Brock University will join institutions in almost 100 countries in raising awareness of Open Education (OE) Week from Monday, March 4 to Friday, March 8.

The University’s Centre for Pedagogical Innovation (CPI) in partnership with the Brock Library are celebrating the innovation taking place to make education more accessible, affordable, inclusive and collaborative by participating in global events, as well as offering a full day of information sessions on Wednesday, March 6.

“OE is a movement within education that aims to remove barriers and open up education through the use of open education practices and open educational resources (OER),” says Brock Teaching and Learning Librarian Kymberly Ash.

Incorporating open practices into teaching can positively impact students and educators by making course materials more accessible and affordable, and offering more flexibility in course design.

Openly licensed education materials may include books, videos, lesson plans or games that are free to use, share, copy and customize by anyone.

“We are committed to eliminating barriers — legal, economic, technological or any other — to the creation and dissemination of knowledge,” says Brock’s Vice-Provost of Teaching and Learning, Rajiv Jhangiani, who is also on the board of directors of Open Education Global, a member-based non-profit organization that supports the expansion of open education resources and practices. “OE Week is an opportunity to build a greater understanding of open pedagogy, open educational practices and open resources while celebrating the many instructors at Brock who champion equitable access to education.”

The OE Week sessions being offer to the Brock community include two synchronous online sessions, “OER Foundations: A Starter Kit for Instructors,” geared towards those who are new to OER and would like to learn more about how they could be used in courses and “Leveraging Wikipedia in undergraduate health sciences education as a key tool for information literacy and knowledge translation.” An afternoon session titled, “How can Open Education support a Trauma-Informed Campus?” will be offered in-person in the CPI Active Learning Classroom in ST103 and online.

Brock’s Academic Plan pledges to support the creation, adaptation and adoption of OER. As part of this commitment and with the financial support of the Brock University Students’ Union, the Office of the Provost has established an OER Adoption Grant program. The next grant submission deadline is Friday, May 31.

For more information about OE week or to register for a session, visit the CPI website.