Open: OER Support at VCC

(Time to Read: 3 mins.)

Open Edu­ca­tion Resources (OERs) have become an inte­gral part of text­book con­ver­sa­tions in the post-sec­ondary world. Defined by their per­mis­sions to be retained, reused, revised, remixed and redis­trib­uted, OERs present a cus­tomiz­able and afford­able alter­na­tive to cost­ly text­books.

At VCC, OERs are com­mon­place, with a report­ed stu­dent sav­ing of $320,000 and 46 adop­tions in the Fall 2024 term! Whether you are brand new to OERs, or have pub­lished your own, VCC’s Library and Cen­ter for Teach­ing, Learn­ing, and Research can sup­port you with any OER inquiries you may have.

Finding OERs

VCC library has resources to sup­port you in find­ing the right OER for your class. Check out the Open Edu­ca­tion­al Resources guide and the OER by Depart­ment guide to begin your search.

Many repos­i­to­ries have one or two types of OERs, such as text­books, case stud­ies, syl­labi, arti­cles, and more. There are some local repos­i­to­ries like BCcam­pus Open Col­lec­tion, or the BCcam­pus Adop­tion Find­er, which will list all report­ed OERs adopt­ed by BC edu­ca­tors.  These will have con­tent that is pro­duced in BC, con­tex­tu­al­ly spe­cif­ic to BC, or exter­nal mate­ri­als that may be use­ful for you. There are numer­ous repos­i­to­ries for inter­na­tion­al con­tent such as OER­com­mons, Open Text­book Library and DOAJ.  Each of these data­bas­es focus­es on dif­fer­ent OER for­mats and can be sub­ject or indus­try spe­cif­ic.

As with all learn­ing mate­ri­als, eval­u­at­ing for rel­e­van­cy and accu­ra­cy is key. Use the fol­low­ing chart to eval­u­ate any OER you are con­sid­er­ing:

Fac­ul­ty Guide for Eval­u­at­ing Open Educ­tion­al Resources  

Reach out to McKen­zie Young, Coor­di­na­tor of Open Edu­ca­tion­al Resources for any help find­ing or eval­u­at­ing OERs at myoung@vcc.ca .

Adopting and Adapting OERs

In addi­tion to being afford­able for stu­dents, most OER give you the abil­i­ty to adapt the con­tent to your needs. When adopt­ing or adapt­ing OERs, it is impor­tant to first under­stand the copy­right license pro­tect­ing that work. Cre­ative Com­mons CC, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-SA licens­es will all allow you to adapt con­tent with cer­tain restric­tions.

If you are look­ing into adopt­ing an OER and are curi­ous about copy­right licens­es, con­sult the Copy­right Sub­ject Guide or con­tact Vir­ginia Adams, VCC’s Coor­di­na­tor of Copy­right and McKen­zie Young, Coor­di­na­tor of Open Edu­ca­tion­al Resources.

As the cost of edu­ca­tion con­tin­ues to rise, open access mate­ri­als like OERs will become increas­ing­ly impor­tant. The good news is every oth­er major edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tion is work­ing to under­stand, adopt and devel­op OERs! There cur­rent­ly exists ample choice of con­tent to adapt to your needs and more resources are being pub­lished every day. If you would like reg­u­lar updates on new­ly pub­lished OERs, or you would like to report OERs you are already using in your course, fill out the Open Edu­ca­tion­al Resources Report­ing Form.