In 2018, Dr. Eric Saczuk, Geomatics instructor at BCIT, applied for an Open Education Resource grant. With the idea that unmanned aerial systems (UAS)—known commercially as drones—are becoming ubiquitous and positively disrupting a number of industries, Saczuk submitted a proposal to create two open resources: Image Acquisition for 3-D Mapping with DJI Phantom 3 Pro and Processing UAS Photogrammetric Images in Agisoft Photoscan Professional. In the guides, Saczuk writes, “UAS are quickly becoming indispensable due to their rapid deployment capability, their ability to provide a unique perspective in difficult to reach areas, and their ability to safely gather a rich data set in a short amount of time.” These manuals are complete and currently used at BCIT in Geomatics courses. They are openly licensed and available for instructors and students to freely use.
Not stopping there, Saczuk has been approved for additional OER grants, which will allow him to build on his momentum. The next two manuals will help users understand the standard operating procedures when working with multi-spectral images. This time, his approach will be slightly different as he will be working closely with students to bring these manuals to fruition as part of a capstone project. Saczuk says, “while [students] are investigating these different sensors and what they can do and what can they be applied to, why don’t [they] just put all of [their] notes together into the form of this manual, and we'll publish it?” These manuals are scheduled for completion later this spring.
BCcampus actively supports open educational practices. We’re proud of the achievements we’ve realized through our BC Open Textbook Project; we are innovators and implementers for all things Open, including providing learning opportunities about open pedagogy, supporting open access through our work with Librarians, and encouraging instructional design that takes full advantage of the affordances of open licenses. To find out more, please visit: https://open.bccampus.ca/
Digital assets available upon request.