UBC Open Education Champions

On Tuesday October 22, 2019, the UBC Vancouver Alma Mater Society, the VP Academic and Provost, and the UBC Library held a reception to congratulate faculty and staff for being nominated as UBC Open Education Resource Champions. An open education champion was defined as someone who has made a significant contribution to the use of open educational resources (OER) at UBC Vancouver.

That I was among the ranks of those nominated has a great deal to do with many others (some of whom, fortunately, who were also nominated). Will Engle, Novak Rogic, and Richard Tape of UBC CTLT have been absolutely integral to every “open” initiative I’ve ever been involved with, beginning with the creation and ongoing stewardship of this open website (as well as several others for other courses over the years). It was then Associate Dean Benjamin Goold who first suggested I get together with UBC CTLT, and who was the first to support the fruits of that partnership. I will always be indebted to him for the suggestion and the vision embodied within it.

Most of all though, I am thankful for all the students who (mostly) enthusiastically embraced, posted, commented, and engaged with every “open” experiment, and patiently put up with glitches, mistakes, and failures. Gratitude is much too weak a word for what I feel.

A list of all the Champions can be found here: UBC Open Education Resource Champions

Jon