How to Use this Course

This project is made possible with funding by the Government of Ontario and through eCampusOntario’s support of the Virtual Learning Strategy. To learn more about the Virtual Learning Strategy visit: https://vls.ecampusontario.ca

For Students

Students are more than welcome to use TransitionU as a resource to aid with their learning and transition to postsecondary education. Of note, however, is that this course in Pressbooks is designed using an extensive amount of Lakehead University resources and supports for learners and as such, you are strongly encouraged to explore your own academic institutions for similar resources available to you.

Certain aspects of the course modules make specific reference to technological tools (Sutori, Padlet, Brightspace Discussions, and H5P reflection activities, for example) that may not be equivalent to what is used at your academic institutions. In an effort to provide options for assignment and activity completion, we have shared an extensive list of alternative digital tools for learning within this Pressbook for you to consider when creating assignments and learning objects for your courses.

For Instructors and Faculty

This course has been set up in Pressbooks as a grab-and-go resource for faculty and instructors to adapt and use in their own first-year transition courses or to integrate individual aspects of the course into their traditional classes.

Certain aspects of the course modules make specific reference to technological tools (Brightspace Discussions, Brightspace Assignments, and H5P reflection activities, for example) that may need to be adjusted depending on the digital tools used within your institutions. As these tools are embedded in the course activities and assignments, it is important to note that these do require manual adjustment for each course and semester you are teaching. We have also provided an extensive list of alternative digital tools for teaching within this Pressbook for you to consider when adapting this resource.

Course Delivery 

Some faculty may wish to offer this course online in a completely asynchronous format and the design would support that delivery model. Another delivery option that has been implemented for this course at the author’s institution is a blended online option in which the course is delivered in an asynchronous format, but learners are encouraged to attend optional, virtual synchronous sessions so that they may have the opportunity to connect with their instructor and their peers in a live setting.

Adapt and Share

Open educational resources (OER) are defined as teaching, learning, and research resources that, through permissions granted by the copyright holder, allow others to use, distribute, keep, or make changes to them. We consider Transition U: Community, Identity, and Inquiry (this publication) — along with our resources, templates, and other support materials –as a type of OER that provides faculty with a foundation of content and activity for their own first-year transition courses within their academic institutions.

If you adopt TransitionU, as a core or supplemental resource, please report your adoption to www.openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca .

We invite you to adapt this book further to meet your and your students’ needs. Please let us know if you do! If you would like to use Pressbooks, the platform used to make this book, contact eCampusOntario for an account using open@ecampusontario.ca .

If you would like to adapt Transition U: Community, Identity, and Inquiry, here are some how-to instructions to help you get started.

About eCampusOntario^[1]

eCampusOntario is a not-for-profit corporation funded by the Government of Ontario. It serves as a centre of excellence in online and technology-enabled learning for all publicly funded colleges and universities in Ontario and has embarked on a bold mission to widen access to post-secondary education and training in Ontario. TransitionU: Community, Identity, and Inquiry is part of eCampusOntario’s open textbook library, which provides free learning resources in a wide range of subject areas. These open textbooks can be assigned by instructors for their classes and can be downloaded by learners to electronic devices. These free and open educational resources are customizable to meet a wide range of learning needs, and we invite instructors to review and adopt the resources for use in their courses.