Aggie Weighill - Recreation + Tourism

1) What drove you to make the decision to switch to OERs?

I am a strong believer in creative commons - anything I create as part of my own research gets shared out as widely and publicly as possible. I also recognize that students access information in a variety of ways. But the real piece is financial. I don't want students having to give up other opportunities or food to buy a textbook. If you have to choose between rent or food or a textbook, the choice should be obvious. Another piece is what type of knowledge and information is being shared. I try not to privilege certain types of knowledge. Textbooks and journal articles are written by a pretty elite group of individuals with a particular perspective.

2) What was the biggest hurdle you overcame?

It is easy to order a textbook, you don't have to think about it, but finding OERs is challenging. Putting together a reading package is extremely time consuming - for first and second year students, trying to find articles that are not only relevant, but written at a level that students can access is challenging.

We are so privileged to have a library that has access to so many online sources, but that only works if you are teaching a course on the Nanaimo campus and your students have access to computers and reliable internet. I am often shocked when I learn students don't have internet at home or their learning device is their phone. We tend to assume our students have easy access but then I see how many of our students are in the library commons or labs because there isn't access at home.

3) Where did you find the most support?

I didn't actually look for support, but support from my colleagues has been really important. I recently took a library refresher, I regularly reach out to CIEL and was an early adopter of VIU Learn. I hope in the coming time we see some workshops and programs on creating good reading packs using open educational resources. Most professors were never taught how to teach if they were not in education - we are researchers, so that sometimes has been a challenge.

4) What would you say to other faculty about adopting open educational resources for their classes?

Adopting open access resources, forces me to become a better professor. I have to constantly be engaging in the current content and think about whose knowledge I privilege, how that happens and the different ways I can share information with my students. A big part of what I do is based in knowledge creation and mobilization and I hope to pass that on to my students. Textbooks don't help you stay current.

5) What are your thoughts on using OERs since you made the switch?

I am more committed than to using OER than ever. There are so many resources already available through the VIU Library and through open source that it doesn’t make sense to use textbooks for all courses.

As academics and knowledge creators we need to consider how we are contributing to a system that limits access to information to those who have the resources or privilege to access it.  We also need to critically assess what knowledge we are privileging and what sources our students will have access to once they graduate.

Original interview October 2018, updated October 2021.