13 Open Pedagogy: The Time is Now
Thomas Peace
I’ve been a rather slow convert to the open-access movement. Though ActiveHistory.ca operates under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareALike copyright license whereby you’re free to repost this (or any other essay you find here) so long as you provide us with attribution and do not profit, this was my sole venture into the world of open access.
Then in 2015, Thompson Rivers University historian John Belshaw approached us about promoting his new two-volume open Canadian history textbook (click here for pre-Confederation and here for post-Confederation) published as part of the BC Open Textbook Project (we ran two posts about it here and here). Belshaw’s books were the first open access textbooks I encountered. I was excited and – having gradually moved away from textbooks in my teaching – integrated them as support material for my Canadian history courses.
Until recently, these were the only open projects with which I have been involved. Though I was never fully resistant to the idea, I also never pursued it with much interest. I have been fortunate enough to move from academic contract to academic contract in such a way that only for a few months have I ever been without full access to a university’s library subscription services. From my vantage point, as a student then professor, all of the on-campus resources I used were free.
This, of course, is not true.Both institutionally and personally, the costs to purchase educational resources are significant. At Ryerson University, a school with about 50,000 students, the library’s annual acquisition budget for serials, databases and e-journals is over $4.7 million, about $94 per student. Add to that the books, computer software and other course-related materials faculty demand of their students, and the total nears $800/year.
It was figures like these that brought me around to fully embracing Open Educational Resources (OER) as an important part of my pedagogical and curricular outlook. It was one particular talk, by Kwantlen Polytechnic University Psyche Prof. Rajiv Jhangiani, that opened my eyes. In his talk, Jhangiani did the math for my own institution (Western, not Huron, for those reading the fine print). At Western, students pay about $8,000 in tuition and another $9,000 for housing and subsistence off campus for a total of $18,000 per year when books are also included. For on-campus students the number is closer to $21,000.
Depending on where they live, a student without recourse to scholarships, bursaries or loans, would need to work full time at the minimum wage for between 32 and 38 weeks to cover the cost of studying full time. With only 17 weeks available in the university summer break; this leaves about half that amount to be earned during the academic year through a part-time job. Without outside financial support, a student cannot dedicate their full attention to their studies; they are required to dedicate substantial energy to ensuring