UBC Okanagan to receive one of BCcampus’ 2020 Open Education Foundation Grant for Institutions!

The pivot to remote and online learning due to COVID-19 has highlighted the urgency to further open educational practices at our university.  Greater engagement with open educational resources is an important step in providing all students with equitable access to learning materials while providing faculty with customizable resources for their classroom.

The BCcampus Open Education Foundation Grant for Institutions, which will be matched with funds from the Provost office, will greatly support our work to build awareness, grow community, and increase advocacy of open education on our campus. The 2020/2021 funding will be used to implement open education initiatives including: programs, activities, and events that support advocacy and awareness of open education practices and open educational resources.  The funding will also establish a pilot institutional grant program for instructors to adapt or create open educational resources for their courses. This project will be led by Donna Langille, Community Engagement Librarian, with support from the Open Education Working Group. Stay tuned for more information about the pilot Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant program!

Please take the Open Educational Resources Survey!

As of March 2020, the Provost at UBC Okanagan has formalized an Open Education Working Group with cross-campus representation including students, librarians, bookstore representatives, administrators, and the Centre for Teaching and Learning. Expanding on the incredible advocacy of the Student’s Union of UBCO, the working group is engaging in an environmental scan of open educational practices at UBCO to better understand faculty engagement, experiences, and needs.

Please fill out this 15 minute survey (external link) from the Open Education Working Group to help inform programming, policy, and other Open initiatives.

If you have any questions related to the survey, please contact Donna Langille.

As research activity resumes on campus, the Library is ready to help! Here are 7 ways the Library can support your research:

1. Subject Librarians

Did you know that almost every subject has a designated librarian? Subject librarians are available for remote one-one one consultations to help with your research projects.

2. Electronic Resources

We’re doing everything we can to make sure you have the materials you need. Search for electronic resources like ejournals, databases, and ebooks and media.

3. Physical Collections

No contact? No problem! We can pull library material and make them available for pick-up. We can also scan and email journal articles and chapters (fine print = subject to copyright restrictions).

4. Center for Scholarly Communications (CSC)

The CSC provides one-on-one consultations about all aspects of scholarly communication, including writing support for journal articles, grant proposals, theses, dissertations, and conference presentations as well as copyright, open access, and author rights.

5. Copyright

Do you have a question about copyright or open access? Please reach out to Marjorie our Copyright, Scholarly Communications, and Research Data Management Librarian.

6. Workshops

Check out our online workshops! If you don’t see one that you are looking for contact us and we will try to run one that meets your needs.

7. Lean Library

Try the new Library Access browser extension. Search the Internet and the Library Access extension will let you know when you’re on a website that the library has access to. With the Library’s new browser extension you can search the web and get direct access to scholarly information from the library’s collection. Install it today!

The UBC Okanagan Library is launching the fifth season of its podcast, Frequencies. This season explores the topic of community and features interviews with faculty, students, and community members who engage with their communities in various ways.

Donna Langille, Community Engagement Librarian, unpacks the theme of community:

“The goals for this season are to highlight the community-engaged work that is being done between UBCO and the wider community, and to celebrate the positive outcomes—the relationships and partnerships that have grown from these projects. For people who are interested in community engagement but don’t know where to start, these episodes offer both lessons and inspiration.”

In the first episode, Poetry and pollinators: Engaging the community through art, Donna Langille talks with Nancy Holmes, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. In this episode, Nancy Holmes discusses her work as a community-engaged artist and the innovative projects that she has worked on with her students.

Listen to the full episode here: https://ubcolibrary.libsyn.com/poetry-and-pollinators-engaging-the-community-through-art

Or, read a full transcript here.