How we get stuff done: BCcampus’ success criteria

3. BCcampus BCcampus supports the post- secondary institutions of B.C. as they adapt and evolve their teaching and learning practices to enable powerful learning opportunities for the students of B.C. 3

4. 2012 40 open textbooks +250 open textbooks in collection +400 faculty + $9 million in students savings

5. Collaboration 5

6. 6 Divergent Thinking

7. 7

8. Institutional Support 8

9. Secondments 9

10. Documentation 10

11. Events 11

12. 12 Leadership

13. 13 Questions? acoolidge@bccampus.ca

Editor's Notes

Good afternoon! Thank you for joining me this afternoon to hear about Bccampus and what I believe to be the success criteria behind our open education work. In Canada, we are in a long process of reconciliation with the indigenous community. As such, at the beginning of each meeting, conference, webinar- we reminder ourselves whose land we work on, whose land we play on, and whose land we stand on. In keeping with regional protocol, I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and by honoring the sovereignty of the Six Nations– the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora and their land where we are situated.
My name is Amanda Coolidge and I am the Senior Manger of Open Education at BCcampus.
A bit of history on Bccampus. BCcampus supports the post-secondary institutions of British Columbia as they adapt and evolve their teaching and learning practices to enable powerful learning opportunities for the students of B.C. Our mandate is to provide teaching, learning, educational technology, and open education support and we accomplish this by leading innovation and providing value to educators and institutions; evaluating and developing leading practices that enable a systemic approach to student learning in B.C Bccampus was established in 2003 as a way to assist post secondary institutions with online learning. Over the course of the 15 years we have evolved a bit as online learning isn’t so much at a place where we need to help institutions move forward. In 2009 we issued a series of grants for the online program development fund which started the conversation of open education- the fund asked that institutions collaborate to create open educational resources. Thus the conversations of open education were planted… and institutions were starting to warm to the idea of shareable and reu-suable resources.
In 2012 the government was concerned with access and affordability for students- their solution, as lobbied by Bccampus was to fund an Open Textbook Project initiative. So the Ministry of Advanced Education gave $1 million to create 40 open textbooks… describe the history and where we are today? I do think that our work in Open Education in BC has been quite successful, hence why I am sharing some criteria that we believe has contributed to that success.
Collaboration. We do not assume that we know everything. In 2012 when the project was first announced we knew we need to reach out to the projects that were already off the ground and doing the good work. We gathered representation. From SPARC, OpenStax, Creative Commons we needed help and we asked for it- from the beginning and we learned from and continue to learn from our colleagues around the world. That first meeting established a strong collaboration among our open education friends, ones who we can call to when we are stuck, or are in need of a response on the ”how to”. Bottom line, don’t be afraid to ask for help. The other aspect of collaboration that is important to us and one that we believe results in continued sustainability of open education in BC, is the collaboration between institutions. This is required. It is in our contracts, when we distribute grants we want to see others collaborating- we want to see institutions reaching out to their colleagues elsewhere and asking “Are you interested in working on this together?” “what can we do collaboratively that we couldn’t do by ourselves?
My background is in instructional designer and educational technology. When I first started working at Bccampus and for the Open Textbook Project, I was excited by the legacy of Bccampus- innovative, driven, visionary, collaborative- and I wanted to be a part of all that. Now I know that textbooks aren’t terribly innovative- but the licenses are. That is what got me - knowing that the licenses provided a freedom for creativity, innovation, change. Our work in open education was never just about textbooks- it was about changing the system, enabling access, changing teaching and learning and doing what we need for students to succeed. Katherine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia foundation said, “The idea that knowledge should be open and free is a radical challenge. Radical in the sense that knowledge should not be the domain of the privileged few.” Quite the opposite to what has been the institutional model for years and years. Our belief is that you need to meet people where they are- be encouraging, provide an opportunity to share their story, be supportive We haven’t just focused on creating/adopting/adapting textbooks – we have expanded our view on how best to engage a system 2 things I want to share with you that have really engaged the community/faculty in ways outside of grants and/or creating open textbooks 1.Open Ed stories- showcasing the great work that is happening, hearing from the people at the institutions who are engaged. Asking the questions, why and HOW 2. Awards
1. Use of Pressbooks. We saw pressbooks as a solution to open source publishing, before it was used primarily for open textbooks. IN 2012 we worked with PB to develop he OT plugin. We knew that in order to create an ecosystem of OER publishing we needed to take a look at the technical infrastructure. What would be something relatable to a lot of content writers? Since that time we have continued to engage the community by continuing to develop PB, and hosting monthly webinars to our system on how to create and/or adapt using PB. However, we knew we couldn’t just suggest to the community to use PB and expect them to start the work. We need to provide support. We need to give people the 1-1 time when they were in creation mode. Using a technical infrastructure isn’t just about the technology, it’s also about the CC licenses, what does it mean to adopt? If I want to bring a book into the technology, how do I do that and how do I make changes? What do I need to do in order to make my book both open and accessible? All of these questions we knew needed to be answered and needed to be supported in order for the Institutions to feel like they could move forward in the direction of open education. So we started creating guides for institutions. The Self Pubslihing Guide, Adoption Guide, Adaptation Guide, Accessibility Toolkit, Pressbooks Guide. We knew people were starting to understand the WHY behind open education but they needed to also understand the HOW. We are also incredibly responsive. We have FAQs, we have a help desk that helps to triage questions, each time we encounter a new question we ensure that gets put back into the FAQs- and we cite people back to our guides, so they can count on the most up to date information via the guides.
In 2017 we also started to offer secondments to the system. We needed additional support for the work and rather than hire someone full time, we started looking at the opportunity to second staff/faculty from their institutions. Sinnce then, we have seconded 4 individuals form 4 separate institutions. The secondments are for one year and the incumbent returns to their campus after the year with a wealth of knowledge on OE, creations, adaptations, publishing, creating strategic plans, etc.
Something that has been both a gift and a burden is maintaining stats and metrics. It was an exceptional gift in that the Ministry asked us to create a total of 60 open textbooks and because we kept track of all of our work, documented each stage and began tracking adoptions and money saved- we were able to show incredible growth in a short period of time. We are able to share how many reviews a book has received, the frequency of downloads, and the file type most widely used. Metrics- they show progress and funders like it. As well because we do have the secondments and because we want to ensure we have a good historical perspective on the work we have been doing, we are very skilled at documentation. We have strong knowledge management- we track everything- from strategic planning meetings, to key contacts at institutions, to meeting minutes, to suggested resources. The documentation has served us well and has allowed us to always go back to decisions and understand the WHY and to walk secondees on the HOW. Many of the seconndees often remark on the behind the scenes that takes place – the tracking and the follow up.
When I say events as a success criteria I don’t just mean the large events- we regularly host a large Open Textbook Summit in Vancouver- but it is also the support we give to institutional events. Workshops Webinars Talks Presentations …and annual events- such as the open Textbook summit- how can we create a space where we say “thank you” to faculty, staff and students for the work they are doing? How do we continue to inspire authors to create, adapt, and adopt OER. Our events, from workshops to large conferences, are always about shining a light on the amazing work that is being done from reviewers to those who engage deeply with open pedagogy practices.
Lastly, I want to take a moment to also point out the importance of leadership. I work for and with a strong female leader- Mary Burgess. Her leadership style is authentic, honest, and to the point. She operates on a “yes and philosophy”- she puts trust in those around her… so there is autonomy in the work we do. How does the suggested project, action, grant, work we are doing align with our mission, values, and strategy? Idenfity that, and feel good about the choices you are making. Having a strong leadership who believes in the work you are doing, trusts you and is your advocate is quite powerful.

How we get stuff done: BCcampus’ success criteria

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Editor's Notes