Open
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10-Year Anniversary of OER At USask Brings Celebrations and Opportunities
The 2024-25 academic year marks an important milestone for USask. It’s been ten years since the first adoption of an open textbook in a large course. During the 2014-15 academic year, Professor Eric Micheels from the College of Agriculture and Bioresources adopted the OpenStax Economics text for Agriculture Economics. Students that year saved roughly $30,000 because Eric made this change. At the time, he said that “it makes economic sense.” Accomplishments This year, USask students are saving around $1.95 million through instructors using open educational resources (OER) instead of commercial learning materials. That savings and the 10-Year anniversary of Professor Micheels adopting the open textbook are cause for celebration, but…
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2024 Funding to Address Priorities Using Open Educational Practices
In a recent survey of approximately 2,500 University of Saskatchewan (USask) students, respondents indicated that an investment in open educational resources (OER) rated in the top five either “important” or “very important” areas USask should invest in. Similar results came from the 2022 survey. Over the past eight years, USask educators have increased the integration of open educational practices (OEP) at USask, including OER and open pedagogy, thus saving students more than $1.7 million during the 2023-2024 academic year. In addition to these savings, students have created or contributed to Open Educational Resources (OER) in the form of open textbooks and learning materials for various community and campus organizations, generating…
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Announcing a New OER – Universal Design for Learning (UDL): One Small Step
We know that learners bring a wide range of knowledge, skills, backgrounds, and experiences into the classroom. As educators, we can expect to find variability in our classroom. The USask Learning Charter lists, as one of the Educator Commitments and Responsibilities, to Strive for Excellence in Teaching. This commitment means that educators work to develop respectful and inclusive learning environments that support student learning. Honouring this commitment requires that educators co-create with students a shared space for learning in which all participants feel respected, valued, and empowered to contribute as they achieve their goals and share the gifts of their identities in relationship with one another. This approach is also part of…
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Non-Disposable Assignments and Why You Should Use Them
This post originally ran on the Open Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) website and is reposted here under a CC-BY license. By Jen Moss, Instructional Designer and Adjunct Faculty at UAF The idea of the non-disposable or reusable assignment has been around for a while. The last couple years may have brought new practices and strategy to your teaching and new thoughts about assessment strategies. Perhaps some of those thoughts revolve around designing assessments connect meaningfully with the community outside the classroom bubble in some way. This is one of the fundamental points of open pedagogy and something that can be accomplished through the reusable assignment. David…
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GMCTL to Launch New Open Course on Open in Early February
The University of Saskatchewan is a leader in Canada around open educational resources (e.g. textbooks) and is moving toward wider integration of open pedagogy (students as contributors, not just consumers of knowledge). As part of this, and in the spirit of open educational practices (OEP), on February 1, 2022 we are launching a new open course to assist instructors in learning about all aspects of OEP. Open educational practices are a range of practices based on the idea that collaborating on the creation of and freely sharing knowledge, research, and learning materials benefits all of us. Key aspects of OEP include: Materials are accessible Anyone can create, collaborate on, and…
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Apply For Funding to Support Your Open Pedagogy Projects
Open educational resources (OER), particularly open textbooks, have become widely used at USask since the first adoption for a large class in early 2015. More than 8,000 students used OER instead of commercial materials during the 2020-2021 academic year. That growth has helped to raise awareness about open educational practices overall, including open pedagogy. Taking an open pedagogy approach to assessment allows students to contribute to the creation of knowledge and resources that not only demonstrates their learning, but also provides opportunities to show how their learning and the discipline can contribute to helping local communities and the world address the challenges we face today. This approach increases engagement and…
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Canvas Integrations Bring New Opportunities For Student Projects
Panopto and various homework systems integrate with Canvas allowing for users to access materials without any additional account create or sign-on. This integration for homework systems helps to link homework systems to the Canvas grade book and protects students from any potential risks associated with purchasing access from a publishers website. There are also new tools that instructors and students can make use of that can be accessed either directly through Canvas integrations or outside of Canvas, but using the same single-sign-on that they use to access Canvas and PAWs. Canvas doesn’t have its own blogging tool, but USask has had WordPress available for instructors and students to use for…
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Using Authentic Assessment to Integrate Current Events Into Courses
Authentic assessments are activities, whether for marks or not, that involve students addressing “real-world” problems in a way that reflects activities they might engage in as professionals in the discipline. Authentic assessments can provide several benefits to both students and instructors, including: Enabling students to engage with current issues to increase engagement in learning actively Allowing students to see the role the discipline may play in addressing issues Broadening the audience, which may lead to increased effort and quality Sharing potential solutions outside of the institution is “what the world needs.” Reducing issues around academic integrity When creating such activities for your students, there are a number of things that…
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Canvas Commons Opens New Ways to Share Materials With Colleagues, and Beyond
As part of our move to the Canvas LMS, the U of S gains the use of the Canvas Commons. The Canvas website describe it as: Commons is a learning object repository that enables educators to find, import, and share resources. A digital library full of educational content, Commons allows Canvas users to share learning resources with other users as well as import learning resources into a Canvas course. As an instructor who is a Canvas user at USask, you will be able to find materials in, and share materials to the Canvas Commons. In addition, there are institution-wide documents, such as a U of S Canvas template available in…
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Why Open Educational Practices in Our Context?
In the previous post about open educational practices (OEP) at USask, I explained what they are. In this post, we will explore why so many people are already engaging in OEP, and why you should consider integrating these practices into your own teaching and research. Our beliefs make us Open supporters Open allows students to participate in the co-creation and sharing of text on current major issues (BLM / Indigenous lives, the pandemic, climate change, struggling small businesses) in their learning, demonstrating that USask is engaged with addressing major issues shaping the world and giving students relevant career skills they can demonstrate for potential employers. When students create materials to…
