As students and educators adapt to a changing landscape in the education sector, St. Clair College's Centre for Academic Excellence and Quality Assurance (CAE) department is working to make that transition more seamless through a series of initiatives including open education.
Earlier this month, the CAE team hosted Open Education Week to provide eye-opening webinars and interactive sessions on Open Educational Resources (OER), helping participants discover how these freely accessible tools can revolutionize their classrooms.
The Centre for Academic Excellence and Quality Assurance team at St. Clair College poses during Open Education Week on March 7, 2025. (Rich Garton/St. Clair College)
"Open Education week is a worldwide initiative spearheaded by an organization called OE Global," said Ashlyne O'Neil, a professor and educational developer at St. Clair's CAE. "Institutions and organizations around the world use this opportunity to promote open education through things like targeted resource releases, faculty and student outreach efforts, workshops, and even free online conferences."
Because the seminars were hosted online, participants both at St. Clair College and other post-secondary institutions around the globe had the ability to tune in.
"We promoted our workshops on the OE Global website, so we had participation from people in East Africa, around the U.S. and Australia, and from a variety of other places," said O'Neil. "It's a way to not only engage our local faculty, but also put St. Clair College on the map as a player in open education."
The introductory sessions were designed to address the 'what', 'why' and 'how' of open educational resources, such as textbooks, which can cost between $100 to $300 apiece.
Beckie Berlasty, a professor and academic integrity and educational technology facilitator at the CAE, says students are most curious about ways to save money on course resources, noting OER are one way to make education more accessible and equitable to all.
"As an institution, we are striving to embrace Open Education," said Berlasty. "These resources are designed predominantly in a digital-first format but can also be downloaded or printed at a fraction of the cost that you would see for a standard textbook, so we're trying to level that playing field for our students."
"A global movement is underway in post-secondary education which reflects a trend towards democratizing knowledge and creating innovative pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning," said Michael Silvaggi, President of St. Clair College. "Here at St. Clair, we strive to learn from others to deploy best practices where we can. But we also invite faculty to be bold and innovate in this emerging space to facilitate positive student outcomes."
Berlasty adds the advantages of OER are not limited to cost-savings.
"They're much more flexible and adaptable and can be created in a more engaging way than a traditional textbook as well, because you can embed interactions directly into the digital version of a resource," she said.
During Open Education Week, Library services offered a workshop on copyright and licensing, and Ashlyne O'Neil of the CAE hosted three sessions targeting the discovery of OER, the use of tools like Pressbooks, and the more far-reaching impacts of open educational practice. These sessions were touted as eye-opening and helped attendees discover how to use existing tools and even develop open resources independently to enhance student engagement and success.
Over the course of Open Education Week, the CAE team also hosted "OE bingo" where faculty could attend a few sessions and if they got bingo, they won a prize. There was also a Pressbooks cover design contest, where students submitted designs for a book cover template for future open textbooks developed at St. Clair.
Though these special sessions only lasted for one week, O'Neil hopes the event raised awareness about the tools available to faculty and students, and potentially piqued some interest in the movement.
"The first thing is to really just start the conversation," said O'Neil, who will also be offering professional development opportunities and resources throughout the year.
"This was obviously a focused week, but open education is a year-round thing."
