Open for Collaboration: Is it Time for Canada to Implement a Unified Open Strategy for Higher Education? An Open Access Week 2015 presentation

Embedded within the vision of post-secondary institutions across British Columbia are the values of contributing to knowledge across disciplines and sharing the results of research with the local and global communities.

Spurred by the need to make higher education accessible to all, the open movement has gained ground as the Internet evolved to enable easy sharing of different forms of media. However, while the notion of "open" in higher education has been growing in British Columbia, the default scholarly approach is still closed.

It is time for the scholarly conversation to shift from "why open", to "why not open"? This event will feature discussion about collaboration within the open movement and role of openness in higher education in British Columbia and examine:

• if and why BC's universities and colleges should embrace open practices
• what impact open access and the reuse of educational materials would have on the cost and efficacy of higher education
• what role the governments of Canada and British Columbia should play in opening higher education