Announcing the Professional Program in Open Education

Happy Open Education Week everyone! I am writing to share an exciting announcement…

At Kwantlen Polytechnic University we are proud to have built world-leading institutional supports for open education, including for our ground-breaking Zero Textbook Cost program, the creation, adaptation, and adoption of open educational resources (including a grant and publishing program), and faculty fellowships for open pedagogy and open education research.

Today I am thrilled to share that we have developed and are now launching a comprehensive, flexible, and online training program for learners worldwide. Our new Professional Program in Open Education is the ideal professional development opportunity for educators, practitioners, technologists, librarians, leaders, policymakers, and others who endeavour to widen equitable access to education. This program is designed to provide a comprehensive foundation for new practitioners as well as to complement and significantly advance the expertise of those already working to support open education.

This program is designed to develop expertise and capacity across a broad spectrum of open educational practices, including open educational resources and pedagogies, educational technologies, policy, advocacy, and scholarship. The program balances both theoretical and practical elements, always ensuring that critical perspectives and issues are foregrounded. The program is open to all and does not require institutional membership or sponsorship.

Post-secondary institutions, non-profit organizations, government agencies, foundations, GLAM, and other groups seeking to advance the goals of open education may draw on this program to develop their staff expertise and capacity. The program is intentionally designed to include practical elements and provides the opportunity for participants to develop and refine organization-specific tools, policies, and programs.

The courses in the Professional Program in Open Education have been developed by globally-recognized experts and are offered through KPU’s Continuing & Professional Studies. To express interest in enrolling in this program (commencing Fall 2022) or to learn more, visit: Professional Program in Open Education | KPU.ca - Kwantlen Polytechnic University

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Wow, you were not kidding in yesterday’s All Things OER session that you had a big announcement. This is an exciting offering for professional development- thanks to you and everyone at KPU for making this available in a flexible format.

I am curious/interested about the research / field project components- commendable to have an applied component as part of the program.

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Thank you Alan! We are really excited about this program and through it we hope to assist other practitioners and institutions in building their own capacity to effectively support open educational practices.

Learners can choose between developing a proposal for a research project (scholarly research on open educational practices) or a field project. The latter could involve, for example, designing a new OE-related initiative within their organization, including the operational and evaluation plan.