Tag: Open

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.

Open Education at Camosun – what’s happening

For the past few months, I have been collecting data.  I know, not the most exciting way to begin a post, but this data is exciting to me!  I have been collecting information from faculty at Camosun about courses and programs at the college that are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) and/or using Open Textbooks.
Guess what?  We have several programs at Camosun that are either completely ZTC or very close.  I am very grateful to all the faculty working hard to save our students money. And I am still compiling courses as we speak, so this is only a drop in the Camosun ZTC bucket.

Some programs/departments have many courses that are ZTC, some of which might surprise you.

  • For example, all courses in the Sport Management and Adventure Education Programs are ZTC, using a combination of academic articles, research studies, guest experts, applied learning and other vehicles to support their courses!
  • The Community Learning Partnerships (CLP) program area and the Education and Career Planning (EDCP) program (which are both tuition free) also have all ZTC courses.
  • 17 of 22 of the courses in the Communications program are already ZTC.
  • All but three courses in the Education Assistant and Community Support program are ZTC, with faculty working to phase out one more textbook.
  • Almost all the courses in the Community, Family, and Child Studies and the Civil Engineering programs are ZTC, and more are coming.
In addition, the lists for courses not requiring paid textbooks in Math and Stats courses is growing (both in the Math Department and in Math Access), there are several courses in Social Sciences, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, English, Accounting, and Indigenous Studies that offer ZTC courses as well.
I would be remiss as well if I didn’t mention some of the leaders in using Open Textbooks at the college, the Trades where faculty like Sandra Carr, Brian Coey, and Rod Lidstone have developed Open Textbooks for use in their courses, as well as for the Common Core content which is used across all the Trades.
In the new year, I will be posting more comprehensive information of what is happening at Camosun both with regards to ZTC and use of Open Textbooks. I am also hoping to interview some people in the new year and share some more in-depth stories then so we can celebrate the good work already being done!

Open Education at CamFest: A Reflection

This term, for the first time ever, I hosted an Open Textbook table at our annual beginning-of-the-school-year student welcome celebration (during the first week of classes) called CamFest.

I was at Interurban campus on the Wednesday and Lansdowne on the Thursday and really enjoyed interacting with students around the potential for Open Textbooks and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses and programs to save them money.  While some students told me about courses they have taken that do not require costly resources, most lamented the exorbitant cost of their textbooks – one student in Nursing commenting that she paid $900 this term for her texts. And some of their stories were heart-breaking and irritation-provoking, if I am honest.  Why do our students, in this day and age, have to decide between buying textbooks and paying rent?  Why do they have to weigh the cost of books against passing their classes?

And then there are the online assessment tools attached to digital textbooks (or sometimes not) that many students are required to buy.  Several students, one close to tears, asked me why they have to pay to do their course assessments (feels a bit like double-dipping to me…what does tuition cover again?)

I know many of you reading get it, but we need to keep spreading the word across our institutions about Open Textbooks/Open Education and working towards better supporting faculty to move to ZTC (and zero online assessment costs) courses and programs.

If I think about my own institution, Camosun College, Open Textbooks and ZTC address every one of our new Strategic Plan goals.  Want to know how?

  • Strengthen the Camosun Advantage, Goal 2 (Deliver outstanding flexible learning opportunities to support students’ evolving educational expectations.)  Note: one identified success metric for this goal is measuring the percentage of courses using open textbooks for teaching.
  • Doing Good Work Together, Goal 2 (Ensure financial sustainability for continued investment in student success.)  Some of the folks working on Open Ed include: VP Student Experience, Librarians, Other folks in the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Faculty who have been doing this work and are invested in it, Student Society, and there are many more to be added to this list!!
  • Responding to Community Needs, Goal 3 (Break down systemic barriers to improve access to post-secondary education.)  Open Ed opens doors for more students!
  • Honouring Indigenous Resurgence, Goal 4 (Infuse Indigenous values into practices and spaces at the college.)  Note, within the framework of Open Education we find Traditional Knowledge Licenses which provide licensing that honours Indigenous and cultural knowledge which traditional copyright laws do not.  We have an Ed Developer with a specialization in Indigenization as well as a librarian working on Indigenous knowledge citations, etc.
  • Rising to the Challenge of Climate Change, Goal 2 (Support existing programs and increase climate education across the college.)  Note, there are many open education and open science resources on climate change and other important global concerns.
  • Advancing Social Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Goal 3 (Celebrate and uphold the diversity of students and employees as a strength within Camosun’s community.)  Open Ed aligns with the work of the Centre for Accessible Learning as well as with colleagues who work closely with UDL to ensure OpenEd resources are created with accessibility in mind. We have an Accessibility Committee now at the college, as well as one in Learning Services.

So, given these alignments with the principles and goals we hold dear at Camosun, can we do better for our students?  I am hopeful that we can!

But now let me give voice to our students at both campuses who told me what they could do if they didn’t have to buy textbooks:

   

Mary Burgess Open Education Recognition Award @ Camosun, 2023

About the Award

The Mary Burgess Open Education Recognition Award recognizes 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. These contributions may also include providing leadership for, research on, and advocacy for Open Education and Open Educational Resources (OER) to peers, students, and the institution in general.

Open Educational Resources/Open Textbooks have positive benefits on the student experience by lowering access barriers and reducing student costs for learning materials. They also enable instructors to modify, edit, or adapt high-quality resources to fit their individual teaching goals in order to provide meaningful, contextualized materials for their students.

In naming this award, the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning looked at educators across BC who have advanced the work of OER in their own careers and have themselves been recognized by their peers. After reviewing a short list of outstanding individuals, it was determined that CETL’s inaugural award for Open Education is named after Mary Burgess.

Mary Burgess is recognized globally for their work in Open Education.  As the first Director of Open Education at BCcampus, Mary guided the work of the Open Textbook project, which  includes hundreds of open textbooks and other open educational resources (OER). Open textbooks from the collection have been adopted by thousands of educators in the province, and to date, the project has saved students in B.C. over $30 million in textbook costs. (https://bccampus.ca/2022/07/20/theres-something-about-mary/)

This Year’s Recipient

This year, we recognize Charlie Molnar, Biology, for his work revising, adapting, and creating Open Educational Resources since 2015.  Charlie began his Open Education journey by working with Dr. Jane Gair, another Camosun Biology instructor, to substantially revise the Open textbook, Concepts of Biology, creating the first Canadian edition which Charlie and several of his fellow biology instructors at Camosun have been using in their courses for the past eight years.

Every Scheduled Development period since 2015, Charlie has made revisions and enhancements to Concepts of Biology.  He has revised the textbook using student feedback, created and added video content (including captions to make them accessible) as well as graphics and images, integrated material related to Indigenous culture, especially of the Pacific Coast Aboriginal peoples, and their expertise in processing food and calories, etc., and added H5P interactive components (to both the textbook and the videos). Most recently, Charlie created an Open website to support students who are thinking of enrolling in or who are preparing to start Biology 103 at Camosun.  This website contains the first two chapters of the Open textbook, the first laboratory exercise and first assignment for Biology 103, and scientific-terminology activities; before coming to the first class, students can prepare for the first days and weeks of class.

While two of these projects received funding from BCcampus, (the initial textbook and the H5P activities), Charlie did most of the work during his Scheduled Development time or in addition to his regular work.  Charlie believes that engaging in Open Education is a wonderful thing to do, but not just for students, saying “it also helped me refresh my understanding of unfolding biological and genetic research so I could include up-to-date examples and convey them at an appropriate level both in my teaching and in the textbook.” (https://camosunelearning.opened.ca/2022/10/25/open-education-story-charlie-molnar/).

Award Criteria

Faculty will be considered for this award if they have met two or more of the following criteria:

  • Improved teaching efficiency and effectiveness through using, adapting, and creating Open Educational Resources (OER) course materials aligned to course learning outcomes.
  • Developed OER to share with colleagues, enhance student-learning opportunities, and reduce barriers to education.
  • Used Open Educational Practices (OEP) for learning, teaching, and assessment while challenging, supporting, and inspiring students to do their best work.
  • Demonstrated creativity and passion in delivering educational experiences that expand student reach and influence beyond the classroom by providing opportunities for students to collaborate and openly share their work with the wider community.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of and passion for open education and the benefits it brings to learning and teaching while contributing to the ongoing work to make the global open education movement inclusive and fair.
  • Worked collaboratively with colleagues and students on open education initiatives, aimed at integrating OEP into teaching and learning.
  • Acted as a valuable resource for students, colleagues, and Camosun by sharing open education knowledge and promoting and encouraging the development and use of OER and OEP.
  • Participated beyond Camosun in open education initiatives such as sharing OER, contributing to OE committees/communities of practice, and pursuing or providing PD opportunities in open.

Open Education Week at Camosun

Open Education Week 2023 is March 6th to 10th!  Here is what’s happening at Camosun College and Beyond

Visit our Open Education tables at both Lansdowne (March 6th) and Interurban (March 7th) where we will share information about Open Education, have people available to answer your questions, and showcase some of the open education work already being done at the college.

  • Monday the 6th  you will find us in the foyer of the Fisher Building from 10am-2pm
  • Tuesday the 7th we will start in the main foyer of the CHW Building from 9-11am, and then head over to the Trades (CTEI) Building foyer from 11:30am-2pm.

At all three locations, you will find CETL folks, librarians, faculty, and even students ready to talk to you about Open Education, the importance of Open Educational Resources/Open Textbooks, and how you can get on board.

For the first two weeks of March, both campus libraries will be displaying Camosun-authored and used open textbooks so you can see what Camosun faculty members are using to support students in their classes. And speaking of the library, Gwenda Bryan and I have been working on a new and improved Open Education LibGuide (with thanks to Okanagan College whose CC-licenced LibGuide we are adapting). You will be able to see the new Guide at our Open Ed tables, and we will be sharing out the link in as many ways as possible during Open Ed Week and beyond.

Open Education will be taking over the regular Teaching and Learning Community of Practice with an Open Education Conversation Café on Thursday, March 9 at 2:30pm in Teams. This is a drop-in session so, no need to register.

Open Classroom Weeks (last two weeks of March):  Celebrate Open Education at Camosun by opening your classroom to colleagues or by visiting another instructor’s class! Contact Derek Murray for details. Info Session: March 10, 12-1pm in LLC 151 & MS Teams Register for Open Classroom Weeks Info Session.

There are also virtual events happening during Open Education Week around BC, Canada, and the world:

  • BCcampus is curating Open Education Week events from around the province, and you will find those being added to their Events Calendar over the next few weeks.
  • Visit OE Global’s Open Education Week site to check out what will be happening around the world, much of it virtual.

Finally, Open Education Week is not the only time to find out more about Open Education. Register for any of our Open Education-related workshops taking place in May and June.

Share the joy! Using or looking to adopt an Open Textbook?  Want to know more about Open Education?  Want to talk about a potential Open Education project? CETL is available to come talk to you and your department/program about Open Education or about your open textbook experiences – shoot me an email for more OE information.

Open Education Story: Charlie Molnar

Charlie Molnar is a biology instructor at Camosun who has long been involved with Open Education, revising, adapting, and creating Open Educational Resources since 2015.  Charlie began his Open Education journey by working with Dr. Jane Gair, who teaches at Camosun College as well as at UVic in the Island Medical Program, a distributed site of UBC’s medical school, to substantially revise the open textbook, Concepts of Biology, creating the first Canadian edition which Charlie and several of his fellow biology instructors at Camosun have been using in their courses for the past seven years.

Reflecting back to 2015, Charlie recalled that his Dean “informed faculty that there was an opportunity to work on a project to create resources for students that would be high-quality, engaging, and not carry any publishing fees.” Jane and Charlie (with release time because of the project funding) began working on their project over several months, creating a substantive revision with much support from BCcampus (especially with the building of the textbook in Pressbooks.)  Charlie told me that he “made first use of the new edition during the summer session at Camosun in 2015” and commented “how grateful students were to have this resource that they could download and have forever and use for free.”  Charlie and his colleagues over the years have also arranged for the Camosun Print Shop to print relevant chapters of the textbook that students who prefer a print copy can purchase at the bookstore for a nominal fee.

But Charlie was not done with his Open Education journey, and since 2015, “nearly every year [on his Schedule Development time], he has been making revisions to the materials in the textbook.”  For example, Charlie first encouraged students to look for grammatical errors, labeling problems, or any issues with the open textbook.  “They were quite pleased to be part of this process and valued that I wanted their input on how to improve the textbook.  What a wonderful thing it was to not only be teaching from this textbook, but to see my students reading it differently because they had input in how to make it better, something which was unique in my experience as a biology instructor.”

Charlie said that “the next major upgrade was to create video content [working with Alan Shook at Camosun] that could be embedded and linked into the textbook, so students could see me, as well as graphics and images, describing not only interesting facets of biology related to the text material, but also some topics that were a little beyond the ordinary context of a biology text. I think now there are 24 five- to seven-minute-long videos embedded in the textbook that the students can access and re-access, something that is not available in a paper textbook.”

Next, Charlie worked with Suzanne Wilkinson and others to integrate Indigenous content into the textbook.  “We integrated material related to Indigenous culture, especially of the Pacific Coast Aboriginal peoples, and their expertise in processing food and calories, etc.  For example, there’s a portion that talks about camas bulbs and the biochemistry of why these bulbs are treated in the way they are, buried underground with the coals over top of them and what that happens to the carbohydrates there.”

Charlie returned to his videos the next year, working with Sue Doner in eLearning to include accurate closed captioning so that the video materials would be more accessible. “Once again, the people at Camosun, especially Sue Doner, were extremely helpful in facilitating this upgrade to make materials maximally accessible.”

Next Charlie got involved with another BCcampus funded project: adding H5P objects to the textbook.  “I worked with a colleague from Kwantlen Polytechnic to move the written questions that appeared at the end of chapter sections into H5P which meant students could answer section questions right in the textbook and get immediate feedback and check their understanding in real time, without an instructor needing to mark those questions.”  He also integrated H5P into many of his videos.  “Now nearly all of the videos have at least one stopping point where the video pauses and questions are posed to the students about what they’ve heard so that they can get real-time feedback about that as well.”

Finally, this last summer (working with Sue Doner and Kristina Andrew in eLearning) Charlie “created a package of material [on a WordPress site] that was based around the first two chapters of the textbook and included those first two chapters, the first laboratory exercise, and exercises in terminology, so students could preview what kind of text material was most important.”  The link to this site was sent to students who had registered in Charlie’s course by the beginning of August 2022.  Those students then “had early access to the textbook and materials so they could prepare for the first days and weeks of class and have an idea of what was coming, what kind of materials would be covered and to what depth.”  Charlie especially wanted to support those students for whom English is not their first language to give them a clearer idea of what they could expect “so they could preview the course and see if it was for them, whether they were ready for it, interested in it, and perhaps make their registrations and financial decisions in a more educated way.”

Charlie described the past seven years as an evolution, but not one he had anticipated back in 2015 when he first embarked on that original open textbook revision.  “I really didn’t know what would be involved, what partnerships could be created. I was not very technologically adept and still am not. The original idea was just to create a resource to help relieve the students from the burden of exceptionally high textbook costs.”  So, what made Charlie want to do more?  “I must confess that it was a bit of altruism thinking, I have an opportunity to help students get through their college experience with less debt, and with a high-quality resource. It also felt really nice to go to Concepts of Biology first Canadian edition and see my name there with Jane’s.

When I asked Charlie if he considered all his work as a success, he said, yes “while I think students are more familiar with open resources now, in 2015 they were so startled and grateful to have this free resource.”  He has also seen some of his colleagues take the open textbook and make their own adaptations to it, “not to necessarily add to it formally, but use it as a starting point, or pull our specific videos and components, or lead students to it for those portions on Indigenization.”

One thing Charlie wishes he knew was who else outside of Camosun is using his textbook.  “I hoped there would be a list of colleges that have taken advantage of it, but I know that it’s used around the world because I’ve received emails from people in various locations who stumbled across it and felt grateful enough to write to me and thank me for it. So that felt nice too.”

I asked Charlie what challenges he faced doing this work over the past seven years, and he reiterated the importance of getting all the support he did, from BCcampus, from people at Camosun, the H5P expert from Kwantlen.  “I could just be the subject matter expert rather than having to learn all the technology – I could simply create the materials for someone else to insert and embed into the textbook.”  And when I asked what advice he would give people thinking of embarking on their own Open Education journey, he said “why do this alone? I’ve always been a person whose loves to work in groups and take advantage of people’s different skill sets so why not recognize your strengths and find other people who could be helpful in other aspects of the production and share this opportunity to create something that will help students so dramatically.”

One thing I personally think we could do better as an institution is celebrating our faculty, students, and employees who do this kind of work: creating materials that are shared around the world, support students, and make such a difference.  Charlie mentioned to me that back in 2015 “I was bursting with pride for Jane and I when we created this textbook, and I asked if we could have a display of the open educational resources that we’ve created at Camosun [because there are a lot!] to show how proud we are of this work but it never came about.”  Well, I am happy to say that we are going to do just that here in the library in March 2023 to celebrate Open Education Week!

When I asked Charlie if he would recommend that others do this work, he, not surprisingly given his obvious devotion to Open Education, said yes, “it’s a wonderful thing to.”  And not just for students.  “It also helped me refresh my understanding of unfolding biological and genetic research so that I could include up-to-date examples that the students would have heard about and convey it at an appropriate level both in my teaching and in the textbook.”

Charlie is heading into retirement (he is currently on a two-year post-retirement contract) but he is not likely done with his open textbook yet.  “I don’t know exactly what I may be devoting time to when I’m fully retired from Camosun, but it might be that I add to, clarify, and refine materials in the textbook.”  I look forward to seeing what he does next!

Sarah and Patsy: The story of how one Student’s Open Education project can make a difference

Some days working at Camosun is a joy, when I get to see firsthand the kind of amazing work students are doing with the support of my colleagues, sometimes in CETL and in this case in the library.  This is the story of Sarah, a student in the Child, Family, and Community Services (CFCS) program, and Patsy, the librarian who supports that program and its students, and their Open Education project.  Before I begin, however, I want to thank Sarah and Patsy for agreeing to talk to me.  They had final editing approval on this piece – the voices of our students in advocating for themselves is vital, but we need to ensure that sharing their voices does not exploit them or set them up for being penalized for speaking out.  Sarah had nothing but positive things to say about her program and the people working and learning in it, and she only seeks to improve the experience for all. 

I first heard about Sarah from Patsy, who contacted me because Sarah was working on a class project to find free alternatives to their textbook.  “One of our assignments was to address a social justice issue of our choice and to come up with two actions – they didn’t have to be huge, but some sort of small action to address the root of a social justice issue.  And I chose to address the cost of post-secondary education.”  Sarah comes from Germany where the postsecondary experience is quite different. “In Germany we don’t pay tuition or for textbooks because our courses are using open resources, or we can borrow the texts from the library. When I came here, I was shocked to see how much we had to spend on textbooks, so, I wanted to find a way to reduce the costs of education for students.” 

Sarah started with some general background on her project. “I reviewed Camosun’s website which lists estimates of how much students spend on textbooks per term, then I did the math, and given Camosun’s claim that students pay about $1000 for textbooks and supplies per term (although some programs are more expensive than others) it turns out that textbooks make up around 60 percent of the cost of tuition.  We often hear that tuition is the most expensive barrier to post-secondary education, but textbook costs are a huge barrier as well. I feel like we have created like a world, especially in the Western world, where education has become a privilege when it should be a right for everyone.” 

So, Sarah had an idea for a social justice project, she had completed some preliminary research, but now what next?  Luckily Patsy “came in to teach a library session for Sarah’s class, and after the session, Sarah said she wanted to talk about some projects.  As librarians, going into the classroom to teach research skills is so valuable for making that contact with students.  Students learn that there is an actual person to help them.”  Sarah and Patsy started working together on a couple of projects, including this one.  “Sarah asked about the possibility of textbooks being available for students through the library, but I explained that the reality is textbooks are not only very expensive for students, but for libraries as well, and we don’t have money in our budget to provide textbooks for all students.”  As Patsy and Sarah talked about what other options might be available, “we decided to look at the possibility of finding open resources that could replace, if not a whole textbook, maybe just some of the chapters,” which was one scenario Sarah was exploring – a class which required a textbook, but only used three chapters of it.   

One of the things Patsy says a librarian can contribute when working with students and faculty is networking with people across the college (and beyond).  “We are essentially a reference desk. People come to us and ask; how do I do this? Where do I find that? And if we don’t know, we find out. So, as Sarah and I talked about open resources, I thought, oh, I know someone, and I connected Sarah with you, Emily, as someone who could help her with Open Education and how to find Open Educational Resources (OER).” 

Sarah had heard of OER and open textbooks before. “In a way, we had used Open Educational Resources in Germany, but I never really questioned where all the free resources were coming from. Then last year I visited the Students Society’s booth [at CamFest] where they were talking about open textbooks, and while at the time I was not sure what that meant, I found it very intriguing because I’ve always been interested in trying to reduce costs for education.”  So, after talking to Patsy, Sarah did some more research and “decided that one of my actions would be to present to the CFCS faculty about what open educational resources are, where to find them, and how to use them, including the basic math of how much we could be saving if we were to use open educational resources.” 

Once I had talked to Sarah and Patsy about their project and understood what Sarah’s goals were, I sent them a link to the slides for the Introduction to Open Education and OER workshop I run for faculty every year. Sarah says the slides helped her “learn about copyright, fair dealing, and where to find open resources which was helpful for me because I think one reason instructors don’t use OER is because they don’t know where to start, or what their rights are. Now I feel like I know more about where you can find resources, how much you are allowed to take of a resource, and what you are allowed to do with it which was very helpful.”  And of course, Patsy notes “open textbooks are not only free to use, but usually allow adaptation meaning you can take the content that works, and then add content that represents the concerns or issues or experiences relevant to our students and community, for example integrating Indigenous or LGBTQ+ voices.” 

The first part of Sarah’s project was to examine her textbooks. “I started with the textbook from the social justice class because we were only using three chapters of it, and it was very expensive.  I thought we should be able to replace those three chapters with open resources, so I started looking into it.”  One challenge for Sarah was not having a clear understanding of what was important in those chapters for the instructor teaching the course.  “I asked if she could provide me with the main concepts, but at the time she was very busy and while I was confident that I understood the content enough to decide what was important, I am not the one teaching the course and didn’t feel comfortable making that decision.”  So, instead Sarah went in a different direction.  “Patsy in the meantime, had found an open textbook that was very similar to the textbook we were using in a different class. We were working very intensely with that book, and I had more confidence that I knew what was important in it.  So, I compared our textbook to the open textbook, looking at all the key concepts to see what was lacking in the open textbook, or what extras did it have that ours didn’t, and Patsy helped me with the research.  Then I wrote an assessment and sent it to the head of our program, because they are preparing courses for the next term, and she will see if the open text can replace some, or all, of the current text.”  

The second part of Sarah’s project was presenting to the CFCS faculty.  “Unfortunately, it was not possible for me to present at an in-person meeting with all the faculty members, but I created a PowerPoint presentation with voice-over for them to go through on their own. In the presentation, I began by explaining why this is a social justice issue, why it’s important, and showed how much students could be saving. Then I went into some basic rules about fair dealing and copyright, and where to find open resources. Finally, I showed them what I did with that one textbook, where I found it, and how I worked with it so they could see that it’s not a complicated a process and that there are many resources out there to support them.” 

I asked Sarah how it felt, presenting to faculty and potentially effecting change in her program.  “It felt awesome to be heard because I feel a lot of the time there is a hierarchy between instructors and students, where the instructors give us knowledge and we feel almost powerless in that process. While in the beginning I was intimidated, our program head trusted my competence and gave me the confidence to work on this project.  Knowing how this one small thing could potentially make a big change, is really cool, and even if they don’t replace the textbook with the one I suggested, I got the conversation about using open resources started. I’m really proud of that.” We also need to remember that students have insights that instructors may not.  Sarah recalled in one class, “our instructor remarked on the diversity in the classroom, around gender expression, sexuality, etc., and how students come to the course with a lot of knowledge related to this diversity.  I think students can also make decisions on what is important for the future of our field, because we are the future practitioners.” 

Patsy also feels that there is a lot of potential in students, faculty, and librarians working together to explore open textbooks.  “I think we can take small steps first, for example, examining what textbooks are used for core courses with multiple sections then finding some open resources to replace them, and making it a team effort: students, faculty, and librarians working together. Librarians can do some of that initial legwork (finding resources, determining how they can be used, etc.) for faculty because faculty already have so much on their plate. Then they can bring resources to faculty to see if they are relevant, hopefully making the process less overwhelming.  All the while including students who are standing up and voicing their concerns over textbook costs.”  Patsy, Sarah, and I all agree that this project shows the opportunities afforded by including students as equal contributors in reaching their educational goals. “I’m not suggesting students should work for free, but I think there is a place for students to be investigating the content of their course and exploring alternate resources, looking at other perspectives that could be captured by some of these resources. I think it would help students and help the institution.”   

Patsy echoes my own thoughts that “we need to be talking about Open Education as an institution and need to put more effort and even funding behind it because the rippling effect is profound. It can save students a lot of money, and can also save the institution, indirectly, a lot of money.” And as Patsy noted, we have provincially funded organizations like BCcampus already promoting and supporting open resource creation, so we don’t have to be alone in this work; we also already have a lot of expertise around Open Education at Camosun so there is no reason we couldn’t make this an institutional priority. 

Patsy enjoyed working with Sarah on her project.  “Sarah came to me with a passion and an interest which makes my job easy.  I shared her enthusiasm, and had fun using the tools, as well as the knowledge and connections I have, to support Sarah.  This project was not just about finding open resources, it was also about getting in touch with the curriculum and the faculty and working with Sarah to bring forward something to the administration which is such a great experience for a student.”  I want to emphasize the importance of the curriculum piece:  Librarians at Camosun have connections to programs and departments, serving as subject matter librarians for faculty and students (many faculty don’t know this, but you do have a subject matter librarian!)  But librarians, as Patsy noted, “face a similar challenge to what Sarah experienced where you don’t know exactly what specific content a faculty member values in their courses, meaning it can be very challenging to take a textbook that faculty use and trust and recommend a new resource to replace it, even just a chapter, without their input.” 

Sarah is excited to continue learning more about Open Education.  In fact, as she explored OER for her project, Sarah discovered another aspect of Open Education she hadn’t known about before.  “During my research, I came across this idea of non-disposable assignments. As students, we write so many assignments that are just graded and then disposed – they don’t have any further purpose. But what I found was that some instructors assign their students course readings asking them to find free resources to replace them.  What a great assignment for a professional practice because it would develop our field further, and at the same time, we could work with librarians to learn how to do research. Then we could produce an assignment with a purpose such as replacing textbooks and reducing financial burdens. It could have such an impact if we were to take advantage of all these resources that we already have and come together and work as a team. I would really like to see something like that with non-disposable assignments.”   

Sarah wrapped up our conversation by saying “because this has been such a passion of mine, let me know if you ever need me to be a part of presentations, or to give presentations. I want to share what it’s like to be a student and what our financial burdens are – and I want to point out how important it is to remember that, and how much we could save with open textbooks.” 

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.Â