Open Education Week

Open Education 101
2025-03-03 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Would you like to learn more about open education and open educational resources but don’t know where to start? This introductory workshop is for you.
This session will provide an overview of the open education movement including what it is and why it matters. This session will cover:

Definition and examples of open educational resources
Benefits of OER to both students and faculty
First steps toward adopting, adapting, or creating OER
How to find additional support with OE at UBC Library

Copyright and Licensing for Open Educational Resources
2025-03-04 13:00 - 14:00 | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Does your project include work created by others? Do you have questions about Creative Commons licenses and how to incorporate licensed works into your project? This session will introduce you to copyright basics for your OER project and take you through licensing considerations to insure that your work is reusable by others. Importantly it will also provide you with a simple workflow to help you identify and respect Creative Commons licensed works.
This session will cover:

Copyright basics including how copyright is assigned to a work
Rationale behind and purpose of open licenses
Identifying the 6 Creative Commons licenses and know how to assign them to OER
Applying Creative Commons licenses and ensure compatibility among the CC licensed works

Open Your Teaching: Enhancing Student Learning through Open Education Resources, Pedagogies, and Practices
2025-03-06 14:00 - 15:00 | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Open Education is a teaching and learning approach that utilizes unrestricted access to learning materials, collaborative knowledge creation and inclusive pedagogical practices in order to increase access to knowledge.
In this workshop, we’ll explore the strategies that instructors at UBC are using to open their classrooms, incorporate new resources and perspectives in their learning environments, and contribute to their students’ learning beyond the classroom. We’ll define what makes an educational resource or practice open, identify ways of finding and reusing open materials for your courses, and explore approaches to developing open assignments that empowers students to contribute to public knowledge.
Facilitators:

Erin Fields, Open Education and Scholarly Communications Librarian, UBC Library
Will Engle, Strategist – Open Education Initiatives, CTLT

Podcasting as Open Pedagogy
2025-03-10 11:00 - 12:00 | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Podcasting provides students with the opportunity to gain experience in open educational practices including finding and using openly licensed audio and sharing their academic work with the wider community. Learn how to create your own podcast in this introductory and interactive workshop.
This workshop will cover all levels of podcast production including content creation, recording, editing, and promotion. No previous podcasting experience is necessary. This workshop will also cover the basics of Audacity, the free and open source audio editing software. Audacity can be used for many digital projects including podcasts, oral histories, and voice overs or narration. Participants will learn how to record and edit audio using Audacity, as well as how to import music and sound effects.
Pre-requisites: None. This workshop is intended for beginners. To get the most out of this workshop consider downloading Audacity at https://www.audacityteam.org/download/.

Creating Accessible OER and Course Materials: What Makes Content Accessible?
2025-03-11 11:30 - 13:00 | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Are you updating your course content or developing and incorporating open educational resources (OER) into your teaching and learning?
Join us for a workshop about how to design or adapt OER and other learning materials so they are more accessible for all learners. We’ll start with a demonstration of different content styles and formats, explore how layout/format choices affect different users, and discuss how simple choices made in the planning phase can make big improvements for the accessibility of those resources.

Publishing a Book with Pressbooks – An Introduction
2025-03-12 11:00 - 12:00 | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Pressbooks is a powerful and popular tool for creating open educational resources such as textbooks. Whether you are looking for training for yourself or your research assistants, this training will cover the basics of how to use Pressbooks to create and enhance content.
By the end of this session participants will be familiar with:

Overview of Pressbooks functionality;
The layout of Pressbooks;
Creating book chapters and parts;
Embedding images, video, and slides

How Far Have We Come? – The Canadian National Open Education Landscape
2025-03-25 12:00 - 13:00 | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
This panel brings together experts across Canada engaged at a national level in open education. Canada’s open education landscape is diverse, dynamic, and uniquely influenced by provincial contexts. This webinar delves into the open education strategies, challenges, and achievements of provinces across the nation. This panel discussion brings together speakers to provide a provincial examination of how open education is shaping post-secondary education in Canada.
This webinar will exam:

Provincial Policy Frameworks – Learn about government initiatives supporting open education in each province.
Regional Innovations in OER – Explore success stories and impactful projects advancing open educational resources and open pedagogy.
Indigenous Engagement – Explore current discussions and thinking on the intersection OE and Indigenous Knowledges.
Barriers and Opportunities – Understand the unique challenges faced by different provinces and how they are being addressed.
Toward a National Framework – Discuss the potential for greater collaboration and integration of efforts across provinces to strengthen open education nationwide.

Panelists

Nicole Askin, University of Manitoba
Catherine Lachaîne, University of Ottawa
Kayla Lar-son, Xwi7Xwa Library, UBC
Alexandra Marcaccio, AtlanticOER Lead at the Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries

Finding, Using, and Creating Open Educational Resources
2026-03-03 14:00 - 15:00 | Vancouver, Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Whether adapting an existing OER, transitioning your course materials into the Open, or creating an OER from scratch, you will likely be using materials created by others. Because Open doesn’t just apply to the finished resource but all of the elements within the resource, it is important to ensure that everything you include in your OER respects licensing requirements. In this session we will walk you through some strategies for finding open content to adapt, or include within your learning resources, as well as best practices for attribution. We will also provide you with guidance for developing your own search plan and documentation, including a workflow and templates for curating resource details.
This session will cover:

Identifying open educational resource repositories and online spaces for finding content
Developing a search plan for finding resources across platforms
Developing a workflow for curating resource details for use in an open educational resource project
Identifying terms of use and licensing of resources and attribution practice

Participatory Publishing - Zine Assignments as Open Pedagogy
2026-03-04 11:00 - 12:00 | Vancouver, Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Zines are a self-published medium created by collaging existing materials (e.g. images, text, etc.) with self-created content. Zines are published in simple photocopied and digital formats for open sharing. The practice of remixing, revising, and redistribution has been a part of zine culture since its creation. Zines provide a space where information authority can be questioned by building knowledge within communities regardless of the level of perceived expertise. This session will address how zine culture aligns with open pedagogical practices and how you can integrate zine-making into your course.
Participants at this session will be introduced to:

A brief history of zine-making and open culture
An overview of how zines align with open pedagogical practices
Methodologies to engage students in zine creation and culture
Resources to integrate zine-making into course assignments

Publishing a Book with Pressbooks - An Introduction
2026-03-06 14:00 - 15:00 | Vancouver, Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Copyright and Licensing in Open Educational Resources
2026-03-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Vancouver, Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Does your project include work created by others? Do you have questions about Creative Commons licenses and how to incorporate licensed works into your project? This session will introduce you to copyright basics for your OER project and take you through licensing considerations to ensure that your work is reusable by others. Importantly it will also provide you with a simple workflow to help you identify and respect Creative Commons licensed works.
This session will cover:

Copyright basics including how copyright is assigned to a work
Rationale behind and purpose of open licenses
Identifying the 6 Creative Commons licenses and know how to assign them to OER
Applying Creative Commons licenses and ensure compatibility among the CC licensed works

Students as Creators - Pressbook Enabled Assignments as Open Pedagogy
2026-03-11 14:00 - 15:00 | Vancouver, Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Open pedagogy applies the principles of openness to teaching and learning, giving students greater control and agency in their own education as well as aligning their work with the academic mission of the University. It combines strategies and technologies that support collaboration, co-creation, and shared knowledge. There are many tools that support open pedagogical practices and Pressbooks, an open text publishing tool, is one that supports students as creators of knowledge.
This session will explore practical approaches to using Pressbooks for open assignment and will include:

Guidance on development of course assignments, including skillsets needed by students to engage in publishing
Examples of course assignments and published works by UBC students
