Defined by UNESCO in its 2012 Paris Declaration, Open Educational Resources (OER) include:

teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Open licensing is built within the existing framework of intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions and respects the authorship of the work (UNESCO, 2012).

In response to strong membership interest in OER, the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) undertook an environmental scan and analysis of current activities in the realm of open education publishing.

Documentation

The OER white paper for OCUL libraries consists of the following sections:

• Executive Summary
• Landscape of OER: review of the national and international OER landscape
• The OCUL Context: environmental scan, survey results and analysis of the OCUL context, including recommendations
• Primer: general information and terminology around OER
• Reference List
• Appendices

National Context

Currently many library consortia in North America are in the process of evaluating member interest in OER, primarily around the provision of technical and infrastructure services, education, and training support. The open education landscape has been rapidly developing as organizations such as Creative Commons engage in proactive outreach and awareness activities. Textbook Affordability Projects (TAP) and #textbookbroke campaigns have been implemented in universities and colleges across North America as the demand for affordable textbooks increases.

In British Columbia, BCcampus has provided funding and support in this area for a few years, since when triggering the establishment of a dynamic community of practice around OER in Western Canada. eCampus Ontario has been following in their footsteps with the adoption and release of the new openlibrary platform adapted to the regional context. A range of funding opportunities has been made available through eCampus, providing support for the creation of new open texts, research projects such as toolkits and guides, as well as further platform enhancements.

OCUL Context

Research conducted for the purposes of this paper demonstrates that OCUL libraries have a strong awareness of OER trends and are interested in supporting programming and staff development in this area. In several cases, libraries have received direction from university administration to investigate opportunities and potential roles for their services. In other cases libraries have already been providing a significant level of instructional, copyright, licensing and technical support to faculty through workshops and research guides.

Given the complex nature of OER projects, a multi-stakeholder approach seems to be most fitting and many OCUL libraries have been able to collaborate with campus partners in eCampus funded projects, strengthening existing connections among libraries and other entities on campus such as Open or Online Learning offices. Libraries are known for their expertise in copyright, digital publishing and strong faculty relationships, and are well equipped to develop more services around OER; however, this mostly occurs in active collaboration with other stakeholders on campus.

Takeaways

The OER environment in Ontario and worldwide continues to be a rapidly-changing one, and so it is expected that institutional needs and activities will continue to evolve accordingly. Responses to the OCUL OER survey for libraries and stakeholders reflect this uncertainty by demonstrating that libraries are interested but cautious when starting new OER projects, as there might already to be an established community of practice for open education on their campuses.

OER is a highly collaborative multi-stakeholder area which requires the following areas of expertise:

• technical knowledge,
• accessibility and universal design principles,
• copyright,
• instructional design, and
• funding support and grant writing.

To meet some of these needs and address the complexity of the OER environment on campus, OCUL libraries are currently in the process of establishing a clear understanding of ongoing open education initiatives on their campuses, evaluating their own capacity for providing support in this area, and developing training for staff around the creation and adoption of OER materials.