The British Columbia
Open Textbook Project
Clint Lalonde & Leva Lee
Canadian Association of Research Librarians (CARL)
October 22, 2014
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Connect the expertise, programs, and resources of all BC post-secondary
institutions under a collaborative service delivery
framework
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Open Education & Professional Learning
Collaborative Programs & Shared Services
Student Services & Data Exchange

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Connect the expertise, programs, and resources of all BC post-secondary
institutions under a collaborative service delivery
framework
Open Education & Professional Learning
Support & promote the development & use of Open Educational Resources
Support the development of effective teaching & learning practices
OER Global Logo by Jonathas Mello is licensed under a CC-BY 30 License

Online Program Development Fund (OPDF)
2003-2012
$9 million invested
153 grants awarded
100% participation across system
83% partnerships
47 credentials developed in whole or part
355 courses, 12 workshops, 19 web sites/tools and 396
course components (learning objects, labs, textbooks,
manuals, videos)

Online Program Development Fund (OPDF)
solr.bccampus.ca

BC Open Textbook Project
40 free & open textbooks for highest
enrolled 1st & 2nd year post-secondary
subjects in BC
First province in Canada
$1 million
Visual notes of John Yap announcement, Giulia Forsythe Used under
CC-SA license

BC Open Textbook Project
40 free & open textbooks for highest
enrolled 1st & 2nd year post-secondary
subjects in BC
2013 – 20 for skills & training
First province in Canada
2013 – AB & SASK MOU
$1 million
2013 - $1 million
Visual notes of John Yap announcement, Giulia Forsythe Used under
CC-SA license

What are Open Textbooks?
A textbook licensed with an open
copyright license, and made available
to be freely used, adapted and shared
by students, teachers and members of
the public.

What are Open Educational Resources?
“Open Educational Resources (OERs) are
any type of educational materials that are
in the public domain or introduced with an
open license. The nature of these open
materials means that anyone can legally
and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share
them.”
UNESCO

The 5 R’s of Open
Retain • Make and own copies
Reuse • Use in a wide range of ways
Revise • Adapt, modify, and improve
Remix • Combine two or more
Redistribute • Share with others
Adapted (color change) from Open Education: A “Simple” Introduction by David Wiley released under CC-BY license

We have a few problems
Image credit: Beyond Textbooks by Thomas used under CC-BY license

We have a few problems
Students spend $1200/yr on
textbooks
3x rate of inflation in 10 years
65% students have not purchased
textbook for a course because of
price
Source: Fixing the Broken Textbook Market U.S. PIRG
Cover image: Center for Public Interest Research used under CC-BY 4.0 icense

Free is more than a good deal

Textbook Costs vs Student Success
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
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Source: 2012 student survey by Florida Virtual Campus
60%+ do not purchase books at some point due to cost
35% take fewer courses due to book cost
31% choose not to register for a course due to book cost
23% regularly go without textbooks due to book cost
14% have dropped a course due to book cost
10% have withdrawn from a course due to book cost
Slide: CC-BY Cable Green, Creative Commons via http://www.project-kaleidoscope.org/

“My textbook is…
…back-ordered
…in the mail
…out of stock
…the wrong edition
…on hold until my student loan arrives
…unnecessary until I decide I want this course”
How often do students start the term
without the resources they need?

iPod DRM by *n3wjack's world in pixels used under CC-BY-SA license
eBook on eBook by DWRL at U Texas used under CC-BY-SA-NC license

Why are we doing this project?
To increase access to higher education by reducing student costs
To give faculty more control over their instructional resources
To move the open agenda forward in a meaningful, measurable way
Annie Lennox campaigns with Oxfam at the AIDS Conference by Oxfam used under CC-BY-NC-ND license

The Project
Don’t reinvent it by Andrea Hernandez released under CC-BY-NC-SA and based on Wheel by Pauline Mak released
under CC-BY license

open.bccampus.ca

Choice for students (and adaptors)
Old Leather books, by Wyoming_Jackrabbit used under a CC-BY-NC-SA

Write Once
Publish Many

System
Engagement

Faculty Reviews
291/365 by thebarrowboy used under a CC-BY

Faculty Reviews

Reviews > Adaptations
My 291/365 by thebarrowboy used under a CC-BY Adventures Adapting a Chemistry Textbook

Faculty Reviews
Faculty Reviewers

Sprints

Sprints
2 Days
17 Psych Faculty
6 Institutions
850 Questions

Other Outreach

BCOER
Librarians

BCOER
Agenda
• What is the BCOER?
• Mission & goals
• Spring Startup
• BCOER Hackfest
• Thinking on OER Challenges
• Connecting with the OER Community
• Future projects and more

What is BCOER?
BCOER is a group of BC postsecondary
librarians working together to support the use
of quality Open Educational Resources
(OER).

What is BCOER?
• Informal and grassroots group - began December 2013
• Began as a conversation with fellow librarians on how to address
adoption of open textbooks and use of quality OER
• Small group of librarians met to explore ideas
• Identified need and desire to co-develop OER guides & tools
• We are a working group of librarians from 14 BC public
postsecondary institutions
• Coordination & support provided by BCcampus

Goals of BCOER
• Share Information & existing resources with each other
• Work collaboratively on new guides and tools to support
use of quality OER by faculty
• Focus on projects with immediate and mid-term benefits
• Advocate for longer term: ongoing professional
development for librarians
• Share out to wider librarian community & networks

Spring Startup
Established working space & group mode of communication
• Wikispace: http://Bcoerguides.wikispaces.com
• Monthly meeting teleconference
• Discussion list: project updates and meetings
Drafted a Frame of Reference
Identified a few key, high priority projects
OER Assessment Rubric & Subject guides

BCOER Frame of Reference
CC licensing info, if required. Remove this text if none.

OER Assessment Rubric
http://bcoerguides.wikispaces.com/OER+Assessment+Rubric

BCOER Hackfest
• An intense day of collaboration and work on selected
projects on May 9th, 2014
• Secured sponsorship of a working space and catering
for the event
• BCOER group identified OER projects of choice and
posted in a shared Google document
• 14 participants: BCOER & UBC Library School students

BCOER Hackfest
On the day of the hackfest two projects and teams emerged:
• Group one: focused on testing the OER Assessment
rubric. They reviewed 40 Science OER repositories
• Group two: focused on developing an OER Poster as a
tool to engage faculty and on ideas for professional
development for librarians

Hackfest Photos
.

.
http://open.bccampus.ca/2014/10/16/
a-harvest-of-good-things-from-bcoer/

Thinking on OER Challenges
• Facilitated a thinking session on OER challenges
http://etug.ca/2014/05/08/spring-workshop-2014-keynote-and-facilitators-
2/
• Opportunity to do a check-in to see if we are on the right track
• Here some notes from our June session:
http://bcoerguides.wikispaces.com/ETUG+Spring+Workshop+Se
ssion

Connecting with the OER Community
• SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Research Coalition)
http://www.sparc.arl.org/ and Librarians & OER Forum
https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/forum/#!forum/sparc-liboer
(Nicole Allen)
• OER Consortium http://oerconsortium.org and OER &
Libraries subcommittee and CCCOER List (Una Daly)
• Quill West, OER Project Leader, Tacoma, Washington
http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/profile/QuillWest

Future Projects
Short term
• Create a public-facing web space to share out our work
• Continue to develop more subject discipline OER guides
• Participate in upcoming workshops & conferences
• Engage with the larger OER community to celebrate
Open Access Week!

More Project Ideas
• Develop more pro-d opportunities in variety of modes
(e.g. f2f, webinar, podcast, self-serve resource)
• Host a Course sprint: librarians creating an OER for
librarians (Topic: TBA)
• Facilitate a OER & librarians community of practice (as
the need arises)

Thank You
Questions?
Leva.lee@bccampus.ca
clint@bccampus.ca
open.bccampus.ca
bcoerguides.wikispaces.com
@levalee @clintlalonde@bccampus
#bcoer