Building a Future of Open Education at UFV

Written by Shaun Sun, Janelle Sztuhar, and Claire Hay

The UFV Library and Teaching and Learning are excited to announce the Open Education In-Action Initiative (OEIAI), funded by a BCcampus Institu tional Open Education grant and additional funds from the Office of the Provost and Vice President, Academic. This project will help UFV create its first official Open Education Strategy and expand the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) across the university. OEIAI has 4 interconnected projects: open education strategy, ZTC implementation plan, Open Education Micro Grant program, and the creation of an Open Education website.

As part of this project, Dr. Shaun Sun (Mathematics and Statistics) has been appointed as the Open Education Strategist until April 2026 working with the existing open education team of Janelle Sztuhar (Library) and Claire Hay (TLC). Dr. Sun has been using open resources in his statistics courses since 2018. He has taught more than 20 sections of STAT 106 with free open-licensed textbooks, meaning students paid nothing for books. He developed a comprehensive question bank to support several Open Licensed textbooks, and he is also the recipient of the UFV Open Education Faculty Fellows grant for his work in this area.

Shaun is supporting the development of an Open Education Strategy through extensive outreach and consultation over the Fall 2025 semester. Shaun (and other members of the team) are visiting Faculty Councils and drop-in coffee conversations to engage with colleagues on elements of a strategy related to open education, teaching, and research/scholarship. Consultations with students, including support from UFV-SUS, will also take place. Look out for consultation opportunities at a faculty council near you or check out our coffee conversations. You can also provide your ideas directly in this Padlet.

Over the last five years, UFV has made great progress with open education. Faculty and staff have created and adopted OER in many courses, providing financial savings for students and giving them better access to learning materials. With the OEIAI, UFV will move from small projects to a bigger plan that supports all students and educators.

A big part of this work is the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) program. Starting in Fall 2025, students can already see which courses do not need a paid textbook when they register. In the pilot semester, 220 course sections (of 1550 total sections) were marked as ZTC. This initiative will build an implementation plan to grow ZTC to even more courses and programs, helping students save money.

The OEIAI is also supporting faculty through the Open Education Micro Grants Program (OEMGP) and create two student assistant positions to bring student voices into the work. UFV is currently running a 3rd round of our OEMGP! These programs will support 6 short-term projects (Sept. 1, 2025 to Mar. 15, 2026) to create, develop or modify open education resources to be used in UFV courses as well as similar courses elsewhere. The OEMGP will provide funding for Open Education Student Assistants to help faculty/staff supervisors with their projects.

The goal is to have UFV’s Open Education Strategy ready to launch during Open Education Week, March 2-6, 2026. With this step, UFV will continue to lower costs for students, support innovative teaching, and make learning more accessible for everyone.

The following resources provide information on open education at UFV.

Open Education In-Action Initiative

Open Education Resources

Open Education at UFV video