David Porter, the CEO of eCampusOntario, will be speaking on the open movement in education during a special event at Robert Sutherland Hall on Wednesday, June 28.

Dr. Porter, a former  teacher, teacher-librarian, senior administrator, and first executive director of BCcampus, will also explore new developments such as the Open Textbook Initiative recently launched by eCampusOntario.

The Open and Affordable Course Materials Working Group at Queen’s is pleased to offer this opportunity to build on the campus-wide conversations, such as the instructor discussion groups held in April that brought together people across all disciplines to share experiences, views and ideas.

The Open and Affordable Course Materials Working Group’s mandate is to explore ways to facilitate the use of open and affordable course readings, textbooks and other learning objects in support of the learning outcomes and priorities of Queen’s academic programs.

“We were so pleased with the engagement we saw in the discussion groups and the input they provided,” Working Group Chair, Martha Whitehead, Vice-Provost (Digital Planning) and University Librarian says. “This is clearly an area of interest on campus and ongoing discussions are shaping forthcoming pilot projects here at Queen’s.”

Projects across the country are undertaking similar explorations. The BCcampus Open Textbook Project led the way in Canada in the development of open education resources, and eCampus Ontario is now building on that work with the launch of a new virtual Open Textbook Library. Queen’s has an opportunity to collaborate with other institutions in Ontario to provide advice on the design and development of a prototype for an open publishing infrastructure to support this Open Textbook Library.