Open Education Week 2023

The Library is celebrating Open Education Week March 6–10, which seeks to raise awareness about innovative Open Educational Resources (OER) and practices worldwide. 

One of the ways the Library supports open access to learning materials is the Staebler Insurance OER Fellows Grant. Launched last year, the grant provides up to $5,000 to full-time instructors to create or adapt materials to develop an OER for a Waterloo course. After a successful first year, the Library received funding from Staebler Insurance to support the grant for the next five years. Applications for this year’s grants are being accepted until April 3, 2023. Learn more about the Staebler Insurance OER Fellows Grant. 

The Library is also a key member of the University of Waterloo Open Scholarship Committee (OSC) which “educate[s], advocate[s] for, and support[s] open research practices, open access publishing, open data, and open educational resources,” alongside the Centre for Extended Learning, Centre for Teaching Excellence and other partners across campus.  

The OSC has planned events throughout the week spotlighting various projects and OER tools and considerations, including a session by Kari Weaver, learning, teaching and instructional design librarian, about the management and dissemination of OERs. Through the development and launch of the Library’s Online Learning Object Repository, Weaver’s instructional design team at the Library has thought deeply about long-term discovery, access, management and local ownership issues of OER. To view the full list of OEW events, visit the Open Education Week 2023 webpage.