This month, our guest editor is Will Engle, strategist, open education initiatives at the UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. He offers insights and practical resources on open educational practices and open pedagogy, along with tools faculty can use to make teaching and learning more accessible and affordable for students.
Open education is an umbrella term that includes both the creation and use of open educational resources (OER), which are teaching, learning, and research materials that are freely available without cost or access barriers, and which also carry permissive copyright licenses that allow for open use. It also extends to the application of openness to teaching and learning practices (i.e., pedagogy), striving to promote equitable participation in the creation and sharing of knowledge. UBC faculty, students, and staff have long engaged in a wide range of open educational practices, including:
- Creating, using and adapting OER such as open textbooks, multimedia resources, and problem sets that are shared across courses and institutions worldwide.
- Implementing open pedagogies that use UBC’s open learning technologies, such as the UBC Wiki or UBC Blogs to support flexible, authentic, and accessible learning. Such practices often position students as collaborators in the creation of knowledge.
Affordability as a teaching and learning issue
One of the primary motivations for adopting OER is to improve the affordability of course materials. According to the 2025 AMS Academic Experiences Survey (PDF) (n=2,134), 83 percent of student respondents reported using OER in place of a textbook. Yet financial barriers to learning materials remain a concern. The survey also found that a quarter of UBC students (25 percent) reported experiencing financial hardship related to the cost of textbooks or course materials. A majority (62 percent) said they had gone without a textbook or other required material due to cost, and 29 percent indicated that they had done so this year.
Despite these challenges, 80 percent of students believed that not purchasing an assigned textbook would negatively affect their academic performance. Financial precarity can lead to students making difficult decisions that ultimately hinder their learning. To put this in context, the survey found that 46 percent of respondents reported worrying that they might not be able to afford adequate groceries.
When a significant portion of students cannot access the materials needed to succeed in their courses, the issue extends beyond finances to become a concern for teaching and learning. As Christina Hendricks and Heather Berringer (2024) noted: “Affordability of course materials is crucial to learning: students can’t learn from resources they can’t access due to cost or publisher restrictions that prevent the Library from making them available. If a course requires students to purchase access to an online system used for assessment, and they cannot afford to do so, both learning and grades could be significantly impacted.”
Accessibility is another key driver for adopting OER, as open licenses enable instructors to modify materials to meet diverse learner needs and accessibility standards. Building accessibility into OER and course materials from the start reduces delays for students who need accommodations, lessens administrative demands, and allows institutions to direct resources toward students with more complex needs. By taking this proactive approach, educators reinforce the pedagogical and ethical principles of open education, creating learning environments that are accessible, affordable, and equitable for all learners.
To help support the use of OER, UBC invites faculty to apply for the 2026 UBCV OER Fund and UBCO ALT-2040 Fund grants, which provide funding for projects that enhance the affordability and accessibility of course materials through the use of OER. Nominations are also open for the OER Excellence and Impact Awards, which recognize faculty at both campuses who demonstrate exceptional leadership in creating, revising, and using OER in UBC credit courses.
Open pedagogy
While OER is the application of openness to materials, open pedagogy extends the principles of sharing, collaboration, and transparency to the practices of teaching and learning. Although there is no single definition of open pedagogy, Bronwyn Hegarty (2015) (PDF) suggests eight attributes that inform its key features, such as the sharing of ideas and resources to disseminate learner-generated knowledge. This approach “opens up” the teaching and learning process, empowering students to take the lead, solve problems, and work collaboratively to create artifacts that they share, reflect on, critique, and discuss. Such activities can contribute to deeper learning and students seeing themselves as part of the university’s academic mission.
Other scholars (2017) have noted that open pedagogy includes empowering learners to shape and take ownership of their own education and, as Maha Bali observes, is grounded in a social justice orientation that prioritizes equity, with openness serving as one way to achieve it. The aligned Student as Producer model (2010) integrates knowledge production into the curriculum, aiming to bridge the gap between teaching and research by engaging students as active participants in their education rather than passive consumers.
Openness also introduces risks. As Rajiv Jhangiani (2019) notes, risk is “ever-present with open pedagogy,” particularly for marginalized students and contingent faculty. Instructors should design open assignments carefully, ensuring that students have agency, choice, and support. Ethical practice means respecting privacy and copyright as students retain ownership of their work and should never be required to give up their privacy to complete an assignment.
The POSE Examples and Ideas for Open Pedagogy Assignments page offers practical guidance and inspiration for designing open pedagogy activities. Transparency about how and where work will be shared, options for anonymity, and alternative assignments are important strategies for mitigating risk. Such assignments work best when students understand how they are aligned with course learning outcomes and feel supported in the process of learning. With clear guidance and reflection, open pedagogy can be transformative by deepening engagement, enhancing learning, and helping students see themselves as active participants in the academic mission of the University.
Additional resources
- The CTLT is offering upcoming workshops on OER accessibility and open educational practices. Additionally, the self-paced open education module offered through the UBC Program for Open Scholarship and Education offers a deeper understanding of Creative Commons Licensing, OER, and open pedagogy. Other POSE modules explore open access publishing and open research. For more resources, the BCcampus What is Open Education website provides an overview of open education, outlining its key principles, benefits, and impact on teaching and learning.
- Open Pedagogy and Social Justice by Rajiv Jhangiani and Robin DeRosa. This foundational piece explicitly links open pedagogy to social justice. Jhangiani and DeRosa explain how “open” is fundamentally about student access, agency, and empowering learners to become active creators of public knowledge. The authors also created The Open Pedagogy Notebook, which provides a collection of real-world examples. Additionally, What is Open Pedagogy Anyway? by Maha Bali, which is embedded in a longer article on open pedagogy, provides a crucial, broader perspective, defining open pedagogy as an “ethos” rooted in sharing and social justice.
- The UBC OER Collection consists of openly licensed learning materials developed by UBC faculty, staff, and students. The learning materials include discipline-specific and subject-specific resources developed for course and professional development settings.
- The Student As Producer 2.0 framework by the University of Lincoln’s Centre for Education and Students defines students and staff as partners who co-create knowledge and enhance the student experience through collaboration, active learning, and meaningful engagement. It is an evolution of the original 2010 Student as Producer model, updated to address digital learning and the need to foster a greater sense of belonging.
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