What is OER?

OER stands for Open Educational Resources.  These types of resources are typically under a version of the Creative Commons licenses or in the public domain.  They are not only free, but are often customizable and re-shareable.  Authors of the OER retain copyright, but they allow users to retain, reuse, revise and redistribute the learning materials.

Often, when people think about OER they think only of textbooks, but textbooks are just one part of the range of OER.  In the current ABE collection with BCcampus there are textbooks, lecture slides, laboratory manuals, students notes pages, test banks, and full course packages including LMS (learning management system) downloads.

For an OER to be included in the BCcampus collection, it needs to meet their quality criteria which includes:

• Adherence to accessibility criteria
• Canadian relevance
• Editable file types
• High quality with consistent structure and copyediting

History of the BCcampus ABE OER Collection:

Since 2012, the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills has funded B.C. Open Education initiatives and tasked BCcampus with managing it. BCcampus Open Education’s goal is to provide flexible and affordable access to post-secondary learning resources in B.C. by making available openly licensed textbooks that align with the most highly enrolled first- and second-year undergraduate subject areas, as well as with select skills-training and trades subject areas.

In 2018, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills & Training provided BCcampus with $250,000 for the creation, modification, distribution, and evaluation of textbooks for the British Columbia Adult Graduation Diploma (or Adult Dogwood).   BCcampus then developed a plan for a ZTC (zero textbook cost) program for ABE.  This plan included identifying common learner pathways, targeting high-enrollment courses as well as high cost textbooks.

In 2019 BCcampus issued calls for proposals for the development of open educational resources (OER) across all subjects and levels in alignment with the ABE Articulation Handbook [PDF].  The call for proposal required that grant recipients must release all content under Creative Commons licenses and have all content copyedited.  They then funded OER grants for the development of 19 different OERs. By the end of the funding for OER creation, the ABE collection included over 40 resources, 25 of which were updated or created specifically as part of the ABE ZTC project. The resulting resources are available in the BC Open Collection in the Adult Basic Education category.

“We have been encouraged and inspired by the passion and fervent enthusiasm of ABE instructors. This project would not have been possible without the dedication these educators have for their students.”  BCcampus team

How to Adopt Open Resources

If you are interested in adopting an open resource for one or more of the courses you teach you can visit collection.bccampus.ca and search for ABE.

There are 13 textbooks available and three full course packages.

Here is a summary of these resources:

Adopting OER doesn’t have to be overwhelming; you can start small by:

• Using a single open textbook reading or chapter in place of one you had used previously
• Using an open homework system or open test bank for students who ask for extra practise
• Make something that you created yourself open for others to use
• Ask your institution’s library to help you find OER in your subject area
• Encourage students to create content as part of formative assessment and create a class anthology

You can also visit the BCcampus website FAQ page for some helpful information