CETL Blog

Camosun Story #50: Tia

Tia is a Student Navigator at Camosun.  If you didn’t know it, there are two Student Navigators in the School of Access (as part of the Assessment Centre), and they do amazing work!  Tia tells me that Student Navigators “help students who have difficulty working through Camosun’s processes or finding information. Sometimes they need help with admissions, registration, financial aid, accommodations, or counseling, myCamosun and our website. They could be a new student, a registered student, or somebody who has been here with us upgrading, or taking College level programs.  We help students navigate to all the college resources and sort out myCamosun.”  What is important to Tia is that “students don’t have to wait.  We answer our phones and texts and get right back to students, where other service departments are often too busy or short-staffed to do this.”  What I liked most was Tia’s description of how Student Navigators build strong and lasting relationships with the students they support.  For example, “I’m working with students in their second or third year of a business degree, students who I might have helped get into Sheet Metal eight years ago, so we have a connection. They know they can text me and get a quick answer. They’ve got a connection to somebody at Camosun.” 

I asked Tia what it was like for her back in March 2020 when we all suddenly moved to remote work.  “When we were sent home, I grabbed a laptop from IT and picked up a second monitor. Then I asked for a cell phone because we spend a lot of time on the phone with students. Our amazing admin team in the school of access made all this happen almost seamlessly.”  Tia also discovered an unanticipated benefit from moving support online: “for the first time in years, I felt safe. We work with a lot of people who aren’t necessarily ready to be at Camosun, and suddenly I felt I could deal with anybody because I was safe at home behind the screen.”  She also echoed what I am sure resonates with many others: “I’ve worked at the college for 32 years and I have never been that busy.” But she told me the main source of the increased demand was for upgrading which “skyrocketed with people stuck at home, wanting to finally get their high school diploma.” 

Unlike many faculty, Tia didn’t have to adapt to new online systems to communicate with students – she used email, phone, and texting, commenting on how much young people like to text.  For Tia it was simply about communicating.  Communicating with the student, with registration, with departments, and about being available and “confirming to the student that we are here. You can’t walk in and see us, but we’re here for you. And making sure, even if you didn’t have the answer, you always got back to a student, letting them know when they could expect to hear from you again.”  Tia said that the average phone call with a student was around 45 minutes because they had so many questions, but it was easier to give each student complete attention “because I wasn’t trying to serve anybody else. I wasn’t having to get up and get a key for somebody or get somebody the stapler or load the photocopier with paper. My focus was totally on that student or their parent.”  

Unfortunately, Tia notes that we did lose some students during that time online, “those students that looking for a day program, who might come into the Help Centre to spend the day working on the computer puttering away at some upgrading. We lost a lot of those students because they didn’t understand how to pick up a laptop or a WIFI hotspot, and then didn’t have anybody at home to help them with that laptop.”  But Tia did say that those students are beginning to come back, although “we don’t have the same amount to face to face we used to – they’re coming back but it’s different.” 

Tia mentioned a couple of challenges to me which speak to the complex world post-secondary institutions now find themselves: first, not enough services going back to previous in-person availability. For example, services like Financial Aid (currently only at Interurban) and Registration (currently only at Lansdowne) now have limited in-person hours for students because they have moved much of their service online, which is great for some students but can be challenging for others. “Now if students need Admissions and are at Lansdowne, they have to use an iPad to talk to Admissions at Interurban” which can be challenging if the student is having a financial conversation in a space where others can hear them.  We have to remember those students taking courses in the evening, those with jobs that don’t allow them to take breaks during limited registration hours to talk to someone, students who find using technology challenging (for example scanning documents), or students who are new and unsure of how to navigate Camosun’s systems.  That ability to walk in and talk to someone in person is something we probably don’t want to lose. 

As for the second challenge, there seems to be a disconnect between what students are wanting and needing for online courses, and what some Schools are adding as options.  Because of a reluctance to offer high-school equivalent math and science courses online, Tia has found herself having to send students to other institutions where they can take those courses in a mode that works with their busy lives.  “We’re asking a student to come to Lansdowne five days a week, two hours a day to get a Math 12 course. And many of these are high achieving students – they know what they need and are just trying to get admission requirements out of the way so they can take our programs like Nursing, Sonography, Radiography, etc.”  One thing we need to remember as a college now is that not only do many potential (and existing) students have jobs and families, and many don’t live in Victoria anymore and we will lose (and have likely already lost) those students if we can’t find ways to be more flexible. 

One other challenge Tia mentioned was how assessment for entry to Camosun changed when we all moved online. “Students used to do their assessments in person, but we couldn’t do that anymore and we didn’t know when or if we could move back to in-person.  The folks in Assessment worked really hard and brought in Examity (an American company) to support online assessments, but students suddenly had to pay $25 US to take a Math or English assessment.” In addition, at the beginning there were a lot of challenges with the system (for example how the booking system worked – students would book time to receive a voucher which they used on the Examity website to book the time for their assessment…confusing)!   But again, the Assessment Centre group persevered to make the process clearer. “We fielded many, many calls and questions from panicked students, but now the system is smooth, and students have the choice to come to campus or complete their assessment online. The staff in the Assessment Center are brilliant.” 

Through all the challenges, Tia has found some rewards.  “For me, it’s the relationships we’ve built with Financial Aid, Admissions, and Registration – I really feel like we’re working as a team. While there was reluctance to have Student Navigators in the beginning, now we have a good relationship, we see real value in what everyone is doing, and we are working well for the betterment of the student. That is a huge win for me.”  And associated with this is that by moving a lot of support away from in-person, we “got rid of a lot of paperwork. We used to ask a student to fill out a piece of paper and take it to their instructor to sign it so that they could get into a class after the add drop date. The students were running all over the place with this piece of paper, but they were intimidated to ask an instructor. So now I can just talk to the instructor and ask them to send Registration an e-mail giving permission and boom, it’s done. There’s no paperwork and the student hasn’t had all that stress.” Another win that is being kept moving forward.  

Tia works hard to advocate for students, and one of the lessons learned from the past couple of years is that if you keep advocating you can make changes that better support students trying to get into Camosun. I would add that if you listen to students, you can find new ways of doing things – ways that might push you out of your comfort zone or challenge existing systems, but that address student needs. “If we’re going to survive as an institution, we need to listen to our customers. For example, an evening course shouldn’t start at 4:00PM – an evening class shouldn’t start until at least 6:00PM. Especially if you’re asking them to come to campus.  If this is a student who leaves work at five o’clock in Langford and is supposed to be an evening class at 4:00pm, it won’t work for them.  Don’t have a Biology class that has students on-campus two days a week at 9:30AM, and two days a week at 2:30PM. Who can fit that into their schedule?  We need to work more at being student focussed.”  To which I would reiterate Tia’s earlier points about services and online course offerings.   

Tia’s advice for anyone finding themselves pivoting to online support services?  “Just help each other. If someone asks you questions, do whatever you can to help them succeed in their job.  I’m all about the sharing.  If you learn how to use something, show somebody else. That’s my big takeaway, especially when we were working remotely without those coffee room chats. Just share information, attend workshops where you can, and hear other people’s perspectives. And be patient, be kind with each other, and have confidence that you will learn it, even if you might not get it today.”  

Camosun Story #49: Sybil 

Over the past year or more I have been sharing stories from Camosun faculty about their move to online teaching during the first 2œ years of the pandemic.  Last month I facilitated a discussion at our Walls Optional workshop with some of those faculty and as we wrapped up our session, I began to reflect that there are more stories to share.  As I left for a walk after the session, our Director, Sybil, asked if I would interview her, and I replied, of course!  And so here is the first in a series of stories from a variety of other perspectives, still stories of the last few years, but through different lenses.  Sybil is retiring at the end of May this year, and I want to thank her for taking the time for speaking to me in what must be a last tumultuous month for her, and to thank her for leading the Library and Learning Services for these many years. 

We started our conversation as all my conversations with faculty have started: tell me what it was like for you when everything moved online back in March 2020.  “I had been on vacation and recall coming back to a growing sense of anxiety at the college.  People were asking me what’s going to happen?  We started in the library with more hand sanitizers and signs about good hand washing technique, but you knew that there was something more coming. Then on that Saturday, I think it was March 12, college leadership senior leadership was called to a meeting with the President to talk about what we were going to do the next week, everything from, moving online, what would be required, what communications were needed, what about our clinical courses, are the supports ready from eLearning, do people have adequate equipment at home. Everything from operational to education delivery to supporting students.”  I should pause here and tell you that Sybil oversees (at the time of this writing, as she is retiring soon) the Library, our Writing Centre, and the Centre of Excellent in Teaching and Learning (of which my unit, eLearning, is a part.)  So here she was, trying to manage not only “the group of people responsible for getting things online, but also perhaps the most important space at the college for students. And it’s not just space, but it’s computer access. It’s about printing, it’s about Wi-Fi, it’s about their reserve textbooks.” 

That initial week everyone was in crisis mode.  “Information was constantly changing, hour to hour to hour, so my concern was keeping everybody informed and also making sure they felt supported and not like they were alone out there.”  Sybil recalled at one point watching Trudeau speaking to the nation in our large meeting room in the Lansdowne library.  “Usually, we would all come into the meeting room with lots of chit-chat, but this time you could sense the apprehension, the fear, and the worry. But watching Trudeau you felt connected to something that was happening globally which I think was just really important.” 

As the week went on, our group (eLearning) moved our operations to remote work.  It made sense for what we do, and as Sybil noted, we had huge demands on our time as faculty and students moved to online teaching and learning. But we weren’t just fielding questions about online teaching, but also has “people needing to talk because of their fear and the worry and you were filling that dual role of supporting somebody in the moment but also being really clear and providing the information and support they needed.”  But while we were navigating our own workload remotely, “the college was still open, including the libraries.”  Sybil told me that those were the hardest days for her.  “I remember talking to my colleagues, particularly at UVic, what while classes moved online, everybody else was still on campus. And the libraries actually became busier because some students had nowhere to go.”  Gradually, however, the libraries began to reduce hours and eventually the Interurban library was closed, and some staff moved to Lansdowne.  Then Sybil had to close that library down as well. Sybil told me that this was an especially emotional moment for her because no one knew what was coming.  “I remember thinking, the next time we’re altogether, people could have experienced loss. Whether it’s two weeks or a year, we will come back and be different. It was one of those moments of feeling so connected and yet also feeling so alone.”   

While that first part of March was so very emotional, Sybil knew she had a responsibility for the people working for her, as well as for students who still needed the library to complete their coursework, “from making sure people had the equipment they needed and proper Wi-Fi access at home, to emotional support for people. And of course, layered onto that were personal worries, about my mom who’s 90, my sister who works in an emergency department, my brother who lives in the States. Everything slammed you all at once.” 

What happened next?  Well, lots as it turned out.  “We made printing free for students right away. We started doing books by mail.  I worked with IT and my colleague Evan the director of Student Affairs to provide clear information to students about a whole range of things related to technology. It was an opportunity for us to bring our expertise together and work in collaboration to rethink how to maintain our operations and support students.  Fortunately, we had a lot of good systems already in place, so thinking about how to we make good use of them and level them up. For example, in eLearning we had three major tools in place, tools the department already had comfort with and expertise in, so thinking about how to use them to their full capacity rather than looking for something new.  Another example was how we took our existing interlibrary loans system and adapted it to provide books by mail on a larger scale.”   

Communication and connection were also key for Sybil.   “We collectively met a lot in those early days, first daily and then weekly.  Those meetings served a number of purposes: one to break down feelings of isolation, and two to hear points of view about what was going on, to see what connections you could make and what the possibilities were.”  Sybil likened these meetings to emergency operation centres, as one place where all the communication happened.  “There was so much energy in hearing that everywhere everybody else was flat out, that gave me the inspiration, motivation to continue to do that response, response, response.”  Eventually things settled, “it wasn’t really settling or acceptance, but you could see that this was going to be the way we would be operating for a while.”   

We talked a bit about this strange place we are all finding ourselves in right now, transitioning from COVID response to something not quite the same as it was pre-March 2020 “I am a huge fan of William Bridges’ work about managing transitions, and the hardest time is the in-between from what was to what will be.  When we were in it, as hard as it was, it was very clear what we needed to do: make sure instructors could, on a day-to-day basis, deliver the courses to students and make sure students were supported in every way possible so they could complete their schoolwork.  But now we’re in this transition.”  To what?  Some people call it the “new normal”, a term Sybil resists.  “Normality to me suggests what the majority wants – it doesn’t recognize the diversity of the community.” We agreed that, in fact, we have been forever changed by the past two years. Sybil likened it to something Neil Postman wrote about technological change.   “He said, technological change is not additive, it’s ecological, and it changes the whole nature of what you’re doing.”  In other words, there is no going back to what was before. 

I asked Sybil what she thought her biggest challenge was back in 2020.  She told me “There are two aspects to my role as a leader that I found really hard. First, I felt this huge responsibility for everybody’s well-being. I worried how everybody was doing knowing that people in my area were working flat out. I probably beat myself up too much about it, feeling that I wasn’t doing all that I should or could. Second, I found during the pandemic, I felt some of my ethics, values, and beliefs being challenged.”  For example, trying to balance issues around privacy when trying to apply a technological solution to a pedagogical problem – namely adopting proctoring software to enforce academic integrity. In addition, Sybil struggled with ensuring marginalized students had equal access to education, “knowing that some students, and some instructors, fell in between the cracks as we celebrated our pivot to online. It doesn’t matter that 70 percent of us were okay; the impact on that 20 or 30 percent left behind was huge, and there was a group of people that were lost.  So yes, for me it was how do I maneuver through this while maintaining my strong beliefs and not put aside the things that I care about. I think sometimes in a crisis, values can be eroded, so you have a responsibility to stand up even more for them.” 

But through all the challenges, there were rewards as well, and for Sybil, she was most proud of the fact that “we were able to open the libraries safely back up to limited hours in September 2020, well ahead of many of our colleagues around the province. Students had access, they could get a bus pass safely, they could borrow a computer or Wi-Fi access, or they could come in if they needed a space to work.”  Sybil remembers one student who told her if that if hadn’t been for the libraries being open, he would not have been able to continue going to school.  In addition, she recalled the accolades the teaching and learning group were receiving.  Sybil even reminded me about the amazing video the English faculty created to thank the eLearning group for all their support.  “Those moments were just so powerful, hearing from instructors over and over again. Every time I would go to an educational or senior leadership meeting, they would tell me people in CETL are rock stars.  As much as it was so hard, I think those moments showed how we, in our department, share those values and principles about delivering quality experiences, and how we have that ethic of care and empathy around the work that we do. We meet people where they’re at and help them move along. I saw that over and over and over again because everybody had a strong personal commitment to a principled and values-based approach to the work. That that’s what got us through. It wasn’t because we just were technical experts, it was because we were strong and shared that same set of values and principles about doing our work.” 

Sybil reflected a bit on some of the lessons learned over the past couple of years.  “When you push yourself emotionally, physically, intellectually, you realize what we are all capable of. I think so often in the ease of the day-to-day we don’t let ourselves blossom and flourish, but when you’re pushed to the edge, you see what’s possible. As hard as it was, we knew we could do it.  There is a Rumi poem that says, ‘out beyond the wrong-doing and the right-doing, there’s a field. I’ll meet you there.’ We were in that field for a good number of months, and being in that field, anything was possible.” 

Sybil has some words of advice for other leaders finding themselves in similar situations: “never underestimate the importance of clear communication and communicating in multiple ways. You need to be seen and be available and be heard.  I made up a service continuity plan in fall 2021 when Omicron was coming, because you need to know, if you have a number of people sick, what your priority service will be: this is what we stop doing and this is what we have to keep doing.  If I was to continue, I would dust off a service continuity plan every year. It could be another global pandemic, with climate change many other things could happen and it’s important to have a solid plan.” 

As we wrapped up our interview, something Sybil said really resonated with me: “I don’t subscribe to the belief that COVID happened for a reason, but I believe we have to find learning and lessons from it. If you read about the pandemic of 1918, we find the same fears and worries, but we came through it. We as humans do learn from experiences and we go on, even though it’s so scary in the moment. But we will get through this. I hope people take the time and read some of the stories that you’re documenting. It’s not just about the practical things, like service continuity plans, and leveraging the technology tools you have in place.  You also need to listen to and remember and reflect on the human stories because that’s where we learn.” 

Camosun College Open Sustainability Project: My Final Reflection

As you have read about here before, in 2019, Camosun College (via a proposal by Sybil Harrison, Director of the Library and Learning Services, and Nannette Plant, from Special Projects, Continuing Education and Contract Training) received an Open Education Sustainability Grant from BCcampus, and in turn funded eight projects to develop or redevelop courses using Open Educational resources. The project brought together 11 faculty members, as well as librarians, copyright experts, instructional designers, curriculum developers, indigenization specialists, graphic designers, multimedia support staff, and others to work on the projects.  Not surprisingly, unexpected events pushed the completion deadlines for these projects to the end of April this year (2022), but despite all the challenges our faculty grant recipients faced moving their regular teaching online during COVID, they still found time to dedicate time to redesigning their courses by adapting and creating a wide range of Open Educational resources (OER) – everything from websites, to open textbooks, to online open homework/test banks – to support their students. 

Now that the project has been “completed” (in so far as the final report has been submitted and some of our grant recipients have reflected on their open projects in this year’s Camosun Showcase publication,) I wanted to take a few moments here to reflect on my own journey over the past almost 3 years. 

First, let me express my immense gratitude to the people involved with this project.  To my Director who invited me in as project manager and supported me throughout.  To the faculty who engaged fully in this work despite overwhelming challenges they were already dealing with.  To my colleagues in eLearning and CETL who supported me and this project while they also navigated a world where everyone suddenly needed their help. To the librarians, our copyright officer, graphics designers, students, and all the others who supported in so many ways.  And of course, to BCcampus for awarding us the initial funding and to our college for contributing matching funds.  I want to make clear that the rest of this piece is in no way meant to negate or ignore these amazing contributions to Open Education at Camosun College. 

But now, I must acknowledge that I struggled with writing this reflection.  I wondered, is it because it’s not just about me?  Am I having trouble separating my journey from that of the whole group?  That would be an easy (and good) answer.  And that’s partly it.  But the other part comes from the me that asks: “What now?”  This project has given me purpose, hope, and the sense that I am doing something useful, not only for the project folks but also for the institution more widely, and I don’t want to lose that. But I can’t do it alone, even if my workload was solely dedicated to Open Education. This project has made me realize how important Open Education is.  I mean, I understood that in theory before, through extensive reading, and from listening to provincial groups and colleagues engaged in Open Education work, but I hadn’t added it to my plate.  Well, it’s there now – no taking it back. 

While we made it successfully to the end, this project was not without its challenges.  One big one was, of course, COVID which exacerbated any and all issues that are typical in a large project like this.  But the more encompassing challenge was (and is) that there is no one person at Camosun who is fully assigned and dedicated to working with Open Education.  Our librarians, of course, engage in Open Education work, and my understanding is that there is one librarian who has Open Education as part of her workload.  Additionally, my Director (and sponsor for this project) is a huge champion of Open, and some of the faculty in the project had worked with Open Educational resources in the past.  But Open Education inevitably becomes off-the-side-of-the-desk work when you have innumerable competing priorities of supporting students, faculty, and entire units of employees who were all just trying to keep from drowning during and after the “Great Pivot” to online that was imposed by the pandemic. 

One of my main responsibilities as the Open Sustainability project manager was keeping the project on track when everyone was so busy – and to be honest, at times it felt like I was all alone in that struggle (and yes, I mean struggle).  I know that’s not a completely fair assessment as people were working hard to keep not only their projects, but their regular work going the best they could under difficult circumstances, but I’m one of those people that needs to hear something back when I send an email.  Anything.  A note to say “thanks – I’m busy but I’ll get back to you soon” so there were times I wanted to just give up and let the project die. 

I’ll pause for a moment here as I know maybe people wanted this reflection to be a rah-rah of excitement and patting ourselves on the back for our accomplishments.  Don’t get me wrong; we did some amazing things. But, well, nothing in life is rah-rah all the time, and if we don’t acknowledge the sticking points, the pain, the struggles, we can never learn how to do better next time.  So, here are some of my take-aways at this moment in time (who knows what they might be in 6 months or a year
) 

  1. We need to listen to students more.  Do your students buy their textbook(s)?  How much of it are they reading?  Are they able to keep the textbook and use it for future reference?  Do they have to make choices around buying texts or eating? Are we truly engaging in equity, diversity, inclusion, indigenization if we are using resources that don’t include diverse voices and perspectives? Do our students see themselves in our courses? 
  2. Program/Department groups need to have conversations about how they are serving students and supporting their faculty to support students.  Some faculty, especially term faculty, feel they can’t take the leap into OER because other faculty teaching the same course, or courses that ladder from the ones below, won’t support the addition or creation of new resources. CETL can help you think through how to incorporate OER into your program and courses – so include us in your conversations! 
  3. The college needs to do better by its faculty and its students.  Developing OER, especially a complete open textbook, much like developing a good online course, takes TIME!  It cannot be done off the sides of desks or only during a Scheduled Development (SD) period, even if that SD time is 100% dedicated to it. Release time, grant opportunities, collaborative development are all models that have been used successfully at other institutions.  Let’s take a closer look at what others have done. 
  4. And finally, we (faculty, instructional designers, librarians, etc.) need to have more support from the college so we can dedicate time to this work.  It shouldn’t rest with only one librarian or one instructional designer – someone needs to be coordinating Open Education work at the college, and this is NOT a part time job.  We learned in this project (no surprise!) that it’s not only librarians and instructional designers who know stuff about open, but so does the Copyright officer, faculty (who are already using OER with little to no support), students (who when they hear about OER want to ask for more but don’t know where to go), and so many others (think the Centre for Accessible Learning, the Writing Centre, Graphics Design, the list goes on and on.)  But who brings them together?  Who brings in the right people for the right task at the right time?  Who brings faculty together to talk about how they can engage in Open Education?  Who brings in students to talk about their experiences and to talk to them about open textbooks?  Who brings in admin to show them the benefits to students, faculty, and the college as a whole?  Who advocates and coordinates larger advocacy? 

I think that brings me to the bottom of my tank for right now.  I hope we can keep this project and our work in Open Education alive and well and moving forward at our institution because if you don’t think Open Education is the way of the future in post-secondary education, then you aren’t paying attention. 

For a little bit of rah-rah to end, here is a list of posts I have written as part of this project. 

Reflecting on where we are today as a teaching institution

I was originally planning to write a reflection on the amazing faculty interviews I conducted over the past year and to look a bit at where we are all at now, almost 2œ years since we moved online due to a global pandemic.  But last week an amazing thing happened.  Our virtual Teaching and Learning Community of Practice had a record number of participants and an amazing conversation.  Why you ask?  Well, I could posit many reasons.  For example, many of our faculty have more time and bandwidth now for discussions with colleagues, especially if they are on scheduled development time.  But what I think really sparked interest this time around was the topic chosen for this particular day and time:  student disengagement.

The article that sparked the conversation, sent in advance, was from The Chronicle of Higher Education and is called A ‘Stunning’ Level of Student Disconnection:  Professors are reporting record numbers of students checked out, stressed out, and unsure of their future. And after 2 and a half years of online, kind of in-person, fully in-person (except for the students who are sick at home with COVID or mental health issues) and faculty exhausted from bouncing back and forth, who could be surprised by this?

Some faculty I’ve talked to were so excited to get back to the classroom after being forced to teach online for a year and a half (we are talking “back to normal” last fall), but that excitement didn’t last for all of them.  Students were bouncing in and out of classes with a variety of concerns, the Centre for Accessible Learning experienced record numbers of accommodation requests, and faculty were left, often on their own, to figure out how to support students to learn the material and emerge with some success.

This, I believe, sparked the record attendance last week.  I even spoke to another faculty member who was very disappointed to have missed the conversation (he had another commitment at the same time).  What I wanted to share in this post were some of the things faculty needed to talk about.

  1. Students don’t seem to learn as well online as they do face to face – whether this is true or not, do we do a good enough job of preparing them for the realities of learning online and teaching them the skills required to be successful in online delivery?
  2. Technology is distracting (and some is designed to be distracting) and addictive, but there is an expectation of being able to bring in and use technology in the classroom.
  3. But technology is sometimes necessary to support students and enhance their learning – how do we find the right balance?
  4. There is a perception that students are not engaging in in-person classes – one faculty member said she related to a quote from the article where a student said, “I want so badly to be active in my classroom, but everything still feels, like, fake almost.”
  5. There is a disconnect when students come to post-secondary from high school – is it just the COVID grads? Do we need to provide more formalized learning skills courses for new (or all) students?
  6. Student absences are disruptive to the flow of the course and faculty are struggling with how to engage with all students whether they are present or not.
  7. Do we do students a disservice by accommodating them endlessly and not holding them to account for deadlines? Are faculty spending too much time teaching basic “adulting”?
  8. It’s not just students. Faculty (and I would add support staff as well) feel disengaged and like they have lost the ability to concentrate fully.
  9. Some faculty feel like they have lost the ability to teach.

In my opinion, based on many, many conversations with faculty, and hearing from them in the Community of Practice, faculty need more opportunities to talk about their struggles and questions and experiences, as well as space to brainstorm ideas on how to address student disengagement and faculty burnout – to hear from others what they’ve tried (both what worked and what didn’t).

But in addition to peer-to-peer engagement (with both faculty in their programs and outside), faculty also need opportunities to engage meaningfully with administration around their experiences over the past 2Âœ years. Only then can we work together to build potential solutions. If we are to support students where they are at, and where they want to be (and listen to their needs for more flexible options to fit their lifestyles – and let’s be frank:  if we don’t listen, some of those students will go elsewhere and can we really afford that given the fiscal restraints we are all facing in post-secondary in BC?) we need to support faculty AND the other folks at the college who support faculty and students.

Coming back was not coming back to “normal”.  That ship has sailed, and we need to negotiate a new world, not bury our heads in the sand and hope to pop up back in 2019.

NOTE: I want to thank my colleagues in CETL and the facilitators of the Teaching and Learning Community of Practice for their comments and editorial suggestions for this piece.  We are stronger in community!

A Conversation with Brian Lamb about the Open Educational Technology Collaborative (OpenETC)

Brian Lamb is the Director of Learning Technology & Innovation at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), and he is one of the founders of the Open Educational Technology Collaborative (OpenETC) here in British Columbia.  I wrote about the OpenETC in a previous post, but here Brian and I talked about how the OpenETC got started, and some visions they have for the future.

I’ve known Brian for awhile but was really interested in where the idea for OpenETC came from.  He began “I’ve been active in open education for most of my time in EdTech, going back to the early 2000s and always thought the open web was a great place to connect with people in other places, share materials, reuse other people’s materials, and collaborate.  So, when this thing called Open Education began to take form while I was at UBC, I was able to get support to bring in blog and wiki platforms for the institution.”  But then he moved to TRU and “was confronted with the reality of IT departments who are tightly strapped for resources and rightfully wary of people coming in with a boutique project”, because so often people start up projects, work on them for awhile, then move on leaving IT holding the bag.  While they had a WordPress installation at TRU, it was quite locked down and didn’t do what Brian needed it to do.  He started up something on his own, but quickly realized that being the admin for a service that he wanted to grow was not sustainable.

But Brian had a network to draw on.  “As I talked to people at other institutions, I knew that other people were in the same position, for example Grant Potter at the University of Northern British Columbia and Tannis Morgan at the Justice Institute of BC who was doing amazing work with her team at the Justice Institute.  So, we thought, rather than all of us struggling individually to run three different WordPress installs, we should pull our resources together and get one good one.”

Brian, Grant, and Tannis spent some time considering different models of hosting.  They knew that they wanted a space where they could innovate and collaborate.  They started small, collaborating on a WordPress platform they kept fairly small and private, but then were able to get some shared hosting space from BCNet. “That was a huge shift for us because it allowed us to be more open with the platform because we finally had FIPPA-compliant hosting.  At that point it started to grow and that’s when we started to think we had a model that we could extend to other people who might want to use these tools.”  And that was the moment OpenETC was born.

While WordPress was the main tool the OpenETC started with, they knew other applications were in the same boat with regards to institutional need versus lack of support.  “We’re always playing with things. Grant is the most experimental tinkerer of the group, and he’s brought several things to the table that we’ve played with internally, some of which we brought on (Mattermost) and some we decided not to move forward with. One of the things he brought forward early on was Sandstorm.”  While unfortunately the developers have not continued to support Sandstorm (which allowed people to run applications without having to install them locally), “that model is very powerful and it’s still our dream, to have a wide range of applications available for people throughout the province to take and run – open applications without third party surveillance.  Applications where people can determine the level of privacy they want and have the autonomy to run themselves. We’re still playing with those models but haven’t quite found the framework that we can share widely
yet.”

So, who is the current team supporting the tools they have and with new tools potentially on the way?  Brian tells me that while it can be a bit fluid, there is, of course, Brian himself (as one of the founders).  There is also Troy Welch, a developer on the team who works with Brian at TRU. But it’s a reciprocal relationship, and while Troy works on elements for OpenETC, he shares those back to TRU, “and other people build things that we can also bring back to TRU.”  In addition, OpenETC has support from BCcampus, and BCNet hosts their WordPress service via EduCloud.  Then of course Grant Potter (another founder) at UNBC whose WordPress use case was one of the drivers for the creation of the OpenETC and Tannis Morgan who was at the Justice Institute when she started with OpenETC and is now with Vancouver Community College. “The Justice Institute has done amazing with their open WordPress sites, and I wanted to be able to see how they build their stuff, to go into the back end and see what themes they chose, what plugins they used, how they configured them, etc.  There’s so much benefit in that kind of sharing.” And in addition to this initial group, “Anne-Marie Scott joined us while she was still at the University of Edinburgh. She happened to be in Vancouver when we were having an in-person event and we invited her along because her group at Edinburgh, in my opinion, may be the best EdTech unit in the world.” She is now a Deputy Provost at Athabasca University and an integral contributor to our planning and operations.  And of course, Clint Lalonde from BCcampus gradually became more and more involved as well. “We’re starting to expand now. First of all, anyone who shows up on Mattermost who is engaging with the other participants and the tools, if they want to say they’re part of the OpenETC, that makes us happy.” Then there are people who represent institutions.  “We’re starting to expand that group but doing it mindfully in a way that doesn’t spin out of control.  For example, bringing people like you, Emily, and Ian Linkletter from BCIT and Liesel Knaak from North Island College – you’re the people who are doing the most, especially institutionally.”

Other organizations have also supported OpenETC.  “We haven’t really talked about the role that ETUG (the Educational Technology User Group) plays. Even though there’s not an official relationship between OpenETC and ETUG, I don’t think OpenETC would have worked if ETUG didn’t exist. Because ETUG has created this cohesive community where we share with and help each other. It’s because of groups like ETUG and BCcampus, who emphasize openness and ethical practice as core values, that we have been able to do this work. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the people that are most active in the OpenETC are the same people that have been active in ETUG for years.”

You might be asking yourself, is OpenETC just for BC?  Brian told me that if you understand the model of sharing, we have in BC, supported by ETUG and BCcampus, which in other places seems to be an incredibly radical thing, it really is a natural reflection of the culture that’s evolved here over a long period of time.  “Sometimes we’ve had inquiries from people in other provinces about OpenETC. And from a technical point of view, creating your own OpenETC is no harder than setting up your own WordPress server, but how do you develop that culture? A lot of the things I’ve learned through ETUG we try to embody in our OpenETC practice. We don’t talk about it very often because I think it’s just understood; it’s just a shared set of values.”

When I asked if Brian was surprised by the way OpenETC has taken off in the community, he told me “I expected people would use the tools because there was a gap people were struggling with. What I’ve found most amazing is the quality of work being done with the tools. It’s so satisfying to see people at other institutions doing work that they couldn’t have done if not for OpenETC – that’s the coolest thing in the world. I love seeing committed Edtech people, who care about the ethics of what they do, doing such interesting things on the open web. And if you give them some tools and a little bit of help, what they’ll do with it never stops being amazing.”

But institutional collaborators don’t just bring themselves to OpenETC; they also bring students.  “It’s always been a given that whatever we make available, we want it to be able to work for students – if it’s something only a specific group of people can use, then it’s not really meeting our purpose. The thing with students is some of them can jump in right away, but the majority of students have never worked with tools like these before. I think that’s a big reason why a lot of faculty are wary of adopting new tools because they know they’re going to spend a lot of time supporting students, so we’ve tried to make the sign-up process as smooth and self-serve as we can.”  And they are still working on making the onboarding process smoother, including having more clonable starter sites in WordPress so students (and others) don’t have to start with a blank site.  That way “they can feel reasonably good about showing their site to people quickly without having to learn how themes work.”  But what Brian really likes about WordPress is that students have the control to change themes, delete and add plugins, widgets, design their sites the way they want to. And Brian is also, as he says, “selfishly excited to see the work students are doing with WordPress”.

I asked what the future holds for OpenETC (and I confess, I was asking specifically whether or not they were considering bringing on a Wiki or other collaborative tool) and Brian assured me that they are having discussions, but don’t want to raise expectations.  “We know that Etherpad is an extremely popular application, so we’re probably going to launch that as a stand-alone application which works well for collaborative writing. We’ve talked about Wikis, and if there was significant demand for wiki-like collaborative spaces that Etherpad couldn’t meet, we would have to look at that. We’ve been playing with a framework called Cloudron, which is like an advanced version of Sandstorm in the sense that it lets you deploy apps and includes a number of pretty interesting Wiki applications, but we aren’t sure that it is the right framework for us.”  But Brian is interested in creating a kind of middle-ground for more robust and server-intensive applications, where access is limited to those people at institutions who support educational technology, who can then support people at their institutions.

Then there is H5P.  “I think one of my dreams is to find ways to make H5P a little easier to support. We’ve talked about creating a dedicated H5P-enabled WordPress theme where we could embed sharing tools and user documentation. It’s been really cool to watch how H5P has been used across the province and I would love to find way to promote and support more activity with it.”  Of course, the challenge for Brian and others supporting OpenETC is that this sort of development work is not part of their regular jobs and “unfortunately, a lot of this work ends up being off the sides of all our desks, which is not the way it should be.”  Brian would also love to find ways to make it easier for people to share their work across the OpenETC network.  “My dream would be to improve discoverability and shareability of H5P objects across sites. And I hope one day to create a framework where you can share your own work more easily.”  He has some ideas but thinks this is where the community could really help, because the potential from sharing H5P objects is immense.  “We still have a long way to go, but where I think the future of OpenETC will come from people doing do more on the platform and contributing back. If we have more people doing that, we can start to incorporate what they do to make it better.  We’re better now already because of the participants, but I really think we’re just starting to see the payoff of wider collaboration across the province.”

As participation and community collaboration grew, it became evident that perhaps OpenETC should adopt some terms of use guidelines.  While OpenETC hasn’t been confronted with abuse of content or copyright violations yet, the community began asking about a code of conduct for OpenETC. “Ian Linkletter had developed a code of conduct for his Mattermost installation at UBC, so we adapted his model for our code of conduct and Clint Lalonde did a really good job of facilitating a wider community conversation and getting feedback and input on it. We might not have done it then without that help, but it was something the community wanted, and they were prepared to put in the work to make it happen.”

I asked Brian if OpenETC has seen a lot of growth when COVID hit back in 2020.  But he reflected that it’s hard to know because they had been growing before that point and it’s hard to know what the difference would have been without a pandemic pushing everyone online.  But numbers of users are not nearly as important or interesting to Brian as seeing unique and interesting applications of the tools from around the province.  That being said, with more people signing on, “we hired someone to tighten up the on-ramping for the WordPress clone tool, and to set up better reporting tools so we have a more effective way to look at growth in accounts over time and where they originated.  But, while we’ve definitely seen growth, I’m not sure how much we would have seen without COVID and I’d like to believe the work we did to make the platform more accessible, and our regular development plan would have brought people aboard under any conditions.”

As my discussion with Brian drew to a close, I wanted to express to him how much the OpenETC has supported me and my work with faculty and students at Camosun.  I was able to set up WordPress sites on the fly to support people during COVID, and have introduced many faculty, program groups, and students to the wonders of setting up their own WordPress sites, and even working with H5P.  And I also reflected, and continue to reflect, on more ways I can give back to the OpenETC community.  Brian was kind enough to assure me that we at Camosun have been contributing back, saying “we have just been so thrilled to see the work you’re doing, the way you’re giving back, and onboarding. That idea of ‘contributions, not contracts’ has become one of our slogans, and you’ve really grasped that right from the beginning. And I just want to say how much we appreciate how you’ve taken that idea of contributing back seriously.”  And I want to say that OpenETC makes it easy, and safe, to play and share back.  OpenETC is without a doubt one of the most collegial, supportive, and collaborative groups I’ve ever worked with.  I hope to be a part of this community for a very long time!

What’s New in eLearning?

This post is dedicated to all those faculty with heads down marking and assessing and supporting students who were unable to attend our workshop this week.  Here is a snapshot of what is new, changing, etc. with some of our supported educational technologies here in eLearning!

Team Dynamix (TDX) Support portal

Need help with one of our tools?  Want to have a DEV site set up or arrange for other faculty to have access to a Master course site?  Trying to make an appointment with an Instructional Designer?  You can now reach us through our eLearning TDX support portal.  And don’t worry if you don’t see your issue listed as a specific option – there is a “My Issue is Not Listed” option for you.

Kaltura is taking a trip to the Cloud

Since we first onboarded Kaltura (you may know it as MyMedia in D2L) at Camosun, it has been graciously hosted by UBC.  But now, it is moving to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud in Montreal this summer.

Benefits of cloud service:

  • Faster to upload, edit, save videos
  • More frequent system updates and access to new features
  • More robust and direct support

When: May 15-July 15

Phase 1: April 20-May 15 

  • Faculty and students to delete unnecessary videos
  • Save time and money

Phase 2: Migration begins 

  • My Media will be fully operational to users
  • No deletions in this period
  • Playlists will not migrate – make sure to contact eLearning Support if you need help re-creating playlists after the migration
  • Embedded content, media galleries and video quizzes will all migrate
We don’t anticipate any issues, but are asking faculty and students to delete any videos they don’t need before we begin migrating videos on June 1st.  Important note: If you delete a video from My Media it will also delete that video from wherever you may have embedded it or from any Course Media Gallery it has been added to or shared with, so be careful. Once the video is deleted it cannot be brought back. Instructions for how to delete videos.
If you think you might need them in the future download videos from My Media to your device before you delete them. Instructions for how to download videos. Students, you can find My Media under My Tools at the top of this page. If you have any questions or need support, go to our Kaltura TDX support portal.

REV captioning service

We know editing video captions can be a long, arduous task, but we have brought in a captioning service, REV, to help.  You can request access to REV through our TDX service portal, but first, ask yourself:

  1. Are these videos reusable learning objects?
  2. Are these videos short instructional videos?
  3. Are these videos full class lectures (for example from Collaborate?)

If you answered yes to 1 and 2, you are good to go – REV is being reserved for videos that have a clear instructional purpose and will be used long-term.  If you answered yes to 3 (or are unsure if your videos fit into any of these purposes), please stop and contact an Instructional Designer to talk more about how REV should be used.

Final Grades Export (D2L to MyCamosun)

As some of you already know, you can now export final grades from D2L to myCamosun.  The main benefits to this for you are saving time, and reducing errors which sometimes happen when transferring grades by hand.

For help:

We are turning off the Message tool – what alternatives are there for student to student communication?

As you know, we have already had to limit email use to between students and instructor only due to privacy implications as a result of the D2L integration with Colleague.  As a result, student to student interaction in D2L was limited to the Message tool, or to Discussion topics or Collaborate sessions which have to be set up by instructors.

Unfortunately, we have also encountered complications with merged sections which has meant that as of May 1 we  are disabling the Message tool.  There are some upsides to the way we will be handling merged sections in D2L moving forward, meaning you will be able to sort your Gradebook by sections directly rather than having to set up Groups to sort your students, which will also make the grade export to MyCamosun go more smoothly.

If you are looking for ways to support student interaction in D2L, you can create group discussion topics, create a Collaborate space for them, or you can enable Chat on your navigation bar.  Review our tutorials Customizing your Navigation Bar and Customizing your MyTools Menu for information on how to add a tool to your navbar.

D2L Rubrics enhancements

I’ll keep this one brief.  You can now add multiple rubrics to an Assignment dropbox.  You can use any of the attached rubrics to assess individual students (using a toggle function), but only ONE can be used for a grade directly.  That being said, you could use both for general assessment and manually override a grade in the grade box.

In addition, you can now export a rubric to a PDF.  For instructors, this is only available in the Rubrics tool and appears as a Print function when Previewing a Rubric.  You can use the print function in your browser to print a graded rubric for an individual student.  And students can print graded rubrics using a Print function when they view Feedback for the assignment.

D2L Discussions Evaluation Experience update

If you are assessing discussion posts, you will notice that the assessment interface now looks like the one in the Assignments tool.  The tutorials Assessing Topics in Discussions shows you the new interface (starting on page 6.)

Reminder:  Set Quiz Accommodations in the Classlist

Finally, we want to remind you that if you have a student requiring quiz accommodations (more time), you can set this up on a student-by-student basis in the Classlist, rather than having to set Special Access for each individual quiz.  See the tutorial Setting a Student’s Quiz Accommodations from the Classlist for more information.

Camosun Faculty Story #48: A conversation with Monique and Deidre about redesigning the BEST Program

In the midst of the amazing discussions I have been having with faculty over the past year and a bit, I was hearing stories of the BEST (Building Employment Success for Tomorrow) Certificate program at Camosun College, a seven-week tuition-free program.  You may remember BEST from reading Diane G’s and Val’s stories – both faculty members in the program (and we mustn’t forget their third member, Allyson, the Instructional Assistant for BEST.)  Well, I knew from previous conversations with colleagues that the BEST program had gone through a program review right before the pandemic hit, and I wanted to hear from Monique (a fellow Instructional Designer in eLearning) and Deidre (an Educational Developer in the Curriculum Development and Program Renewal unit) about their experience with the BEST program review.  Now, full disclosure: I interviewed Deidre and Monique quite some time ago, and since then the BEST program has been “discontinued,” but not really – it will be reappearing under the name Education and Career Planning Certificate Program soon, but with the same amazing faculty and dedication to meeting learners where they are at.  

And meeting learners’ needs led to discussions around how best to offer the program: continue with in-person or explore blended and online modes, and online became a strong contender.  Deidre and Monique recalled that the impetus for taking the BEST program online came from a desire to reach more people.  “The conversation sparked out of a desire to drive up enrollment – could it be offered in a different delivery format that would encourage people who were working, etc.  They were looking at ways to reach more people because it’s the only program of its type.” 

Of course, moving a program online can be met with trepidation and BEST was no exception.  “There was real fear about going online because the program is community-based and takes a very personalized approach, including one-on-one coaching.” But the BEST faculty were curious and keen to explore what opportunities online might bring. As the program review started, “we were starting to develop online components, not necessarily for full online delivery, but more of a gentle start helping them to become receptive to a hybrid approach.”  But then, March 2020 hit and any options involving in-person instruction flew out the window. 

Luckily, as noted, the BEST group had already begun to develop online materials, and in addition an already vetted open resource was available through BCcampus.  But while content wasn’t much of an issue, Monique told me that “the challenge was that each module of the program generated its own D2L course with students enrolled in each of those courses discretely. So, we had to merge those courses right away, then fit them into a larger framework within D2L.”  Rebuilding the courses into one whole was an overwhelming task within the sudden shift to online, but the team jumped in and started working.  “We merged the courses and they worked on a course map to guide students through the online materials.  Then because it’s such a short program, they surveyed students every Friday about how they were experiencing the program, and every week we would meet and tweak the program.  Then for each following iteration of the full program we would make more substantive fixes.”  And those weekly meetings continued for the duration of the pandemic.  Finally, last June, they were able to take a breath and redevelop the program into a week-by-week structure to make it easier for students to navigate in the online format. 

What Monique and Deidre really wanted to emphasize for me was the team effort of the BEST group.  “They divided and conquered and were open with each other, always giving constructive feedback. I would say they were high performing. It was nice because Allyson is very technical, so she understood the need for a structure and version control, while Diane really grabs onto the vision of the program, and Val is the cheerleader.” 

Once BEST settled into its new online mode, the program review process had to be picked up again, which happened in May 2020.  At that point, Deidre says, “they had to decide whether to articulate at the provincial level which had implications for the learning outcomes. There was discussion about how to structure the program and we landed on four courses (there used to be five) which felt better in the overall structure. Then we spent a lot of time redeveloping the learning outcomes and identifying which courses they wanted to include.”  And by May, the group knew that students were embracing their online instruction, which helped inform the program review going forward. 

But while BEST emerged as a seven-week course with four modules, the way students complete the program is not by doing one module at a time, but by working on all four modules simultaneously.  As Monique put it “if you’re doing labor market research, you’re doing it for the full seven weeks, not just in two weeks. The content all needed to be integrated as a kind of spiraling curriculum.”  And as Deidre pointed out, “BEST isn’t a typical program in the Camosun sense of the word, and while I think we ended in a good place, it was not a linear process to get there.”  

One of the things that has made the revision of BEST a success is the support from leadership, specifically the Dean and Associate Dean of the School of Access.  “All the pieces were aligned going through the program review cycle – in addition to Curriculum Development, they brought eLearning in at the beginning of the review process and had leadership behind them all the way. They ended up with the right people on the team.” 

So now, we have a tuition-free, seven-week program with four discreet modules, operating as one course using open educational resources, and taught entirely online. But Deidre reminded me that “they’re not teaching a subject; they’re teaching people confidence building and self-belief.  They’re teaching about growth mindset and all those intangible things like self-leadership. I think it’s amazing that that they’re able to build this community online in a safe place for people to share and grow.” And in only seven weeks. In addition, Monique adds that the BEST team “worked to Indigenize the curriculum as they went. Because the Indigenous ways of learning are how you build community, representing the core values of the program which is about developing from the inside out and building community where everyone has a story and grows at their own pace.”  

Monique and Deidre reflect that the biggest reason BEST was challenging to put online was this emphasis on building community along with the personalised development piece, the pieces that make BEST a transformational and life-changing program for students.  But by taking a risk, BEST has opened its doors to many more students than it could have reached by remaining a solely in-person program.  Deidre says “The BEST team jumped off the boat into deep water and they swam. They more than just swam; they did the butterfly. They didn’t just dogpaddle, they were doing backflips off the high diving board.”  Their dedication to the BEST program’s underlying principles, to trusting in others to guide them into the online environment, as well as working with students to get feedback on what was working and what wasn’t as they trialed the online course, has created a solid foundation for success.  

Open Education Resources

Good morning, post long weekend.

I was talking to a faculty member this morning about OER and Open Education, and as I put together a list of resources for her, I thought I would share them with you as well.  I hope these are especially useful for those of you getting ready to integrate OER into your courses for next term!

General/overall information and links to collections, etc.

OER “courses”

Open Pedagogy

And there is so much more out there!  But hopefully for those of you just starting to explore, these resources will give you a start.

Camosun Faculty Story #47: Sue

Sue is an instructional designer and one of my colleagues in eLearning (part of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) at Camosun.  I wanted to speak to Sue so she could tell me, and you, about her experiences supporting faculty when we all moved to online teaching in March 2020.  On a personal note, going back in time to when we in eLearning were working long hours helping faculty and students navigate this new world brought back feelings not just of exhaustion but also of the excitement we felt as our faculty colleagues began to see first-hand the benefits of online teaching, something we have known for years.   

One of Sue’s passions is accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL).  In fact, she was a co-author (2015) of the BCcampus Accessibility Toolkit.  Sue tells me that while eLearning had offered some workshops on accessible design and had some accessibility tools available in D2L (namely ReadSpeaker) prior to March 2020, when everything moved online “challenges around accessibility hit people like a brick wall and I think we had one of our greatest teachable moments possible for digital accessibility.  We saw more awareness around issues students were having enhanced by the fact that faculty themselves didn’t have the right infrastructure to teach online.  That shared lived experience, of a sudden lack of access impeding your ability to do something, well you can’t manufacturer that.”   

Sue also reminded me that we had enabled another online accessibility tool just prior to the pandemic, BBAlly (aka Ally) which we turned on across D2L in June 2020.  “We were barely through wrapping up the pivot term when we turned BBAlly on across the system and as a result, I have had way more interest in accessibility workshops and learning about UDL skills since 2020.” But the accessibility tools we had incorporated into our D2L system turned out to have a broader impact, beyond, for example, simply converting text-to-speech.  “We learned that Textaid was also a great asset for our language programs. Faculty teaching Japanese, Spanish, and Korean were able to use TextAid to support some spoken and written assessments that they had struggled to do even before COVID.” 

In addition to accessibility tools, our streaming media service, Kaltura, had only been enabled for a year or so and “we went from barely having started to use it to an exponential production of videos, which quickly shone a light on the poor quality of auto-captioning in services like these. While many faculty recognized that this bad video captioning needed to be fixed and wanted to do that work, they were overwhelmed, sometimes to the point of tears, by the work this added to their already heavy load. That was the motivation to rattle the cage for some professional captioning support.”  And now, we have access to a captioning service, REV, to assist faculty with their video captions in Kaltura.   And as Sue notes again, good video captions are not just useful for people with hearing impairments.  “You can watch videos in locations where you have no sound capabilities, students have access to a searchable transcript for study purposes, etc.”  

In terms of assessment, Sue recalls faculty struggling with assessment methods that would not work in a fully online environment.  Instead, they needed to ask “what if I provided more options for students to be able to complete the assignment? What if instead of a time-based test it was a take-home exam? Some Faculty were looking at their assessments with fresh eyes for the first time in years. Coming up with alternate assessments exemplifies UDL by exploring flexibility in the way we get students to show they’re engaged.  I think that this focus on alternative assessments, in one of the biggest shifts to UDL we’ve seen.” 

While Sue wonders how much less stressful the move to online teaching would have been if content had been built with accessibility and UDL in mind, she says, “there is no going back from the spotlight on accessibility and the awareness that’s been developed around the tools to support accessible design. I think we raised the baseline a bit, and while we’re still going to have new people who are not there yet, I’m confident that most faculty can, and will, use these tools without the trepidation they may have had before.”  

When talking a bit about rewards Sue has seen over the past two years, she tells me “I am more aware of the multi-dimensional challenges each individual student is dealing with because I’m dealing with them more myself too.” This also means that while she had to press pause on the UDLProject she was working on pre-COVID, “these past two years have provided much additional material for that project that I couldn’t have even imagined.” And building from that awareness of what overwhelmed students were experiencing, well she found herself supporting faculty who were similarly overwhelmed from trying to support those students. “I had to meet faculty members where they were at, trying to make things work for that individual in the moment realizing they were just keeping their heads above water. So, if I can help you to achieve this thing that’s more important than even you know at this moment, let alone how you would do it in the future, well, like any new language you learn the vocabulary, then you put the words together, and then start to build sentences. When you talk about accessibility and UDL, you can find a point of entry and then build thoughtfully from there. I think the way we were all meeting faculty where they were at was in many ways a UDL model of support.” 

If there was one shining moment for Sue, “I think coming out of this we have forged a tighter bond with our colleagues in the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) and that we now have the foundations from which we can continue to build a model of collaboration in our teaching and learning community. We are all committed to creating good online learning experiences for students and faculty, and because we work with so many different groups, we’re in a position to influence change. So having CAL be more of a partner, for me, that’s amazing and is a model other Post-Secondary Education institutions should take note of.”  And what really resonated for me was Sue’s comment that, as a result of increasing online options at the college, “we’re a three-campus college now and we in eLearning sit mostly on this third campus. We need to make sure that we are supporting students and faculty fulsomely and accessibly in this third campus environment.”   

When I asked Sue what some of her biggest lessons learned over the past two years were, she tells me “What I have gotten out of the past couple of years is confidence that in our team we have a range of skills and experience.  There are so many skills we need to be current with: technologies, pedagogy, inclusive education, accessibility, decolonization, open education, etc., that each of us alone can’t possibly know it all.  So, it’s a huge asset to have, say, a colleague who is deeply focused and committed to bringing open education practices, examples, and opportunities to the college. I can both participate in those and continue to develop my expertise so I can work with faculty, but I don’t have to be the expert in everything to recognize expertise and to draw on it.” 

Advice Sue has for anyone faced with moving to online teaching echoes what so many other faculty have said:  “Work with peers, connect with folks who have been where you are, so you are not recreating the wheel, try something small and build your confidence in lower stakes moments, and don’t feel afraid to reach out and borrow ideas from people.” We reflected a bit on how learning to teach online is similar to training for a marathon: you do it gradually, upping your mileage as you go.  “Of course, March 2020 was like running a marathon with no training, multiple times.  But in normal times, take it slow.  Oh, and get a good chair at home for all your online classes and meetings!” 

I wanted to end with Sue’s reflection on where she feels we, as eLearning and CETL, are now as a team. “We as a unit no longer face concerns about feeling left out because of being on different campuses, because we have a more universal place for us and faculty we work with, in this new, third campus.  I also have deeper relationships with faculty, some of whom I had worked with very little before, and I feel like I have a much deeper awareness of what’s going on in different parts the college than I ever did before. Even amongst our CETL community I feel like our communication and collaboration is stronger.” Our third campus has enabled and supported this enrichment, so we need to respect and nurture it going forward. 

Camosun’s Open Education Survey and Conversation Cafe Takeaways

On March 30, 2022, a group of 12 Camosun faculty and staff got together (virtually) for a conversation about open education.  In addition, 63 faculty members completed an Open Education survey in February and March 2022.  Below are a few key takeaways, overall themes, as well as recommendations for consideration.

Open Education Conversation Café Key Takeaways

This group reflected on and discussed the following questions:

  • How have you used, or considered using, Open Educational Resources (OER) to support your teaching?
  • What questions do you have about OER and Open Educational Practices (OEP) that might be preventing you from going further?
  • What are the advantages and challenges of designing and delivering OER and OEP?
  • How can we support each other to create and integrate OER and OEP into teaching and learning at Camosun?

While the majority of people in the conversation were from the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) (7), 5 were faculty who had used and were passionate about OER.  Some of the initial burning questions from participants were:

  • How do we get others fired up around adopting, adapting, and creating OER, especially when time and money (to create and adapt) are still big issues to overcome?
  • How can we support integrating OER into our Camosun systems and what options do we have for sharing and promoting for sharing?
  • How do we ensure platform independence and transferral of OER (especially question banks) from one system to another?
  • How can we be transparent with students around how adapting OER works as opposed to academic integrity/plagiarism?
  • What are the best practices for revising and reviewing existing OER? Is there a cycle? Who is in charge (BCcampus?) And how do people know when OER have been updated (and an aside – how do people integrate relevant changes when they have themselves adapted the materials?)
  • How do we overcome and/or work with Intellectual Property (IP) concerns from faculty (the idea of “ownership” versus sharing, and how to choose a licence when you want to protect the integrity of your work – due to safety protocols, traditional knowledge, etc.)

Following are the higher-level collated responses from the conversation café discussion questions.

How have you used, or considered using, OER to support your teaching? What questions do you have about OER and OEP that might be preventing you from going further?

  • How do we and departments adopt and promote the use and awareness of OER? How can we work with departments/programs to create a culture that embraces and supports OER?
  • How can we better support Term faculty around their rights and responsibilities for choosing course materials (for example, if they wish to use OER to support their teaching)?
  • How do we vet resources and look at quality assurance for OERs?
  • How can we work together to find, assess, adopt, adapt, and create ancillary resources (PowerPoints, question banks, etc.) to support the use of open textbooks?
  • How do we find out about, promote, and build on the work that has already been happening in open education at the college?
  • How can we work with students to promote awareness and importance of OER?

What are advantages + challenges of designing + delivering OER and OEP? How can we support each other to create and integrate OER and OEP into teaching and learning at Camosun?

  • Advantage: OER can be tailor-made and/or customized for a specific course
  • Advantage: Working with OER provides a huge opportunity for cross-institutional/program sharing (of resources, of collaboration, etc.)
  • Advantage: It does not have to be an “all or nothing” approach – start small, create small OER at first and build from there
  • Advantage: Saving students money
  • Challenge: Working with OER is a lot of work, requiring time and money and resources (people for support, a team, etc.) to find, vet, create, etc.
  • Challenge: Knowing who all to consider when adopting OER (copyright, bookstore, other faculty teaching the same or similar courses)
  • Challenge: Understanding how OER are updated – is there a process, who is in charge, etc.
  • Challenge: Understanding licencing and being aware of content that should not be adapted (TK, content with safety and technical standards, etc.)
  • Challenge: Represents a culture change for some (faculty, admin level, etc.)

Open Education Survey Results

Schools responding

  • School of Business: 17
  • Access: 6
  • Arts and Science: 18
  • CSEE: 5
  • HHS: 6
  • Trades and Tech: 9
  • Other: CETL 1

How familiar are you with Open Educational Resources (OER)?

How familiar are your with OER? bar graph

Full description: Bar graph showing Familiar, Not familiar at all but interested in, Somewhat familiar

Familiar

  • 1 response “No, I have never used OER in any of my classes.”
  • 11 responses “Yes, I am currently using OER in at least one class.”
  • 9 responses “Yes, I have used OER in the past by am not using any currently”

Not familiar at all but interested in

  • 9 response “No, I have never used OER in any of my classes.”
  • 1 response “Yes, I am currently using OER in at least one class.”
  • 1 response “Yes, I have used OER in the past by am not using any currently”

Somewhat familiar

  • 11 responses “No, I have never used OER in any of my classes.”
  • 14 responses “Yes, I am currently using OER in at least one class.”
  • 5 responses “Yes, I have used OER in the past by am not using any currently”

How familiar are you with Creative Commons?

  • Somewhat familiar: 28
  • Familiar: 21
  • Not familiar at all but interested in learning more: 13
  • Not familiar at all, and not interested in learning more: 1

Are you using OER in any of your classes?

  • Yes, I am currently using OER in at least one class: 26
  • No, I have never used OER in any of my classes: 23
  • Yes, I have used OER in the past but am not using any currently: 14

What types of OER have you used?

What types of OER have you used? bar graph

Full description: bar graph showing results of types of OER uses (note that numbers were challenging to analyse due to multiple selection option)

  • Open textbooks: 29
  • I have not used OER: 7
  • Multimedia:  8
  • Quizzes or tests/homework assignments: 10
  • Other: 4

If you have not used OER in your classes, can you tell us why?

Why have you not used OER in your classes? bar graph

Full description:  bar graph showing “Not aware of OER”, “N/A”, “Others/I have written my own textbooks”, “Time required to vet, adapt or create”, “Lack of peer review”

  • Not aware of OER: 8
  • N/A: 2
  • Quality of available OER: 3
  • Time required to vet, adapt, or create/Effort: 4
  • Lack of peer review: 1

Have you ever created or adapted OER materials (rather than a straight adoption)?

Have you created OER? circle pie chart

Full description: circle pie chart showing majority response “No”, second highest response: “Yes, at Camosun”, third highest response “Yes at another institution”

If yes, what types of OER have you created or adapted?

What kind of OER have you created? bar graph

Full description: bar graph showing types of OER created

  • Homework assignments:  21
  • Textbooks: 9
  • Multimedia: 4
  • Quizzes or tests: 3
  • Other: 5

Have you had support creating, adapting or using OER?

Have you had support to create OER? bar graph

Full description: bar graph showing what kind of support has been received

  • None: 28
  • BCcampus and CETL, other Camosun support: 5
  • Release time: 1
  • Pressbooks training: 1
  • SD time: 2

CETL and the library are interested in increasing OER adoption, adaption, and creation by faculty. How can we best support you to meet these goals?

How can we support you? bar graph

Full description: bar graph showing the following:

  • Establish OER working group and/or community of practice: 14
  • Information sessions: 52
  • Virtual or in-person training opportunities on OER and Open Education: 45
  • Virtual or in-person training opportunities on Creative Commons licencing: 32
  • Grant programs for faculty creating OER: 27
  • Public recognition of faculty creating OER: 7
  • Creation of written documents on OER to support faulty applications for OER SD projects: 21
  • Other: 5

Overall Themes and Recommendations

Organize general information sessions

  • Collaboration for running info sessions: CETL, Library, Copyright office
  • Provide basic information (what are OER, how they work, where to find them, where to get help)
  • Include discussions around starting small, working with others to find appropriate resources, implications for intellectual property, and why OER are important
  • Discussion of quality assurance and vetting resources
  • Clarification of authorship and information on how OER are updated (find out more about this process at least at BCcampus and implications around it)

Collate resources in one place

  • Update library Research Guide for Open – put together a team (CETL, Library, Copyright) and work on over the summer
  • Include a list of who can support OER development at Camosun, and in what capacity

Department meetings info sessions

  • Start in May/June, then Fall (collaborate CETL, Library, Copyright office)
  • Fire up interest
  • Find out who is already working on integrating OER and how
  • Answer questions

Faculty Support and Engagement

  • Workshops and other training opportunities for faculty
  • Create a list of faculty members working with OER to support each other in varying ways
  • Find ways to fund (grants?) faculty for adopting, adapting, creating, and reviewing OER

Talk to Student Society

  • Engage with students
  • Find out more about students’ perceptions of OER and provide information sessions for them (Student Society, student groups within programs, etc.)

Advocate to college leadership

  • Show student savings in $ amounts for people who have adopted OER
  • Discuss initiating grant or support (i.e., release time) opportunities for faculty to create and adapt OER