Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Ontario Schools Tally OER Savings with New Tool

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 07/09/19
Impact calculator

The Impact calculator

A new tool from the eCampusOntario Open Library measures student savings from open educational resources (OER) usage. Impact, as it's called, recently calculated that students have saved some $4.5 million (Canadian) in "mandatory textbook fees" from Ontario instructors who use OER to replace at least one of their assigned resources. That total represented input from almost 100 educators teaching 41,150 learners attending 626 course sections in 34 institutions.

The Open Library is a hub for OER in the province, currently providing instructors and students with access to 300 free and openly licensed educational resources. The library was initiated in 2017 in partnership with BCcampus, an organization that supports innovative teaching and learning practices at colleges and universities in British Columbia.

eCampusOntario is also involved in the Infrastructure for Open Publishing of Curriculum Resources Project, along with Toronto-based Ryerson University. This initiative has served as an extension of the Open Library, with the intention of creating and supporting an open source technology platform that's based on Pressbooks for institutional use.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Blue Cloud Floating on Top of Circuit Board

    Survey: Organizations Moving AI Workloads Away from Public Cloud

    A new Cloudera survey of 1,500 enterprise technology leaders found widespread AI-driven architecture changes, with governance problems, rising infrastructure costs, and workload placement pushing organizations toward more hybrid approaches.

  • abstract smartphone translucent screen displaying AI interface

    Apple Introduces Redesigned Siri AI

    At its recent Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple introduced Siri AI, a redesigned version of its voice assistant that Apple describes in its own announcement as "a profoundly more capable and personal assistant." The update is intended to make Siri more conversational, more context-aware, and more useful across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro.

  • Glowing digital padlock breaking into tiny cubic fragments over complex circuit board background

    Report: Basic Security Failures Continue to Fuel Enterprise Breaches

    Despite years of investment in cybersecurity technologies, many enterprise breaches still begin with familiar weaknesses, according to a new report from SonicWall.

  • Abstract background with digital shield made of data particles glowing blue blocking against cyber attacks

    Report: AI Attacks Push Organizations Toward Autonomous Cybersecurity Defense

    Artificial intelligence is raising the stakes of cyber conflict as attackers use the technology to accelerate reconnaissance, uncover vulnerabilities, and launch attacks faster than many security teams can respond.