Teaching Open, Social Learning

The SFU Library’s new Digital Publishing (DP) division is focused on student learning and showcasing their research and writing. This goes beyond a commitment to “openness” to leverage the power of social learning at the university both in and out of the classroom. DP provides instructors with the opportunity to turn student research into course- based journals, and also works directly with students to create student led journals. For course journals, DP installs PKP’s open source Open Journal Systems (OJS) publishing software, creates a course journal for the instructor, who has the students submit their assignments for peer review. For student journals, DP installs OJS and works with student editors to develop their expertise in running their own publications. In both examples, not only do students learn about open source software, open access publishing, and the scholarly communication system, but also about working together to strengthen each other’s work, being part of a journal team, writing for a wider audience, and demonstrating their learning to the world. In this presentation, we’ll briefly outline how this program works, discuss best practices for smooth implementation, and share some results from students who have participated.