Group items tagged

"BCcampus organized an open textbook summit again this year (the first one was last year). I attended, because I'm writing my own open textbook on 'Teaching in a Digital Age.' BCcampus has published its own blog post on the lessons learned, but I came away with something different, from a potential author's perspective."

"Imagine anyone in the world having access to a world-class education online for free, and getting credentials for it. With the launch of Open Educational Resources University (OERu) on November 1, that's exactly what is now possible. The launch is a significant milestone in higher education globally, and marks a transition from an international collaboration prototype to a sustainable, scalable program of accessible OERu study."

"Sometimes the post-secondary instructors who create the content are given grants through the project's funding and sometimes they do it "off the side of their desk," she said. "Instead of getting a royalty fee every time someone buys their commercial book, we give you money up front to do this work," Coolidge said. According to BCcampus, 26 per cent of students in the province have at some point chosen to not register for a course because the cost of the required textbooks were too high."

"Postsecondary students in British Columbia may get a bit of a break when it comes time to buy their textbooks this fall. In the first move of its kind in Canada, the B.C. government said it will make available up to 20 free and open online textbooks for some of the most popular first- and second-year university and college courses. There's no guarantee that faculty will choose to assign the new textbooks, but proponents of the project are hoping that rigorous quality control measures and a little nudging from students will win them over. The textbooks also will be available to institutions, faculty and students across Canada to use at no charge."

Yes, I see that it is Canada, once again, leading the way.... :) If enough faculty adopt open online textbooks a new norm will be achieved! Of course, the quality must be equivalent....or, perhaps, better.

The state of Washington did it first. The Pacific North West leads the way.

I was excited and honoured to be invited by BC Campus to be a graphic facilitator at their Open Educational Resources Forum (#OERforum) last week. When they first asked for me to be a graphic facilitator, of course I immediately said yes but I also felt a bit of trepidation as I have never done graphic facilitation before.