What can the Open Library do for you?

From reporting almost $10 million in Ontario student savings to sustaining an engaged community of researchers and collaborators, the eCampusOntario Open Library has had a year of action, impact and community. Here are some of the highlights:

More savings for students
This year, the amount of student course material savings since the library’s inception rose to almost $10 million. That’s almost $10 million in savings for Ontario students using open materials instead of commercial textbooks in their college and university courses!

Sharing the good news – now you can too
The Open Library has a reporting feature, allowing educators to share with the community when they create or adopt an open educational resource to replace a commercial textbook. Reporting these adoptions demonstrates the impact of the Open Library, as well as the OER movement at large. Report your adoption of open educational resources by March 6, 2020 to be entered in a draw to win some limited edition eCampusOntario swag.

Questions about diving into open education? There’s a resource for that
For those with questions about open licenses, managing the publication process, formatting guidelines and more, the Open Library team is developing a new resource called “Zero to OER.” These guidelines are being developed by eCampusOntario staff in collaboration with the Ontario Open Library Network (OOLN). They will serve as a central resource for answers to questions commonly asked by seasoned OER users and new enthusiasts alike. Have an idea for what you’d like to see in the guide? Contact the library.

Building and sustaining a community
The Ontario Open Library network, a community of OER advocates, researchers and enthusiasts, was established this year. Almost 200 community members are part of the network, which provides a convenient space to exchange ideas and connect with other open educators, or to get support with the Open Library or Pressbooks. To join the community, sign up for the slack channel.

The OOLN also hosts monthly community webinars, which feature educators from across the province discussing their unique work in Open Education. To view the archived webinars, visit eCampusOntario’s YouTube channel.

Showcasing action and impact
A key part of any movement is showing its uptake and positive effect on the community it serves. To quantify this, the Open Library developed its Impact page. Here you can find a real-time global map of OER downloads, data about Ontario student savings, college and university uptake and more. You can even use the impact calculator to see how much money adopting OER for a specific course section could save your students.

Visit the library today or follow them on Twitter for updates about new OER, events and more.