eCampusOntario, a not-for-profit corporation, is funded by the Government of Ontario to be a centre of excellence in online and technology-enabled learning for all publicly-funded colleges and universities in Ontario.
Initiative(s)
The Open Textbook Library
The Open Textbook Library is a way for students to access free textbooks and academic materials. It’s both accessible and free, two factors that students value at a time when traditional textbooks are costly and printed in limited quantity. All of the resources and textbooks in the Open Textbook Library can be downloaded for free and printed on demand for a minor fee.
Under Creative Commons licensing, the library also benefits Ontario educators by allowing them to adapt, adopt and remix materials, which can then be used by colleagues or students in new contexts.
OE Fellows
eCampusOntario is committed to raising awareness and increasing the use of open educational resources (OER), including the use of open textbooks, across our member institutions. With the support of the Ministry for Advanced Education and Skills Development, a key element of our current OER strategy will be inviting six OER Fellows to partner with us to conduct action research, celebrate their work through social media, and create and deliver webinars and workshops in Ontario. We will select applicants from each of the following role categories:
* Two university faculty members
* Two college faculty members
* Two teaching and learning support professionals (e.g., librarians, educational developers, and instructional designers)
Ontario Extend
Ontario Extend is a capacity-building initiative that is grounded in the belief that the impact on learning should be the primary motivator for creating technology-enabled and online learning experiences. It aims to empower educators to explore a range of emerging technologies and pedagogical practices for effective online and technology-enabled teaching and learning.
The intent of these resources is to provide the basis for more deliberate course design and digital pedagogical practice.
The framework for these open resources is grounded in the model for the Anatomy of 21st Century Educators as described by Simon Bates (2014) and is supported by six modules and a Domain of One’s Own project.