OER Champions at Uleth

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Teaching Centre designed an online course to support (U of L) professors and instructors in moving to an emergency online delivery model. The Fit for Online Course was offered four times over the summer and will run with modifications again in the fall of 2020. Find out more about the openly licensed teaching development resources here.

Over the period of 2018 - 2020, the Teaching Centre has funded a total of 29 OER projects, 19 of which resulted in the creation of question banks for homework practice and testing in many high-enrollment courses at the U of L including PHYS & ASTR, MATH & CS, NEUR, ECON. Learn more about the projects here.

Based on student feedback, Dr. Sandra Dixon decided to take steps in the direction of academic freedom and pedagogical empowerment and create two impactful course packs for her Master counselling psychology students. Find out more about her OER projects here.

As the lead of the current OER project: 'Integrating H5P interactive videos to learn Spanish grammar', Dr. Luz Janeth Ospina and her team members are creating teaching resources that will transform traditional grammar teaching through the use of digital technology. Read more about the U of L funded project here.

In order to customize teaching resources for introductory Philosophy courses, Dr. Stingl and his team applied for funding to locate open course texts that are now being used in conjunction with a workbook which is available in print for students who wish to work through the course material taking physical notes. Read the brief project summary here.

Dr. Ying Zheng was the first recipient (Fall 2017) of the Open Access Learning Resource Fund the Teaching Centre now offers to all faculty who want transition to openly licensed teaching materials. With the assistance of the mature student, Keith Aiken, Dr. Zheng adapted and published her first open course pack within only a few months. Soon after, it was put to test in the Spring term of 2018 and has been in use since together with another course pack as well as accompanying question banks. Read more if you want to learn what SPARKED her interest in OER in this interview.

With funding from the Open Access Learning Resource Fund, the English Language Institute has created an openly accessible website resource for communication courses. The website is now in use by instructors and students on our campus and beyond. Read the full report and interview here.

An involuntary adoption of openly accessible websites lead to enriching learning experiences for the students in two large-scale introductory Art History courses. Anne Dymond and Kenneth Allan share their perspectives of challenges and benefits that come with an OER adoption. Read the full interview here.

Dr. Joy Morris has always been interested in Open Access, because it grants her the academic freedom to create her own unique quality teaching materials that are free for her students to use. Read more about her approach in the interview "Combinations Proven to Work" or refer to her personal website.

After the 'half' adoption of an OER Astronomy textbook in the spring term 2017, Dr. Dan Furgason, Associate Chair at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, got convinced of its high-quality content and fully adopted this text in the summer term of 2017. The Department is currently using OpenStax Physics textbooks for the Introductory Physics courses as well. Learn more about the why's and how's in the interview: 'The Magic Pill'.

Like most historians Dr. Carol Williams uses Open Access materials and OER out of the desire to use primary resources in the classroom. She curates them in themed modules, for which she accesses a vast array of digital resources. Adopting Open Pedagogy has broadened the scope of what she can do in the classroom. Read how digitalisation and technology have opened doors to the world for her and her students.