Tag: Open

Zero Textbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #6: Economics

For this sixth story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun, I am showcasing the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses in the Economics, Quantitative Methods, and University Transfer Business department.

In addition to offering service courses taken by students from across the college, this department runs an Associate of Arts Degree in Economics, which has a Co-operative education option. According to the website, “this two-year, 20-course program gives students a head start in economics, statistics, science and English, as well as a choice of electives. Graduates can choose to continue your studies, or you could find employment in academia, in a bank, within government, business, international development or research organizations.”

Several courses offered by the Economics, Quantitative Methods, and University Transfer Business department are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) with some of them using open textbooks.

  • ECON 103: Principles of Microeconomics (three sections using open textbooks)
  • ECON 104: Principles of Macroeconomics (two sections using open textbooks)
  • ECON 315: The Economics of Sport (no assigned textbook – course materials available in D2L)
  • BUS 230: Business Statistics (three sections using open textbooks)
  • BUS 231: Quantitative Methods (optional textbook only)

Some of the additional required and elective courses for the degree program also have ZTC sections, for example:

  • MATH 108: Applied Calculus
  • STAT 218: Introduction to Probability and Statistics
  • ENGL 151: Academic Writing Strategies
  • ENGL 161: Literary Genres

And finally, here is a list of the open textbooks being used by faculty in the Economics, Quantitative Methods, and University Transfer Business department.

ECON 103

ECON 104

BUS 230

I want to thank Ocean Lu, chair of the Economics, Quantitative Methods, and University Transfer Business department, and all the faculty in her area for taking the time to provide me with this information.

Zero Textbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #5: Civil Engineering

For this fifth story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun, I am showcasing the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses for the Civil Engineering programs.

The Civil Engineering department offers three programs: Civil Engineering Access (Certificate), Civil Engineering Technology (Diploma), and Civil Engineering Bridge to UBC or UVic. I am especially excited to see so many ZTC courses in these programs considering that one of the important aspects of Civil Engineering is sustainability.

The Access Certificate was designed to prepare students for the Civil Engineering Technology Diploma program. In this program, students take upgrading math, physics, and English courses, learning skills courses, as well as courses in technical drawing, graphics, and computing. Note that some upgrading math, physics, and English courses are ZTC depending on the instructor.

The Bridge programs “are unique and recognized across Canada as an excellent transition from a technology diploma to an Engineering degree (UVic) or Applied Science degree (UBC). Students study advanced topics that aren’t typically found in technology programs.”

And finally, Civil Engineering Technology, where students learn to “plan, design, and maintain structures and public works, while respecting and responding to the natural environment. For example, Civil engineering technologists assist engineers in protecting human lives at the most basic level: water that doesn’t carry disease, seismic upgrading, ensuring homes don’t flood, and building roads that are safe to drive on.”
Here are the courses in Civil Engineering that are Zero Textbook Cost.

  • CIVE131: Graphical Communication 1
  • CIVE132: Graphical Communication 2
  • CIVE141: Surveying 1
  • CIVE142: Surveying 2
  • CIVE152: Transportation Engineering
  • CIVE181: Civil Sustainability Project
  • CIVE210: Sustainability in Civil Engineering
  • CIVE251: Asset Management
  • CIVE255: Municipal Design
  • CIVE261: Soils and Materials 1
  • CIVE262: Soils and Materials 2
  • CIVE276: Hydrology
  • CIVE278: Water and Waste Management
  • CIVE282: Managing Construction Projects
  • CIVE289: Civil Capstone Project
  • ENGR166: Geology for Engineers

I want to thank Robin Ley, chair of the Civil Engineering department, and all the faculty in her area for taking the time to provide me with this information.

Zero Texbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #4: Athletic & Exercise Therapy Bachelor’s Degree Program

For this fourth story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun, I am showcasing the Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses for the four-year Athletic & Exercise Therapy Bachelor’s Degree program.

The Bachelor of Athletic and Exercise Therapy (BAET) is a comprehensive applied degree program focused on preventing, assessing, treating, and managing orthopaedic injuries and health related conditions. The BAET program equips students with advanced knowledge and skills in athletic and exercise therapy, exercise science, and high-performance sport, ensuring graduates are ready to contribute to the field of health and wellness in a variety of settings.  In this applied program, students will integrate theoretical knowledge and hands-on skills through classroom and laboratory activities in conjunction with practical development opportunities in various clinical and field settings.  Students apply foundational knowledge to the assessment and treatment of a variety of musculoskeletal conditions and injuries. Using evidence-informed decisions students design and implement conditioning and rehabilitation programs to aid individuals in their return to sport, work, and activities of daily living. Students learn to educate and counsel clients on physical, psychological, and emotional well-being, promoting a holistic approach to health and wellness. Applied learning of sports-related emergency care, physical fitness assessment and optimization, and business acumen, prepares graduates to operate a successful practice and work with a diverse population.  The BAET program is accredited by the Canadian Athletic Therapists Association (CATA). Graduates must successfully complete the CATA National Certification Examination to be eligible for designation as a Certified Athletic Therapist.

ZTC for the Bachelor of Athletic and Exercise Therapy means that the courses either provide all course materials for no cost, have recommended textbooks only, or use textbooks already purchased for another required course. With that in mind, the courses in this program which are currently ZTC are:

  • AET201: Placement 1
  • AET202: Placement 2
  • AET261: Emergency Conditions 2
  • AET273: Field Prevention/Injury Care 2
  • AET301: Placement 3
  • AET302: Placement 4
  • AET320: Human Motor Control
  • AET341: Anatomy of the Upper Extremity
  • AET401: Placement 5
  • AET402: Placement 6
  • AET411: Independent Research Project
  • AET420: Business Management for Therapists
  • AET430: Concepts of Manual Therapy
  • AET440: Anatomy of the Spine
  • AET450: Ergonomics
  • AET470: Pharmacology and Exercise
  • AET481: Clinical 3 Spine

In addition, some of the other required courses for this program (for example, students also have to take English 151, Kinesiology 135, 210, 240, Health 110, and a few other non-AET courses), may also be ZTC, depending on who is teaching those courses.

I want to thank Isabel Grondin, chair of the Athletic and Exercise Therapy department, and all the faculty in her area for taking the time to provide me with this information.

Textbooks and Tariffs: A case for Open Educational Resources and going Zero Textbook Cost – Accept the Challenge!!

If there was ever a time to invest in adopting/adapting Open Educational Resources (OER) and going Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC), it is now. According to MĂ©lanie Brunet in the University of Ottawa Library OER Program Evaluation Report, “It is estimated that textbooks prices in North America have increased by 150% since January 2000, and several surveys report that more than 50% of students do not purchase required textbooks during their studies due to cost (Florida Virtual Campus, 2022; Inclusive Access & SPARC, 2022; Stephens et al., 2024; Versluis et al., 2017; Vitez & Nagle, 2021). They find other ways to access course materials, sometimes dubiously or even illegally, or they go without altogether, risking their academic success.” And now, the increased threat of tariffs between Canada and the United States is creating fear that the price of books, including textbooks, will continue to rise dramatically, making higher education even less affordable for our students.

I discussed this issue with a group of Open Education supporters during a recent BC Open Education Community meeting, and here is what some of our colleagues at other BC and Canadian post-secondary institutions had to say:

From Columbia College: “Just last week I presented a department with the new price of their main textbook with the tariffs included. There’s a new edition of their textbook coming out this summer, so there are no used copies for students to purchase. That department is now planning to spend the summer working as a group on creating course packs and homework banks to make sure students actually have access to their learning materials. It was really a shock for them to hear how much more it would cost, and they are clear that students just will forgo having that book. The book is Successful College Writing, with the 9th edition coming out for the fall semester, and the list price is $147.99 CAD. We get a discount which works out to almost the same as our freight cost, so we are calculating the 25% on the list price and letting the freight and discount cancel each other out. That comes to $184.98. It has been our practice to add 10-15% to help cover overhead, effectively splitting our discount with our students, which would be $203-212.”

From Vancouver Community College: “Most commercial textbooks are printed in the U.S., which is a major problem for affordability due to the tariffs on goods imported into Canada from the U.S. This will increase the cost of textbooks for students, worsening the unaffordability crisis. I was asked to speak to institutional leadership about textbook affordability and the advantages of OER.”

From Vancouver Island University: “We are planning to host a panel discussion in May with the bookstore and Copyright & Open Licensing Librarian to talk about the opportunities for adopting OER in face of the tariffs.”

From Sask Polytechnic: “Our first-year business programs are converting to OER, due to strategic targeting [right time with tariffs looming.] We approached the business department at the right time with the right elevator pitch and got them to buy in.”

From me: “Remember that the cost of virtually everything (including food, rent, other course-related supplies) will be going up due to tariffs, not just the cost of textbooks. Because students will struggle even more with affordability than usual, they will need OER more than ever!”

And here is a formal statement from the University of Northern BC: “As you may know, the Government of Canada has issued a Notice of Intent to Impose Countermeasures in Response to US Tariffs on Canadian Goods. The 25% retaliatory tariff will take effect April 2nd, 2025, and this will include print books/textbooks. Unfortunately, even Canadian material is often printed and distributed by the US. The tariff will not only impact the UNBC Library’s print book collection but will also increase the cost of textbooks for students. To help our students with these increased costs to their education, we recommend that faculty consider utilizing open educational resources, open textbooks, and/or to work with the UNBC Library to obtain electronic copies (if available). The CTLT and Library can help you navigate and recommend resources for your courses that will keep costs lower for students.”

I would like to challenge faculty members and program teams to examine the price of the textbooks assigned for their courses, compare costs today with last year, and consider what would happen to those costs if 25% tariffs were applied to these books. If you assign only an e-text, that may escape the price hikes of tariffs but remember that students generally have only limited access to those books, and they are often lacking accessibility features required by many students.

Additional information about 2025 tariffs and their potential impact on the price of books

Zero Textbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #3: Community, Family, and Child Studies (CFCS)

In this third story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun, I take a look at the Community, Family, and Child Studies (CFCS) department, which offers five diploma and certificate programs along with their health university transfer courses:

The CFCS diploma program itself, which “prepares [students] to promote, support and strengthen the well-being of individuals and families [and] where graduates work as caring, ethical professionals who adapt to meet current and emergent community needs,” already offers nine ZTC courses and is committed to eliminating costly course materials for more of its courses in the future. The courses in the CFCS diploma program which are currently ZTC are:

  • CFCS110: Foundations for Practice
  • CFCS114: Professional Practice 1
  • CFCS140: Introduction to Community Resources & Supports
  • CFCS141: Service Learning
  • CFCS210: Diversity Across the Lifespan
  • CFCS214: Professional Practice 2
  • CFCS230: Support Strategies 1
  • CFCS240: Practicum 1
  • CFCS241: Practicum 2

The EACS program, which prepares students “to support individuals with acquired and/or developmental disabilities both ethically and professionally in the context of home, school, work, and community settings,” offers five ZTC courses:

  • CSEA111: Practicum 1
  • CSEA112: Practicum 2
  • CSEA115: Current Practice Issues
  • CSEA175: Ethical/Professional Practice
  • EDUC 116: Health and Disability

Finally, eight other courses in the CFCS department are currently flagged as ZTC:

  • In the ELC program, ELC160: Community Observations, ELC212: Guiding Relationships 2, ELC240: Practicum 2, ELC241: Infant/Toddler Practice, and ELC242: Inclusive Practice
  • In the IMHA program, IMHA536: Professionalism in Practice and IMHA540: Practicum
  • In the MHA program, MHA140: Practicum
  • And HLTH113: Creativity and Health

I would be remiss if I did not include links to a few stories about some of the amazing faculty in these programs:

  • Danielle from ELC who spoke about an open pedagogy project her students worked on,
  • Asha from EACS (interviewed during COVID), who has been working to move more of her courses to ZTC,
  • Robin from CFCS (interviewed during COVID) who was also a colleague of mine in CETL for two years,
  • Kristin from MHA, who is currently working on a faculty workshop related to the many challenges we (faculty and student) are currently facing in our classrooms,
  • Jessica (interviewed during COVID) from ELC who is always excited to try new things to better support her students, and
  • Michelle, who is currently the department’s chair, and is always interested in exploring new ways to offer courses and programs.

I want to thank Michelle Jaworsky, chair of the CFCS department, and all the faculty in her area for taking the time to provide me with this information.

Camosun College 3rd Annual Open Education/ZTC Recognition Awards

In times of uncertainty and change, it is vital for our well-being to find support in and gratefulness for our community and to celebrate the amazing work people around us continue to do despite challenging circumstances. So now, I would like to take a moment to recognize this year’s Open Education and ZTC Recognition Award nominees: people from around the college who have made profound contributions to open education at Camosun College and demonstrated an impact on student learning and student costs by utilizing, designing, or adapting open resources in their instruction and/or moving their courses to ZTC.

See our special Open Education News … and stuff for more information!

Access

Crystal Lomas (course developer) and Puja Gupta (project initiator, manager, and contributor), Math Community Learning Partnerships; Project: Math 097 (self-paced)

The self-paced version of the Math 097 course is an alternate to Math 12 that gives students an accessible and self-paced pathway to completing math prerequisites. Their goal was to remove one more financial obstacle for students, the purchase of textbooks, by integrating an Open Textbook and the open homework platform MyOpenMath, offering a totally ZTC experience

Arts and Science

Thomas Nienhuis, English; Project: English 151 Open Textbook creation and move to ZTC

Thomas Nienhuis teaches composition and technical writing courses and last winter decided to develop a supplementary textbook for his English 151 course. He created the book to enhance and contextualize the course grammar content, to give students something to refer to, which did not cost $130. He has also created H5P interactive practice activities for students to test their understanding of the content within the context of the text.

Larry Lee, Chemistry; Project: Chemistry 120 – moved his section of this course to an Open Textbook for Winter 2025

Chemistry 120 is a University Transfer course, and to reduce costs to students, Larry adopted an Open Textbook from OpenStax “Chemistry, 2nd edition”, by John McMurray, which also contains problem sets that can be set up in the D2L Quiz tool. Larry says “I like to give special thank-you to CETL for the workshops and assistance with webpage design as these are extremely helpful in transitioning to no cost textbooks.   This has always been the goal to achieve Universal design to enhance student learning and delivering success.”

Tara Tudor and Nicole Kilburn, Social Sciences; Project: Making Anthropology 104 ZTC

Camosun Anthropology faculty members have been working with Open Educational Resources and moving to ZTC for several years. Their latest project, spearheaded by Tara Tudor and Nicole Kilburn, was to move Anthropology 104, Introduction to Anthropology, to ZTC by creating and curating course materials and providing them to students through D2L.

HHS

Stephanie Won and Shannon Keyser, Bachelor of Science Nursing; Project: Creation and development of the Practical Nursing bridge to Bachelor of Science Nursing Program utilizing Open Educational Resources

We recognize Shannon Keyser and Stephanie Won for their hard work and leadership bringing open educational resources to the “Practical Nurse to Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing Bridge” program. Their tremendous effort and hard work have resulted in courses that use open resources to learn assessments rather than relying on historic practices of printed textbooks. They truly are pathfinders in the nursing department’s pivot towards using more of these resources and courses in the “Nursing, Baccalaureate of Science” program are building upon the work they started.

Kendal Adam, Sonography; Project: HLSC 264 – Interprofessional Practices

Kendal has adopted Open Educational Resources (OER) created by Lynelle Yutani and taken over the HLSC 264 course WordPress site. Her students created simulation/learning tools using H5P, engaging with students through Open Pedagogy projects that they will be able to leverage later when in the workforce to create teaching and learning materials themselves. Kendal as also been quietly making some of her other courses Zero Textbook Cost by moving from traditional textbooks to a combination of OER, library resources, digital modules, etc.

Learning Services

Aditi Gupta and Ying Liu (UVic Libraries), Robbyn Lanning (Library), and Natasha Parrish (CETL); Project: The open-access document and website: Culturally Responsive and Inclusive Pedagogy Toolkit.

UVic Librarians Aditi Gupta, and Ying Liu, and Camosun Learning Services colleagues Robbyn Lanning, and Natasha Parrish have collaborated on the Culturally Responsive and Inclusive Pedagogy Toolkit, an open access guidebook and website created to address structural inequalities and support diverse student populations. The toolkit includes strategies for integrating culturally responsive teaching, inclusive pedagogy, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and decolonizing teaching practices. It offers practical scenarios to help librarians promote anti-racist practices, enhance cultural fluency, and foster a sense of belonging for diverse students.

The Open Education/ZTC Advocacy Team

Finally, we recognize the Camosun College Open Education/Zero Textbook Cost Advocacy Team which brings together Open Education champions from across the institution to provide advice and advocacy for Open Education at the college. The team is:

  • Adam Maurer, Bookstore
  • Asha Rao, Community, Family, and Child Studies
  • Dean Schimpf, Academic Upgrading
  • Emily Schudel (team facilitator), Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
  • Erin Howard, Learning Services
  • Gwenda Bryan, Library
  • Haydn Lloyd, Copyright
  • Katie Waterhouse, Social Sciences
  • Michel Turcotte, Student Society
  • Michelle Clement, Marketing
  • Puja Gupta, Community Learning Partnerships
  • Robin Fast, Community, Family, and Child Studies
  • Will Meredith, Library
  • Rebekah Prette, Library
  • Rob Thompson, Ombudsperson
  • Young Joo, Library

If you would like to join our Advocacy Team, email Emily Schudel!

Zero Textbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #2: Community Learning Partnerships

In this second story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun College, I take a look at Community Learning Partnerships (CLP) “a department of the School of Access, that takes education to community-based sites to make it easier to begin or return to learning. Students learn in a comfortable environment with other adults who share similar backgrounds and get help from friendly and compassionate Camosun instructors and staff. CLP can be a starting point in getting ready to transfer to on-campus college programs.” Current CLP sites include Victoria Native Friendship Centre, W̱SÁNEĆ College, Bridges for Women, Island Community Mental Health, and Malahat Nation.

CLP offers upgrading courses in Math and English, in-person, blended, and online asynchronous. There is a long history of creating ZTC courses in CLP, especially in the math courses through the adaptation of open texts and use of the open homework platform, MyOpenMath to create problem sets that can be shared with faculty across the department. MyOpenMath is “an online course management and assessment system for mathematics and other quantitative fields. It is also a collaborative community of users. Questions and pre-built courses are all created by faculty in the user community and shared with others in the spirit of openness. Experienced users provide peer-to-peer support through discussion forums.”

Because CLP programs are tuition free for domestic students, and because faculty in CLP are dedicated to ensuring that their courses are as accessible as possible, moving them to ZTC makes a lot of sense. But like all faculty at Camosun, faculty in CLP face challenges doing this work, and one of the biggest challenges is time. Time to fine alternate zero-cost resources to a paid textbook and/or to adopt/adapt/create Open Educational Resources (OER) for their courses. And this is especially true for term faculty who do not have scheduled development time, or any development time beyond keeping up with teaching the courses they are hired to teach. While we currently don’t have options for funding or release for faculty doing this work, CETL and the library do provide some support to help faculty find resources and around how to adopt and adapt them, and BCcampus is also a great source for support around course materials and platforms for open delivery.

I want to thank the CLP Chair, Doug Harrison, and all faculty in his department for taking the time to send me this information. Now, here is a list of CLP ZTC courses from Fall 2024:

  • MATH 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026 (4+ sections of each)
  • MATH 037, 038, 039, 072, 073 (at least 1 section of each)
  • MATH 052, 053, 057, 075 (3+ sections of each – these sections also use MyOpenMath)
  • ENGL050 (6+ sections)

In addition, several course sections (including courses other than those listed earlier) are using Open Textbooks, including adaptations of open textbooks by Puja Gupta who teaches Math 052, 053, 072, 073, 075

I will be back again on a few weeks with our next ZTC at Camosun Story!

Open Education Story: Puja

Puja has, until recently when she moved into the Acting Associate Dean role in the School of Access, taught Math in both the Community Learning Partnership and the Academic Career Foundations programs. She is passionate about providing her students with access to free resources, especially since her programs are tuition free, and has adapted a combination of existing Open Textbooks for her courses. I was got to know Puja through the Open Ed Sustainability project where she worked to create an extensive math test bank in the MyOpenMath platform. Puja is also very generous with her time and her open resources, sharing them with colleagues across the college.

Puja, currently Acting Associate Dean of Access at Camosun College, has been here since 2008, starting as an instructional assistant in the math and upgrading help centres, then becoming an instructor in both the Community Learning Partnerships (CLP) and Academic Career Foundations (ACF) departments teaching upgrading mathematics and computer studies, as well as conducting math placement assessments for both CLP and ACF. But I know Puja best as a passionate champion of Open Education, working to provide her students, most of whom are in tuition-free programs, with free course materials. I interviewed her back in 2021 as part of a series of stories on the Open Sustainability project at Camosun, and last March she received a Camosun Open Education Recognition award, but I wanted to revisit her open work today.

Puja explained: “For a long time, I guided students to free online resources to support their learning because I didn’t want my students to pay to learn the basic things we were teaching. And in the fundamental Math upgrading courses, we used open textbooks. At the time, the texts we used had a few errors, but we were able to collaborate to improve them, and each term the materials got better. But while students in the fundamental courses didn’t have to pay for textbooks, once they moved up into higher levels, they were paying between $150 and $250 for a text. “It was ridiculous. Yes, some students could access Adult Upgrading Grant (AUG) funding and there were copies available for loan in our help centers, but not every student could take advantage of these options. I negotiated a lower price with the publisher of our textbook, but it was still not enough. We needed to find a way every student could access course resources for free. So, I talked with Sybil Harrison, then director of Learning Services, and she suggested looking at some open textbooks. At that time the idea was magical.” Puja spent a lot of time searching for the right open textbook. Some of the ones she found were American, lacking the Canadian context. Then in 2018, BCcampus awarded Camosun grant funding for open education, and Puja received some of that funding.

“I was doing a bit of this work off the side of my desk, but it’s hard when you’re working full-time. The grant meant I could finally focus on re-starting my hunt for an open textbook. The first one I found I quickly realized would not work for my students, but then I found another through our articulation group. This one had been authored by a colleague at another BC institution who knew the learning outcomes for our courses.” Puja filled in some gaps, made some corrections, and voila! She had an open textbook for her courses.

But since Puja taught online, she also wanted a platform where she could send my students to complete homework. That was when she discovered MyOpenMath, open platform where faculty can create and share math problems and students can complete them. “I was so pleased to find MyOpenMath. I had to learn a whole new coding language to use it, but it was worth it, and I’ve coded over 500 questions based on the open textbook I found. I can now also generate images – so if I give MyOpenMath the parameters, it randomly generates graphs and figures for the problems.”

One of the drivers behind Puja wanting to provide zero cost course resources for students in CLP is that CLP is a tuition-free program. “Students would ask, ‘Why should I pay for a textbook when the program is tuition free? It sounds like false advertising.’ In addition, I have worked in community with groups like the Bridges for Women’s Society and the Saanich Adult Education Centre (now W̱SÁNEĆ College) with students who don’t have access to additional funds for education – and for any student who wants to learn, textbook cost should never be a barrier to education.” The BCcampus grant helped Puja move towards her ultimate goal of having all the courses providing zero cost resources. “If I can make it work for one course, then we can do the others.”

I asked Puja what students say when they hear they don’t have to pay for textbooks. “Newer students don’t realize how amazing it is to not have to buy course materials – it’s normal for them. But my past students who struggled with those costs say that it’s a step in the right direction.” And when those students move on to other programs, they have some things to say about having to buy textbooks, which hopefully will encourage more instructors to move their courses to zero textbook cost.

I asked Puja how we can do better at Camosun to support faculty trying to engage in Open Education and move to zero cost course resources. “It has to come from the faculty members. There are many passionate faculty at the college doing quite a bit of work, and many others know about open textbooks and zero cost resources. They also know who to contact for support. So, the main thing is that faculty should be encouraged to take the risk. Use your Scheduled Development time if you’re a CCFA member – that’s perfect time to explore open textbooks. And often while you’re exploring, you’ll find something that you can use to supplement your courses.” In addition, Puja recommends the college find a way to provide course release for faculty members wanting to do this work because “everyone is so busy with their teaching responsibilities, and some faculty members may need additional support with the technical side of working with open resources.”

Finally, Puja says we need to listen to students. “When we hear directly from students about how they saved $200 on a textbook, and what they were able to do with that money, those are helpful conversations.” And she recommends we share those stories on our websites. “When faculty and others see real impact, they automatically want to do better for students.” And speaking of sharing, Puja says we also need faculty who are willing to share the work they have done. “If instructors see examples of high-quality open resources, and know that there is support available, they will come on board.”

One outcome of moving to open resources is the opportunity have students contribute to course resources in new and exciting ways. Puja said, “I’ve gathered about eight or ten questions developed by my students based on the topics they’re learning in class. I can put those questions in my textbook and give credit to the students who wrote them, so they see themselves in the textbooks. The parameters are that the questions need to be solvable, and that the students know the right answers.”

I wondered if, in her capacity as acting dean, Puja could share some ideas around how we can encourage college leadership to get more involved in open education initiative and support. “What we need to do is provide opportunities for collaboration, to encourage faculty and anyone who wants to learn about Open Education and give space for the work. If we can’t fund faculty ourselves, we should provide information about organizations that fund Open Ed work, so faculty can apply for grants or funds for developing OERs. We can also continue to recognize people engaging in Open Education work to encourage others to join in.” One other idea Puja had was for us to create space and workshops where faculty wanting to create and adapt open resources can come to work together. Of course, time is an eternal challenge for many faculty members, and while “continuing [CCFA] faculty have scheduled development time, we need to find ways to support term faculty to do this work as well.”

Puja also noted one other challenge that has come up in many conversations: the question of how students know if a course is zero textbook cost (ZTC). Currently there is no place to find this information at a glance, although Camosun is working on a course syllabus repository which would help, if ZTC information is included, and if the current version of the course uses the same materials. “We should provide clear information that a course is zero textbook cost. Then we could more easily track how many students register in that course because it is ZTC.”

But Puja also points out that simply having access to free course resources is not enough. “Students need access to a stable Internet connection, as well as a safe and quiet place to do their course work. And since they will incur printing costs if they prefer to have a hard copy of the resources, if we just provide the online textbook, we need to know if students have access to a free printer. There are so many layers to it.” But all we can do is keep moving forward in whatever way we can to reduce costs for students wherever possible.

Open Education Story: Pat

Pat has been a determined and steadfast supporter of her students and has actively looked for ways to make her classes more accessible and at minimal cost to the student.  According to her Chair Patrick Montgomery, the WeBWorK system she uses provides free access to students to learn through online homework problems, but it needs a knowledgeable support person to make this work.  Pat has been that person and her knowledge and expertise is appreciated by her students and colleagues.

Pat is one of our amazing Open Education Recognition Award recipients from March 2024. She has been at Camosun since 1999, starting in the Physics Department and later moving to Math and Statistics. “I’ve taught technology and the engineering Bridge students, and for awhile, I taught upgrading for students wanting to go into technology who didn’t quite qualify yet. But these days I primarily teach logic and statistics to the information technology students.”

Pat has created and customized course materials for her information technology students for a long time, because she has struggled to find good textbooks, open or otherwise, for her courses.  “I wrote my own textbook for the first half of the logic and statistics course. My students motivated me to create online resources, because they’re computing students, are good with different interfaces, and can troubleshoot if something goes wrong.” But Pat was also aware that the cost of traditional textbooks has been a barrier for students for years. “For some students, textbook cost is a real problem. And because so many students are anxious about math and not sure if they will be able to finish a math course, they are often reluctant to invest in a textbook, leading to a terrible cycle where they don’t have the textbook to do the homework, which makes them even more vulnerable.” But by providing students with free course resources online, Pat has found that they have fewer barriers to doing just a little math. “And because I also post my class notes after every lecture, students aren’t worried about missing something meaning another source of anxiety is gone.”

I asked Pat if she could share a bit about how we went about writing her own textbook. “When I took over this course, we were revising it at the same time, and I was looking for material that would support the students but couldn’t find anything. So, for one whole term I lectured for two hours then went back to my office and wrote down everything I’d said. Then the next day, I’d do it again until I’d I built up a set of course materials – I didn’t sit down to write a textbook but put together the course materials over time. Then later I edited it, polished it, added exercises and answers, but it will be a work in progress until the day I retire.”

Pat also uses an online homework system called WebWorK. “WebWorK was built by the Mathematical Association of America funded by the National Science Foundation of the United States. We have our own server for WebWorK at Camosun, so students don’t have to worry about privacy issues, and it’s free for them. WebWorK was developed by mathematicians and has problem library with over 30,000 problems in it,” so while you can create your own problems, there is enough there to get you started. Logging in to WebWorK for students is simple: they go to the website, log in, and find their problems for the course. What is most important for Pat is that “the mathematical notation is rendered properly. Unlike D2L which struggles with mathematical notation, WebWorK allows you to type all kinds of things into the answer box. You can type in x squared plus three. You can type in sine x. You can type in square roots, and it will render mathematically. And while the interface is a little bit clunky, the cost to students is zero.”

WebWorK homework counts for 5% of students’ final marks, but they soon learn the true value of completing homework – the feedback they receive which helps them do better on class exams. “There are ten assignments, each worth 0.5%. It’s meant to be low stress and students can email me if they have questions about a problem they are working on. Highly motivated bridge students complete anything that they will boost their grade, whereas other students pick and choose what they work on. I want them to address the content instead of binge study so prefer if they go in weekly. But there’s no pressure.”

Pat has still not found a great open textbook solution for the statistics part of her course. “It’s not satisfactory, but I use excerpts from different textbooks under Fair Dealing, trying to find textbooks that work well with each other.” But one challenge Pat notes is that when you try to scan these PDFs for optical character recognition (OCR) for accessibility, none of the math equations scan properly. She also is aware of existing open statistics textbooks, but Pat finds their level and wordiness challenging for her students. “Most students these days are not diligent textbook users and students who read textbooks are either the A+ students or students who really need the additional support of a textbook. For me, a textbook should be targeted at those students who need simple, plain language with the basic concepts reinforced and not a lot of extra material.”

I asked Pat why providing students with free course materials is important. “The top three worst courses that I ever took did not have textbooks or course resources – it was either the classroom lecture notes or nothing and if the lecture didn’t make sense to you, there was nowhere to go. To me, that’s not education. And while the classroom environment works for me for learning, some students don’t find lectures useful, so we need to provide a variety of options for students to engage with the course material. Some students will read the lecture materials, then the textbook, and only then try homework problems, but some students go straight to the homework and only when they can’t do the homework do they go back and read the textbook. In addition, many of my students have to work, and have families. I try to be mindful that my students are not me.”

And then I wondered, what do students think? Pat said, “generally, they are happy. Providing them with free resources on day one sets the tone for the class, especially for students who have had negative experiences with education in the past, although sometimes it is difficult to convince them that there is no catch. If they check at the bookstore and see that there is no textbook for the course, they will email me and when I send them the link to my website, they can access all the material before the first day of class.”

Pat ended our conversation with a thought about our role as educators today. “Our students face too many barriers making it difficult for them to engage in education. If you can remove any of them, it’s a step in the right direction.”

Camosun College Open Education Recognition Awards

Last week was Open Education week.  While the Information Tables from the beginning of the week did not work out as anticipated, we ended the week with a bang and the Camosun College Open Education Recognition Awards.  I thought I would share with you some brief statements about the 41 recipients for you here.  A big thanks to BCcampus who provided funding for this event.

When I really think about the role of Open Education in our learning spaces, I think of Kayla Lar-Son’s (Indigenous programs and services librarian at UBC) 6Rs of Indigenous Open Education: (Indigenous programs and services librarian at UBC) respect, relationships, responsibility, reverence, relevance, and reciprocity. These concepts are not only vital to honouring Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty in our work as educators, but also key to the work we do in Open Education in general.

  • When working in Open Education we must have respect for the work we do in this space, the students we are doing it for, and for the people who engage in the work.
  • We have a responsibility to provide our students with affordable education and to our colleagues to support them to meet that goal.
  • Building and nurturing relationships are key to collaborating and working together.
  • Reciprocity is central to the ideals behind Open Education through sharing the open work we create.
  • Because Open Educational Resources are flexible and can be adapted, we can provide more relevant resources and curriculum for our students.
  • And we need to remember how important it is that we show reverence for the people who engage in this work – and this is what we are gathered here today to do, celebrating for the second year in a row the open education work of our faculty at the college.

This year’s recipients embody these 6Rs, as faculty members who have made profound contributions to open education at Camosun College and demonstrated an impact on student learning and student costs by utilizing, designing, or adapting open resources in their instruction.

Puja Gupta, School of Access: Puja has, until recently when she moved into the Acting Associate Dean role in the School of Access, taught Math in both the Community Learning Partnership and the Academic Career Foundations programs.  She is passionate about providing her students with access to free resources, especially since her programs are tuition free, and has adapted a combination of existing Open Textbooks for her courses.  I was got to know Puja through the Open Ed Sustainability project where she worked to create an extensive math test bank in the MyOpenMath platform.  Puja is also very generous with her time and her open resources, sharing them with colleagues across the college.

Education and Career Planning Certificate Program (Diane Gilliland, Val Neaves, Allyson Butt), School of Access: The Education and Career Planning Certificate Program (EDCP) is a 7-week tuition-free program which provides its learners with free online readings.  Diane Gilliland and Val Neaves are both instructors in the program, and Allyson Butt is the instructional assistant.  In 2020, they worked together to move EDCP to fully online blended synchronous/asynchronous by adapting the BC open course-pack EDCP: Career Planning.  I interviewed Diane, Val, and Allyson about their work in the EDCP program (previously BEST) and these three do amazing work together and with their learners.  I also have to mention that the EDCP program is proof that community can be created online, which Diane points out is rooted in Martin Brokenleg’s work and in the work this group did to indigenize their curriculum in order to acknowledge and strengthen belonging, mastery, independence and generosity.  Diane, Val, and Allyson also wanted me to recognize the assistance from Monique Brewer, Deidre Murphy, and the CETL group who helped and continue to help them to create clear, organized, accessible curriculum.

Katie Waterhouse, Anthropology, Arts & Sciences: Katie has been a user of Open Textbooks for a while now, using an open text produced by the American Anthropological Society for her Anth 260 course since 2020 and also in 2020 moved away from a textbook and is using library resources for her Anth 250 course (creating a Zero Textbook Cost model.)  More recently Katie has been creating H5P interactive objects (an open learning object creation tool) to support her students’ learning in all of her courses.  She has co-facilitated the H5P workshop and shared examples with me and other faculty members.  Katie continues to explore OER for her other courses.

Leanne Pyle, Geoscience, Arts & Sciences: Leanne teaches Geoscience courses, including Physical Geology (Geos100) and Earth-Ocean-Atmosphere System (Geos110).  She has been using Open textbooks to support her students in Geos 100 since she started at the college in 2019, using the TRU Online Physical Geology open text, and switched over her 110 course to all open texts, combining pieces from several open textbook, in 2020.  Like so many faculty we are celebrating here, Leanne’s work has largely gone unnoticed, until today.

Susan Chen, Math and Statistics, Arts & Sciences: Susan is passionate about providing high quality Open Educational Resources for her students and 10 years ago discovered and began using an Open textbook (Open Intro Statistics) and online homework system (My Open Math) for her STAT 116 course. Her goal for the near future is to, after many years of searching, find an open textbook for another statistics course or to create a zero-cost course pack for the students. Susan’s Chair Patrick Montgomery also had this to say “The work to support an evolving discipline such as statistics is ongoing, as new examples appear regularly and can only be included in the classroom by either buying new and expensive textbooks or by spending the time and effort to incorporate the information into in-house course packs. Susan is a department leader in building online resources for her classes and has made Statistics even more affordable.”

Patricia Wrean, Math and Statistics, Arts & Sciences: Pat has been a determined and steadfast supporter of her students, and has actively looked for ways to make her classes more accessible and at minimal cost to the student.  According to her Chair Patrick Montgomery, the WeBWorK system she uses provides free access to students to learn through online homework problems, but it needs a knowledgeable support person to make this work.  Pat has been that person and her knowledge and expertise is appreciated by her students and colleagues.

Stephanie Ingraham, Physics, Arts & Sciences: Stephanie teaches in the Physics department, where she is also the Chair.  I had the pleasure of working with Stephanie for the Open Education Sustainability project where she worked on creating an Open Textbook for Physics of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy. While the MRT course she created this for has been altered, the true joy of creating open textbooks is being able to adapt them to different courses, so Stephanie is hoping to take some of what she created and use it in future teaching. She is also a big supporter of her faculty in using OER for their own courses.

Randal Tonks, Psychology, Arts & Sciences: Randal has been using the Introduction to Psychology open textbook by Stangor and Walinga for 10 years to support his section of Psychology 130, impacting approximately 80 students per term.  He also offers it as an optional textbook when teaching Psyc 100A and 100B at UVic.  In addition, Randal has helped to create an instructor’s test bank to support this text – work that is very important since one of the stumbling blocks faculty face with adopting open textbooks is the lack of testing materials and other ancillary resources.

Michelle Clement, Marketing, School of Business: Michelle has taught Marketing in the School of Business since 2004.  I got to know Michelle during the Open Education Sustainability project when I supported her with adapting an open textbook, The Power of Selling, in Pressbooks.  The textbook was over 600 pages long and 10 years out of date, so Michelle had her work cut out for her, but she reduced the text to just over 200 pages, added images to make it a bit more engaging, and brought the content into our current world.  The year after she adapted the text, Michelle added supplementary material for faculty including PowerPoint slides and in class activities for each chapter to encourage them to adopt the book.  Michelle has adopted and adapted many open textbooks over the years, and continues to do so, but she also integrates library resources and her own materials into the mix, and generously shares her course materials with her colleagues.

Adventure Education, Centre for Sport and Exercise Education (John Telford and Michael Pardy) and Sport Management, Centre for Sport and Exercise Education (Charles Parkinson, Brianna Waldman, Chris Psutka, Anthony Pluta, Robert Bettauer, Michael Suraci, Graham Thomson, Simon Cass)

I am really pleased to be recognizing these two programs in the Centre for Sport and Exercise Education.  When I was frantically emailing chairs to find out who at the college is teaching ZTC courses for the strategic plan metrics, Charles Parkinson emailed to say that two of his programs were ZTC: Sport Management (20 courses) and Adventure Education (10 courses), whose instructors use a combination of academic articles, research studies, guest experts, applied learning, and other vehicles to support their courses.  We have talked a lot today about creating OER and Open Textbooks, but courses can also be Zero Textbook Cost by using library resources, online resources, course packs in D2L, in addition to Open Textbooks, especially if there is no one textbook that meets your course needs.  And this is another great example of this work happening without anyone at the college really knowing about it.  Thanks for all of your work!

Liz Morch, Dental Hygiene, School of Health and Human Services: Liz has taught in the Dental Hygiene program at Camosun since 1990!  I got to know Liz during the Open Education Sustainability project when I supported her with creating a WordPress site to house five modules covering basic topics in nutrition.  This open site was created not only to support her DHYG328 Nutrition course (giving students the option to learn the content at their own pace), but also for anyone who might need access to academically sound resources related to nutrition, knowing that this is a subject covered in many programs at Camosun and beyond. Liz is an education innovator and mentor to Camosun faculty who are interested in exploring creative approaches to teaching, and a huge champion of Open Education, supporting her students in whatever way she can – and providing free course materials is definitely one way in this world of escalating costs to support our students.

Brian Coey, Sheet Metal, Trades and Technology: Brian formerly taught Sheet Metal and is now the Chair of Trades Development at Camosun.  I got to know him during his work with the Open Education Sustainability project, but that was not Brian’s first BCcampus funded foray into Open Education.  In addition to the work he did on Camosun’s project, he also worked on Sheet Metal program materials with Okanagan College.  Like many of the trades, updated resources and textbooks were just not available for Sheet Metal, and Brian wanted to create materials to support the four Levels of Sheet Metal apprenticeship training.  He has since completed Pattern Development for all 4 levels including videos and animations and is acknowledged as an author and reviewer of the open Trades Access Common Core series, which contains 23 books that are used across the province for entry-level trades training in various apprenticeship programs. Brian was a recipient of a BCcampus Award for Excellence in Open Education award in 2021.

Kyle Broad, Sheet Metal, Trades and Technology: I was so pleased when Kyle was nominated for an open education recognition award.  Kyle is the Chair of Motor Vehicle and Metal Trades and as a chair, he is the Workplace leader for faculty in a large number of disciplines.  Ken Kosik, the Associate Dean of Trades and Technology, said “While Kyle has not himself been directly involved in the development of OER, he is very supportive of faculty in his area, who are engaged in OE resource development, particularly for Brian Coey, for example adjusting schedules and bring in temporary faculty to allow Brian to pursue OE opportunities.”  Kyle is unable to be here today, but I am happy he approved his nomination for this award, because having leadership in our college supporting faculty is what makes Open Education work possible.

Plumbing and Pipe Trades Department, Trades and Technology

I was so happy this group was nominated.  I have been very aware of their work for a long time, especially through working with Rod Lidstone when I first started at Camosun. Rod and Plumbing and Pipe Trades, are responsible for a number of early-created Open Textbooks in the BCcampus Trades collection.  I want to quote from the Dean of Trades and Technology, Eric Sehn, and the department Chair, Darren Vaux.  Eric says “The entire Plumbing/Pipe department Faculty have been trailblazers in Open Education for years. Rod Lidstone (now retired) was our resident expert and completed a number of contracts for BC Campus. The current Chair is Darren Vaux, who also has developed distributed delivery materials in the past with CETL.”  And from Darren “As you are aware, Rod is the reason that we have had so much success with Open Ed Resources, both in their creation and adoption, for our trades. Rod is the one who had the foresight to pioneer and navigate all the awesome things that we get to do here at Pipe Trades. I am fortunate to have taken over an amazing program that we are all very proud of. Thank you again for the recognition.”

The Plumbing and Pipe Trade Department is Al Paterson, Alasdair Reid, Andrea Durdle, Andy Wilson, Darren Hall, Darren Vaux (Chair), Dennis Morris, Derek Meadows, Josh Stull, Landon Martin, Robert Medwid, Rodney Lidstone, Ron Perkin, Steve Nixon, Steve Bitschy, Flynn Boles, James Smyth

And finally, we recognized Gwenda Bryan, a librarian here at Camosun.  Open Education has much of its roots in librarians and their support for open access resources, and the librarians here are no exception – every program at Camosun has a liaison librarian and they work with faculty to find ZTC and open options to support their courses.  We wanted to recognize Gwenda this year for her work on the new Open Education LibGuide and many other advocacy pieces with me, faculty, and students in spite of being extraordinarily busy.