Written by Claire Hay
UFV Library and Teaching and Learning continue to support open education initiatives at UFV. We are excited to launch a dedicated Open Education website. This resource provides information for the broad UFV community (faculty, staff, administrators, and students) on open education including: UFV’s Open Education Strategy, benefits of open education, UFV’s Zero Textbook Cost initiative, and accompanying resources. We hope that this website will support UFV in learning about open education.
We are also excited to welcome a new member to the Open Education team. Maggi Davis is joining us as the new Open Education Coordinator. In this role, Maggi will support open education through administrative support, events and other key initiatives. You can reach Maggi at openeducation@ufv.ca. There are also temporary changes to the Open Education team. Claire is on sabbatical for the Fall 2026 semester and Janelle is on leave until Fall 2027. Maggi will be able to direct your request as needed so please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Following the formal launch of UFV’s first Open Education Strategy in March 2025, we are excited to bring this strategy to life. In this strategy, UFV commits to the principles of open education including accessibility, openness, collaboration and sharing, learner-centredness, inclusivity and equity, and flexibility and sustainability. In this strategy, UFV commits to:
- Supporting open educational practices
- Expanding high-quality open educational resources
- Building an open education community
- Recognizing open education in teaching and scholarship
- Partnering with students
- Advancing Zero Textbook Cost initiatives
- Strengthening partnerships and sustainability
We invite members of the UFV community to think about ways they can include open education principles in their work. As UFV President and Vice Chancellor, Dr. James Mandigo said at the strategy launch:
“Open education is fundamentally about more than textbooks or digital resources – it is about who has access to learning, who gets to contribute, and how knowledge is created and shared. By advancing open educational practices, UFV is reaffirming that knowledge is a public good, and that education should be accessible, inclusive, and responsive to the communities we serve.”
For support and assistance, the Open Education team can help you with:
- Finding and evaluating open educational resources (OER)
- Adapting, revising, and using OER in your courses
- Understanding copyright, Creative Commons licences, and open publishing
- Sharing your work through UFV’s institutional repository, HarvestIR
- Workshops, consultations, and professional learning opportunities
- Integrating open pedagogy into your teaching practice
- Developing open education projects and identifying funding opportunities
- Connecting with colleagues through the Open Education Working Group
Contact us at openeducation@ufv.ca.