Student Union Society has been actively advocating for implementing a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program at UFV. A course can be labeled as a ZTC if it fully utilizes Open Education Resources (OERs) only. This allows students to know the full cost of their education ahead of time when planning their courses. We are committed to mitigating barriers such as textbook affordability for our students and we have begun working alongside the Library, the Teaching and Learning Centre, and UFV to do so. We thank folks for their collaboration on this project, and we are hopeful that together we can impact the lives of our students through this advocacy initiative. Alongside ZTCs, we are also advocating for syllabi to be available to students at the time of course registration. This will help students to make more informed choices about their courses when preparing for their upcoming semester. We encourage faculty to fill out our short survey pertaining to ZTCs and early available syllabi: Survey Link.
(Submitted by Roxy Granikovas, VP External UFV Student Union Society, contact vpextenal@ufvsus.ca)
If you are interested in Open Education, there are other ways to get involved. Contact us at openeducation@ufv.ca to join the Open Education Working Group with our next meeting happening at the end of the Fall 2024 semester. And join us for Open Education Week activities from March 3-7, 2025, happening on UFV campuses. For more information, drop us an email at openeducation@ufv.ca.