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Open Education

This is a guide on how to find, create, and share Open Educational Resources (OER).

Open Education is supported by a strong and active community of educators, librarians, and administrators who work to raise awareness and advocate for open initiatives. The pages below list some of the organizations and initiatives that you can follow to learn more about open education or which you can join to take part in the open community.

Open at UBC

The Open UBC Working Group is comprised of faculty, students, and staff, has been meeting regularly since 2015 to advise, communicate, and partner on the development of resources and strategies for supporting open education at UBC. The working group creates resources for the open.ubc.ca website as well as supports emerging and ongoing open projects at UBC and beyond.

External Organizations

There are several local, national, and international organizations that support the growth of Open Scholarship and Open Education. The websites of the organizations below provide a number of resources for learning more about Open initiatives and communities.

  • BCcampus OpenEd advocates for open education in BC and provides support in the creation and hosting of open textbooks.
  • SPARC is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education.
  • The Open Education Consortium is a global network for Open Education,
  • The Rebus Community is a network and platform for creating and publishing open textbooks

OER Grant Opportunities

Below is a list of some grant and funding opportunities for faculty that can help offset the time and resources required to create, adopt, adapt and share open educational resources.

At UBC

  • UBC's OER Fund Implementation Grant is open to UBC-V faculty and offers up to $25,000 for OER implementation projects. The funding can be applied to course releases (up to $10,000).
  • UBC's OER Fund Rapid Innovation Grant is open to students, faculty and staff at UBC-V. These are smaller grants of up to $1000 and can be used to implement or create awareness around OER.

External

  • BCcampus Professional Learning Grant is a recenty developed grant for B.C. post-secondary educators to better access professional development to help gain the knowledge and skills they need to teach online more broadly.

Keep up with OER News

Following listservs, newsletters, and hashtags are great ways to learn more about open education initiatives and projects. They are also an easy way to join the open community, and to share information about your own open educational projects. Below are some of the most active listservs, newsletters, and hashtags about open education and open educational resources.

Listservs

Newsletters

Hashtags

  • #OAWeek
  • #OEWeek
  • #OER
  • #OpenEd