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Faculty Associates

Capilano University’s Open Education grants have been awarded for the 2021/2022 academic year.

The Open Education Fellows for 2021/2022 are:

  • Sean Ashley – Sociology
  • Cyri Jones – Business
  • Jessica Motherwell McFarlane – Psychology
  • Lydia Watson – Business

The Faculty Associates will help raise awareness of Open Education across campus by providing opportunities to implement open pedagogical practices, adapting and creating open textbooks, and supporting faculty in building knowledge of open resources and identifying subject-specific materials.

There are many ways you can participate in the open movement, from using OERs in your classroom, to editing and creating your own custom textbook. See your options below. 

Find open resources

The Capilano University Library has put together a comprehensive guide on Open Educational Resources, including recommended sites to access Open textbooks, media, and more.

Visit the Guide

You can also take a look at the links below to start locating OERs in your subject area. The resources listed here are courtesy of Open Education at Langara College.

Courtesy of University of Maryland Global Campus – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in OER LibGuide

Images

  • Disabled and Here
    "Disabled And Here is a disability-led stock image and interview series celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC)."
    Images available under a CC BY 4.0 license
  • The Gender Spectrum Collection: Stock Photos Beyond the Binary
    "The Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés.

    "This collection aims to help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities—people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives."
    Images available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
  • Nappy
    "[W]e launched nappy ... to provide beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people to startups, brands, agencies, and everyone else."

    "Nappy makes it easy for companies to be purposeful about representation in their designs, presentations, and advertisements."
    Images available under a CC0 1.0 license
  • PICNOI
    "We are a coop of stock image photography. We recognize that most other FREE stock image sites have very few or no images of people of color."

    "We sought out to create a space where publishers, bloggers, website owners, marketers, designers, graphic artists, advertisers and the like can easily search and find diverse multi-racial images."
    Images available under a CC BY 4.0 license 
  • AllGo
    "[A]collection of stock photography featuring plus-size office workers—available at no cost—to increase the representation of plus-size office workers in media"
    Openly licensed, but not with a CC license

Find a range of openly licensed materials for your classroom, including activities, worksheets and assignments.

  • MERLOT
    Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
  • National Science Digital Library
    A curated collection of open educational resources (OERs) for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Search by keyword or browse by subject or resource type.
  • OASIS
    Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 62 different sources and contains 160,785 records.
  • OER Commons
    A public digital library of open educational resources (OERs). Search by subject or material type under "Discover."
  • SOL*R
    A repository service provided by BCcampus that allows educators to access free online learning resources. It facilitates sharing, discovery, reuse, and remixing of a growing collection of content created by B.C. post-secondary educators.

Look for open textbooks in your subject area – start by browsing the links below.

  • BCCampus Open Textbook/OER Directory
    A list of open textbooks/OER collections and academic presses, put together by BCcampus.
  • Directory of Open Access Books
    A directory to increase the discoverability of open access books. Includes thousands of academic peer-reviewed books and chapters.
  • LibreTexts
    A living library of multi-institutional collaborative open-access texts and courses to improve postsecondary education. Explore different disciplines in the top menu.
  • Open Textbook Library
    A collection of 700+ open textbooks that have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.

Want to find openly licensed images to use in your course materials? Take a look at the following sites – and be sure to check the specific usage rights for any image you select, as licenses can vary.

  • Creative Commons Image Search
    Search for free content in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses.
  • NounProject
    A collection of icons under public domain or creative commons licenses. User can pay a fee to use the icon without attribution.
  • Pixabay
    Stunning Free Images. Over 1.6 million royalty free stock photos and videos shared by Pixabay's talented community.
  • Unsplash
    Unsplash has a photograph collection of more than 500,000 images. All images are free to use, even for commercial purposes.

Get involved: adopt, review, or create an open textbook through BCCampus

BCCampus is British Columbia's leader in open education. It is a not-for-profit provincial organisation mandated to support post-secondary institutions "as they adopt, adapt and evolve their teaching and learning practices to create a better experience for students."

If you are an instructor interested in adopting an open textbook to use in your classroom, learn more about it on BCCampus' Use OER in Your Institution page. 

BCCampus is looking for Subject Matter Experts (SME) from B.C. or other parts of Canada to review textbooks being considered for the  B.C. Open Textbook Collection.

 Contact  bookreviews@bccampus.ca  if you are interested in providing an SME review.

Interested in creating or adapting an open textbook? Learn more about Pressbooks, an open-source, web-based authoring and publishing platform.

Learn more about open education

For more information about open education at CapU, contact Alyssa Hamer, Open Education Faculty Associate, at alyssahamer@capilanou.ca.

If you have questions about open education in B.C., see the  Answer Guide provided by BCCampus.

Contact

Have questions?

Open Education Faculty Associate

Alyssa Hamer
604 986 1911, ext. 3644
alyssahamer@capilanou.ca