Bonjour eCampusOntario

Published on March 6th, 2024

Estimated reading time for this article: 3 minutes.



In November 2023, eCampusOntario joined the Open Education Network (OEN) as a consortial member representing 53 Ontario public colleges, universities, and Indigenous Institutes. We are delighted to welcome eCampusOntario to our community, and we look forward to mutually promising opportunities to share diverse perspectives on open education. 


Working Together

The eCampusOntario consortium works together to advance education technology and digital learning environments. Headquartered in Toronto, the nonprofit supports member institutions in fostering innovation, collaboration and excellence. eCampusOntario also contributes to the evolution of teaching and learning by responding to and leading emerging tech in online courses and programs.


Learners and Savings

eCampusOntario is well established in the open education space, overseeing a variety of open initiatives from resources to micro-credentials to research. The Open Library is a prominent example, launched by eCampusOntario in partnership with BCcampus in 2017. The repository currently offers more than 1600 resources and is federated with 27 eCampusOntario member institutions, meaning these schools are allowed to search the Open Library from their own library platforms. 

Siri Gauthier, Librarian at the Open Library, is encouraged by positive results from the library’s efforts. “Our current reported total student savings is more than $22M with over 244,000 learners impacted,” she notes. “This is only reported adoptions, so we suspect there are more learners and savings out there.”


Building Capacity

The Open Library spearheads a variety of initiatives to build capacity in eCampusOntario member institutions, including:
  • Integrating OER: Now in year two, a program to encourage and fund adoption, review and editing of OER.
  • Mastering Open Ed: A train-the-trainer course of foundational open education and pedagogy.
  • OER Rangers: An initiative that enlists key members to take leadership roles in promoting and encouraging Open Education at their institutions.
  • Ontario Extend: Available in both English and French, an openly licensed professional development micro-credential designed to transform participants into empowered educators.
  • Publishing Infrastructure: A Pressbooks instance and the eCampusOntario H5P Studio available to eCampusOntario member institutions.
  • Specialized OER: A program funding the creation of over 16 resources in both English and French.


Global Common Good

Barb Thees, OEN Director of Community Engagement, sees tremendous potential for reciprocal sharing between eCampusOntario and fellow OEN community members. 

“We have a lot in common,” said Thees. “There are some obvious pathways that we have for collaboration, and the timing is great. eCampusOntario is joining as we’re having conversations with some of our other international partners on how best to contextualize what we’re doing to their local contexts, and really contribute to the common good outside the borders of the U.S.”

Thees said she’s heard OEN’s Australian, U.K., and Canadian members mention open education similarities that exist between their countries, yet differ from open education in the U.S. She believes these members will benefit from more international connections, including eCampusOntario. “We can look at things in parallel with one another,” she observes, “knowing they’re all different and nuanced, but still cross-pollinating.” 


Bridging Barriers

Focusing on French OER as well as English, eCampusOntario will enrich the OEN community linguistically as well, said Thees, adding that bilingualism is an essential and timely benefit in light of recent concern for OER language barriers. 

She considers the Colleague Connector program and Nourishing Inter-Consortial Collaborative Excellence (NICE) Forum to be nurturing environments where we can learn from one another and collaborate in a mutually beneficial way, alluding to international participation in 2023 and the potential for more in 2024.


Potential Collaboration 

Gauthier, who is fluent in both English and French, will eventually be joined by nine additional delegates representing eCampusOntario within the OEN community.

 “We’re always happy to collaborate on our various programs and services,” she said. “From adapting Ontario Extend to other contexts, to adoption reports of our OER, we’re always happy to meet and talk through potential collaborations.”

OEN members, please help us extend a warm welcome to eCampusOntario in the OEN Google Group. Questions? Email Barb Thees.




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