This space is a collaborative working space for the BC Open Education Librarians (BCOEL) group, a group of BC post-secondary librarians interested in OER and informally meeting to discover and share ways we can support the use of quality OER by faculty and students.

Background
The BCOEL group met initially in December 2013, after a few librarians thought it would helpful to meet and share ideas, tools, and strategies on OER projects in support of faculty. The group has since met monthly via teleconference with the coordination and assistance of BCcampus.ca (See the BCcampus OpenEd site and BC Open Textbook project for more general info on BC and OER happenings and info on the BC Open Textbook project.)

Social Media
The BCOEL group official web space where we share our work is hosted here: bcoel.ca.

The twitter hashtag has changed from #bcoer to #bcoel.

For more information on BCOEL or to find out how you can help with projects of this working group contact Brenda Smith. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

Members of this site are invited to make changes to pages, to add to them and/or create new pages and new topics of interest.

Definition of Open Education Resources

Open Education Resources (OER) is a broadly defined term and includes resources related to the development of instruction. For the purpose of this project, OER will refer to open resources such as journal articles, books, associated course materials, and AV materials such as streaming audio and video.

At this time course development materials, such as instructional modules, course syllabi, presentation, and quizzes, will not be included.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/What_is_OER%3F

Objectives of this group

The objective of the BCOEL group is to develop a set of resources to support librarians in their interactions with faculty related to OER. The resources developed are meant to provide a single authoritative and sustainable space for all BC libraries in the identification and use of OER resources.

Audience

The BCOEL group will focus on the education and professional development of librarians facilitating faculty members in using and/or developing OER.

Goals

• Develop a process of identifying and assessing OER resources for use in research and instruction.
• Develop a list of vetted resources by subject for referral.
• Develop faculty discussion points for librarians on the subtle differences between OER and OA and their uses in research and instruction.
• Provide local and advertise local events for professional development.
• Develop a guide to OER initiatives.

Priorities

Short term (Spring 2014)

• Research OER assessment checklists and develop a brief outline (Initial Leads – Devin & Erin)
• Compile list of OER reuse and copyright/licensing information to leverage in future resources
• Compile list of OER professional development opportunities for librarians
• Compile list of OER initiatives for faculty involvement

Mid term (Fall 2014)
Long term (2015?)

Outputs

1. OER assessment checklist
2. Vetted OER lists by subject, with priority given to high use subject areas.
3. Educational resources related to copyright issues and OER vs. OA.
4. A list of local events for librarian professional development. Additional events will be developed by this group to support dialogue and growth.
5. A list of OER initiatives for faculty involvement (e.g. BC Textbooks)
6. Promotional material, including:
7. One Pager for Faculty on OER
8. One Pager for Librarians on OER Support

Resources needed

• Are there librarians we can call on to contribute? Subject Librarians
  Copyright Offices
• Finalized central location for the guide/portal for sharing what we are doing
• Do we need a place other than this wiki for collaborating on projects?

 

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