A Guide to Open Education Resources in Ontario

What exactly is an OER and what is their importance in education today?

Open educational resources (#OER) describe any copyrightable that is either in the public domain, or licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities: retain, revise, remix, reuse, and redistribute (David Wiley’s definition).

Impact of Open Education

For many students, the cost of learning resources such as textbooks and study materials, is a huge barrier to education. This, coupled with increasing tuition, impacts student participation and completion rates in higher education – a student’s success should not be dependent on their ability to pay these costs. OER has an important role to play in making education more accessible by reducing the barrier of costs.

In 2017, eCampusOntario launched the Open Library and since that time has supported the creation and curation of OER across Ontario’s postsecondary sector and beyond. A significant part of this work involves promoting the relevance and sustainability of OER through peer review and adoption activities that expand the impact and advocacy framework of OER. Recognizing the importance of this mission, the Government of Ontario invested a historic $70 million in the Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS).

This has resulted in project teams from Ontario’s post-secondary sector creating more than 600 educational resources that have expanded the Open Library collection to make it the largest repository of OER in Canada. To date, it is estimated that these OER have saved learners almost $19 million.

Integrating OER Program aids in increasing open community throughout Ontario

The use of OER has continued to expand exponentially and promises to address many challenges unique to virtual learning for both educators and learners. In fact, a recent survey conducted by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reports that both usage and awareness of OER are at an all-time high.

The work in OER continues at eCampusOntario, so we reached out to Ridhima Bhatia, the Open Library’s Integrating OER Program lead, to find out a little more about OER and what the Open Library is doing to promote these important resources in the higher education sector.

It seems that OER has been gaining in popularity, but is the increased interest due primarily to the Covid 19 Pandemic or are there other factors at play?

Ridhima Bhatia: Open Education was popular before March 2020, but there is no denying that the pandemic really propelled interest forward. At the start of the pandemic, institutions transitioned quickly to emergency remote learning which revealed many issues of which access to high-quality digital learning material was one. In response, the Province of Ontario invested in the Virtual Learning Strategy that funded the creation of OER and increased digital capacity in every postsecondary institution in the province.

These assets were created by Ontario educators for Ontario educators, represented the largest OER collaboration in the history of the province, and fostered an open community dedicated to OER. The community helps educators use their subject knowledge to create OER that furthers open education and digital transformation across many initiatives. These projects are supporting the development and sustainability of OER for learners in Ontario and beyond.

The work now involves sustaining this investment as higher education finds its new equilibrium in a post-pandemic world.

What are the biggest challenges when it comes to Open education?

Ridhima Bhatia: I see several major challenges in Open Education Resources.

Lack of awarenessFirst, not everyone is aware of the rationale behind open education and why it should be promoted. Beyond this, educators are often unsure of how they can use OER in their practice. When considering the use of OER, educators need to consider how they will integrate the resource into their course and what permissions or attributions must be applied. Simply understanding where to start in the search for an OER related to a subject or learning outcomes can seem like an insurmountable obstacle.
How to Engage in an Open-ed worldSecondly, many educators are not confident in their ability to engage in the open education world. Educators have the subject-specific creative content to create the OERs but may lack the skills necessary to leverage the latest technologies or editing tools. Additionally, authors of OER may not understand the costs of creating the resource or how to access support such as instructional design.
Maintaining the relevance and quality of OERAnd finally, OER is not a one-and-done proposition. Just like every good product in this world, OER needs to be updated to maintain its relevancy and quality. This may be difficult for OER creators who are juggling time constraints, lack access to constructive feedback on their projects, and are unsure of how to use editing tools.

What is the Open Library doing to address these challenges?

To overcome all the above-mentioned challenges, the Open Library supports educators in numerous ways such as reference sessions, one-on-one support guidance, LMS Integration, and OER discovery based on subject and learning outcomes. Through this, educators discover different media types and OER formats and receive support to successfully integrate these assets into their various institutional learning management systems.

To build capacity for OER in Ontario institutions, the Open Library launched the OER Ranger program that sees OER knowledge sharers in almost every postsecondary institution in Ontario. The Rangers are leveraging newly created OER training materials to help educators understand where to begin their OER journey. We are also funding the creation of new OER through our Specialized OER program which supports the creation of new assets in the areas of business, science, engineering, and mathematics.

And last, but certainly not least, is a program that I am really excited about – Integrating OER. This program, now in its second year, leads the Ontario postsecondary sector in the discovery, engagement, use, and continuous improvement of the Open Library Collection. Recognizing the time commitment involved with OER, the Integrating OER program incentivizes participation through paid OER peer reviews, adoptions, and editing. This provides access to broad constructive feedback that creators use to update their OER to maintain relevancy and necessary support for OER champions to successfully integrate new content into their courses. The Integrating OER Program continues to contribute to the sustainability and quality assurance of OER. Ontario educators are getting the support to answer any questions related to Open Education Resources.

What message would you leave for Ontario postsecondary educators?

Ridhima Bhatia: My message would be that constant change is inevitable and adaptability to new things will be increasingly important. The educational sector today is not the same one in which many of us grew up. Emerging technologies are changing education every single day which will improve access and challenge us to consider new ways of creating and delivering content.

Every educator should put forth their best efforts to get engaged with these emerging technologies and level up their skills and knowledge to empower their students. eCampusOntario provides various programs such as Ontario Extend, and the Dx Leadership micro-credentials are fostering communities of practice and giving educators the skills necessary to navigate the new education world.

Plans are also in the works for more professional development opportunities for both educators and learners. I believe every educator should take advantage of these and other programs as part of lifelong learning and career development.

Thank you to all the educators, not just in Ontario but outside Ontario as well, for being an important part of our Open Education community. I encourage everyone to reach out and get involved in the exciting world of Open Education.

Ridhima has been a subject matter expert, instructional designer, QA Specialist, and Program lead for the last 6 years in the postsecondary education sector. Her work focuses on helping educators locate and make use of the many wonderful resources found within the Open Library.

Ridhima is passionate about the use of interactive learning resources in post-secondary education and tracks user behaviour to overcome both technical and Curriculum based loopholes. She believes in discovering technological innovation in education and pedagogical practices that can be used in both in-person and online learning environments.

In 2022, She joined the eCampusOntario team where She currently leads the Integrating OER Program in the open library. she has supported OERs reviewing, adoption, creation, and editions in higher education by providing support through reference sessions, workshops, rubrics, 1on1, and creating opportunities for stakeholder engagement.