Marking OER: Building Transparency Into Course Registration2025 ETUG Fall Workshop: High-Impact, Low-Cost EdTech – October 31, 2025
Rebecca Shortt & Arianna Cheveldave | Marking OER: Building Transparency Into Course Registration
In post-secondary systems where course registration is the
gateway to students’ academic and financial decisions, transparency around
course material costs is essential. Yet at many institutions, students are
unable to identify which courses use open educational resources (OER) and
low-cost textbooks until after registration, reinforcing hidden financial
barriers and limiting informed choice.
This session shares the early stages and learning from a
three-year, system-level initiative designed to improve the visibility and
tracking of OER use across public post-secondary institutions. The project
focuses on two core goals: enabling students to identify OER-based and
low-textbook cost courses at the point of registration through standardized
course markings, and developing a sustainable, automated approach to collecting
and reporting OER adoption data. These efforts aim to strengthen both learner agency
and institutional decision-making by reducing costs for students while
increasing the availability of actionable data to guide institutional support,
strategy, and growth in OER adoption.
The initiative includes strategic engagement with student
groups to strengthen advocacy for course markings and build momentum for
institutional change. It also emphasizes collaborative support for
institutional change management, recognizing the technical, cultural, and
operational challenges of implementing new system-wide practices. The
initiative is grounded in voluntary, collaborative implementation, supporting
institutions in developing context-specific solutions. Student groups are
engaged as key advocacy partners, using their voices to push for transparency
and institutional change from within.
The presentation will explore the early stages of the
project and invite the audience to participate in brainstorming sessions and
provide constructive feedback to support the success of the project. During the
50-minute session, a brief overview of the project will be given, then the
audience will be put into break-out rooms to discuss provided questions, and
using a tool, such as Mentimeter, the audience will be asked to share
feedback.
Rebecca
Shortt is a Project Manager at BCcampus
Arianna
Cheveldave is an Coordinator, Open Education at BCcampus
Attachments: Transcript (PDF, Word)
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