UCW OER Committee Annual Report
April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024

Executive Summary
OER Committee Mandate
The mandate of the Open Educational Resources Committee (OER) is to support open educational
resource initiatives at University Canada West (UCW) through the development of guidelines, support
resources and services, and assistance with logistics. The committee works to enhance access to course
materials and encourage the adoption of OER and Open Access resources.

Successes
Committee membership has increased over the last year to include 10 regular members, this growth is
in response to the updated Terms of Reference, more targeted recruitment, and the creation of an
onboarding package. The committee now has faculty representatives from all programs, Academic
Affairs and the Library. Recruitment is currently underway to extend representation within the
Academics and Registrar Department.
This year the Committee has been involved in a number of different promotional efforts and further
integrated zero cost textbooks within the Associate of Arts program, all of which have worked to amplify
and strengthen OER use at UCW. Throughout the 2023/2024 year, we have been consistently working
on a few long-term projects that we are excited see come to fruition in the coming year.

A Review of the Year
1. Increased internal and external presence of the OER Committee
In the 2023-2024 period, the OER committee worked in collaboration with the
Marketing and Communication department to develop and publish an OER
promotion video. Screened on TVs across both campuses, this video works to
increase both the presence and awareness of OER at UCW and cultivates
interest in openly accessible content more broadly.
In March of 2024, the OER Committee co-funded an Open Education Week
event organized by the BC Open Education Librarians Steering Committee.
Titled “Planes, trains, and generative AI: Recentering open education values in
new technology adoption”, this event was hosted by Brenna Clarke Gray
(Coordinator of Educational Technologies, Thompson Rivers University) with
guest speaker Autumm Caines (Lead Instructional Designer, University of
Michigan – Dearborn). This hour-long event discussed the pedagogical and
ethical implications of generative AI and how this software is often antithetical
to the core values of the open education movement, namely equity, inclusion,
transparency, and social justice. In working collaboratively with our peer
University Canada West | www.ucanwest.ca | info@ucanwest.ca
1461 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC

institutions as well as BC Campus, we have taken steps to position UCW as a strong proponent, advocate
and member of Open Access and Open Education initiatives.

2. Expanded reach of OER integration in the Associate of Arts Program
The OER Committee began collaborating with the Associate of Arts (AA)
program in 2022 to increase the adoption and use of OER content. As a result,
over 60% of AA courses now use OER content, marking a 19% increase from
the previous year.
Historically, the Committee has been unable to determine the full extent of
savings for courses switching to Open Access or Library licenced materials as
required reading was not standardized across all sections. As of this year, this
process has changed. This means that we can now highlight the savings at a
course level to demonstrate the monumental impact this kind of change can
have on students within a single course.
Sociology 100 exemplifies this change, as the course is frequently offered and
has consistent enrolment. Since the content was updated in Fall 2023, there
have been 32 sections with an average undergraduate class size of 29
students. The previous textbook was available for $70, meaning that since its
replacement, 928 students have saved $64,960 within 6 months alone.
This translates to an estimated savings of nearly $130,000 across a single
year for a single undergraduate course. This is no small change, as it is
estimated that the average undergraduate student will pay between $339$600 for textbooks per year1. Helping to reduce our students' financial
barriers is vital to providing student centred education, increasing access to
knowledge and information, and aligns with our wider institutional goals as
well.

1 Hanson, M. (2023, November 3). Average Cost of College Textbooks. Education Data Initiative.

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-textbooks

University Canada West | www.ucanwest.ca | info@ucanwest.ca
1461 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC

Goals for the future
To continue to find new ways of supporting the institution in the adoption and use of OERs the
committee has identified four focus areas for next year’s projects:

University Canada West | www.ucanwest.ca | info@ucanwest.ca
1461 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC