Open Education

We support and promote practices that advance open education. Open education aims to remove barriers to education and learning including things like the cost of tuition and course materials, geography, format and design, admission requirements, and hierarchy over whose knowledge is valued. Open education aims to address these barriers and widen access to quality education, giving students and educators agency over their teaching and learning experiences.

We are interested in creating learning environments and experiences informed by open education, where educators have agency and students can learn without barriers.

Open Educational Practices

Open educational practices (OEP) are the wide collection of teaching and learning practices leveraging open to support education and learning for students. This can include creating, using, and sharing open educational resources (OER), using open educational technologies, sharing teaching approaches, and practicing open pedagogy.

Open Educational Resources

One aspect of open education is the use of open educational resources, such as textbooks, videos, lesson plans, and courseware that can be used, shared, and adapted for free. OER are primarily digital and are in the public domain or use open licences, such as Creative Commons licences, to make education more affordable and customizable for learners and educators.

B.C. Open Collection

BCcampus supports the use, creation, and adaptation of open educational resources in the B.C. Open Collection.  

The B.C. Open Collection is a curated selection of open educational resources that can be accessed by educators in B.C. The collection is openly licensed, and free to use, customize, and share. Instructors can modify course materials to fit their curriculum, and students benefit from a wide variety of delivery models, including video, audio, print, and online. 

Pressbooks

Pressbooks is a tool to create and adapt open textbooks for faculty and students. The open source, online authoring and publishing platform runs on WordPress and enables multiple delivery formats including website, PDF document, or EPUB document (so readers can use an e-reader).

Instructors teaching in a post-secondary institution in B.C. or the Yukon have access to a self-serve instance of Pressbooks, set up and maintained by BCcampus.

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Open Pedagogy

Open pedagogy applies openness to teaching and learning by challenging the traditional power dynamics between educator and student and allowing for more collaborative, participatory learning experiences. Students are invited to co-create knowledge, share it openly, and influence the learning experience.

Key Resources: