Is your institution ready for open?

We have created this page as a resource for you to use to incorporate open educational resources (OER)–such as open textbooks and open course materials–within your institution. Please use the following information to identify and modify open textbooks and other OER; connect with local resources to be part of the open conversation; and create policies for the use of OER in your institution.

Assess your institution

Will OER provide value to your institution, stakeholders, and students? To ensure the successful implementation of OER, including open textbooks and courses, in your institution, it’s important to have a baseline to evaluate your current level of OER in terms of awareness and interest.

The team at OpenSUNY in New York has created an assessment tool [Excel], with an accompanying OER Success Framework Rubric [Docx], to help you evaluate the results. For other tools, see OER evaluations.

Creating policies for OER

Amanda Coolidge, Director of Open Education at BCcampus, and Daniel Demarte, Chief Academic Officer, Tidewater Community College, have developed an OER Policy Development Tool to help you develop institutional policies to take advantage of all of the benefits of OER.

Adopting OER

Community and collaboration form the foundation of OER, and a substantial amount of work has been undertaken by individuals and institutions around the world to create and promote OER. We’ve assembled this list of resources to help you adopt open textbooks in your institution:

Let us know if you’re using an open textbook, open course materials, or other OER in your course.

ZTC Programs – open textbooks in action

In 2017, BCcampus launched a challenge for local institutions to develop a program with zero textbook costs (ZTC). Funded by the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, and the Hewlett Foundation, three institutions were awarded funding for their programs:

  1. Kwantlen Polytechnic University
  2. Thompson Rivers University
  3. The Justice Institute of British Columbia

Since then, several B.C. post-secondary institutions have implemented–or are working toward–establishing one or more programs with no textbook and/or educational resource costs. For a complete list of ZTC programs in the province, see Zero Textbook Cost Programs in B.C.