In a bold move to transform how higher education is delivered, Thompson Rivers University (TRU) is leading the TRUly Flexible initiative to meet the changing needs of learners. These efforts include leveraging open educational resources (OER) and online technology to make learning more accessible, affordable and personalized.
These innovative approaches to offering diverse, adaptable learning methods not only lower educational costs for students but also provide learning experiences tailored to individual needs, breaking down traditional barriers and empowering student success.
Accessible, adaptable and sustainable resources
Brian Lamb, director of Learning Technology and Innovation at TRU
Open educational resources include digital textbooks, videos, podcasts, course content and other educational tools that can be freely used, adapted and shared to support education at all levels. Launched at TRU in 2023, the TRU Open Press collaborates closely with Open Learning's online development teams and academic practitioners across the university, sharing knowledge and expertise.
"Supporting open educational resources is an area of great importance to support today's learners," says Brian Lamb, director of Learning Technology and Innovation at TRU. "We support the development of these resources, provide the platforms to build and host them, as well as giving guidance and assistance to students where needed.
"To support our online learners, having open educational resources as part of our course offerings not only improves the cost factors and the accessibility needs of our students, but also provides sustainability and makes planning easier long term. The benefits of open educational resources include knowing the price will not increase, resources remain consistently available and the publisher won't decide to change the version."
Lamb says his team maintains robust platforms that are accessible to any student or interested learner with an internet account.
"Not only do we use a learning management system, in our case Moodle, we're also committed to the WordPress platform, which is essentially a website content management system," he says. "We use that to share publicly available resources that don't require special software or a login. We also strive to make our resources as accessible as possible."
The development of various open-source content development platforms continues to evolve, adds Lamb.
"We have evolving ways to represent materials, including an open-source initiative called H5P which lets anyone easily create, share and reuse interactive content without knowing how to code. Current and future student resources are accessible, relatively easy to develop within, and then create interesting and dynamic effects."
Continued benefits
International student Ananya Kamboj, who is studying software engineering at TRU, learned about OER through her co-op work with Open Press.
"I worked on developing the impact stories of different open educational resources that TRU professors developed and I looked at their benefits, whether it's from saving time or reducing expenses," says Kamboj. "We categorized projects into one of three open educational practices: create, teach and research."
Kamboj praises the accessibility and flexibility of OER, allowing her to learn at her own pace and integrate content from various universities.
"Open educational resources are available online, 24 hours a day, so you can access them anytime, no matter what your schedule," says Kamboj. "I've used open educational resources for my lab course modules by referring to other university websites to see various approaches, which enhances my learning experience. I then combine this knowledge with insights from my professors to deepen my understanding and perspective on the subject matter."
Kamboj says using OER has improved her confidence.
"Compared to traditional textbooks, which can be overwhelming, open educational resources are briefer and help you navigate through content efficiently. When I see a textbook for the first time and see how many pages it has, I'm scared. Using open educational resources, especially when they're split into smaller parts like videos, makes learning much easier for me."
Kamboj adds that OER have been a great support for her in managing her education costs.
"They help save money, since it's so costly to buy the different textbooks and to access websites that we sometimes need to register for. Open educational resources are a major improvement."
"Open educational resources support TRU's TRUly Flexible initiative by meeting students where they are, offering diverse, adaptable learning methods and ensuring that our teaching and learning remain relevant to our students," says Lamb.
