Celebrating Open Education Week

This week the Library is celebrating Open Education Week (March 7 – 11), which seeks to raise awareness about innovative open education resources (OER) and practices worldwide.

Here at the University of Waterloo the Open Scholarship Committee, of which the Library is a key member, “educate[s], advocate[s] for, and support[s] open research practices, open access publishing, open data, and open educational resources.” They have two new initiatives launching just in time for Open Education Week:

• The Library has launched a new OER Fellows Grant program, established to support the creation of open education resources at Waterloo. As part of the Library’s mission to make learning materials freely accessible and available, we have sponsored $15,000 for this pilot program (up to $5,000 per grant) to create or adapt resources for use in a Waterloo course. Applications are now being accepted until April 1, 2022. If you’re interested in learning more, join our information session Thursday March 10 at 11 am. Register for the virtual link.

• As interest in OER increases, there are more instructors wanting to reach out to others who have experience with OER. To facilitate the growth of this community, the Open Scholarship Committee has launched an ‘OER Practitioners at Waterloo’ web page, profiling OER advocates. Browse the website and if you’re involved in OER, complete the template to be included.

If you’re looking for more opportunities to celebrate Open Education Week, visit the Open Scholarship Committee’s events page for details on events happening at universities across the country. And check out the Library’s database of OER resources: Online Learning Object Repository.