by Ann Barrett

Open Education Week (OE Week, March 1–5) is an opportunity for actively sharing and learning about the latest achievements in Open Education worldwide (from openeducationweek.org).

This year there’s much to celebrate as Open Educational Resources (OERs) are taking off at Dalhousie and in the Atlantic region! 

What are OERs? They are any type of educational material that is published under an open licence (e.g. select Creative Commons licenses) or in the public domain and can be used, reused, adapted, shared, and modified. OERs can be textbooks, lecture notes, syllabi, assignments, tests, and more. 

What makes for an OER is determined the ability to engage in the “5 Rs” in the use of the material:  

The 5 Rs of OER is a derivative of the 5 R Permissions of OER by Lumen Learning, licensed under CC BY 4.0. 

So, what’s to celebrate? 

• Dalhousie has launched a new OER this year: Introduction to Psychology and Neuroscience with Dr. Leanne Stevens at the helm.  

• The Dalhousie Libraries and the Centre for Learning & Teaching have announced new OER grants for instructors for 2021 to continue to support the growth of OERs at Dalhousie. 

• AtlanticOER (led by CAUL-CBUA) has recently launched its site and grant options.  

Want to know more about OERs? Check out our OER Libguide, contact your subject librarian, or email digital.initiatives@dal.ca. Learn more about OER Week: https://www.openeducationweek.org/.