We are very pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Open Education Resources (OER) Excellence and Impact Awards.
The OER Excellence and Impact Awards recognize outstanding work by faculty who materially advance the use and impact of open educational resources in credit courses at UBC.
Recipients were selected based on their overall excellence in creating, revising or using OER in teaching and learning; the impact of their OER work on students, including addressing the affordability of educational materials; and their contribution to the greater open education community at UBC.
UBC Okanagan: Individual award
Dr. Derrick Wirtz
Dr. Derrick R. Wirtz, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of British Columbia
Dr. Derrick Wirtz has advanced open educational resources (OER) in psychology by creating accessible, research-informed, and student-centered learning materials that remove barriers and foster experiential learning. Since 2019, Dr. Wirtz has developed, adapted, and implemented OER for high-enrollment, required courses—including PSYO 121 (Introduction to Psychology), PSYO 270 (Introduction to Research Methods and Design), and PSYO 349 (Positive Psychology)—ensuring students have immediate, cost-free access to foundational course content. His open lab manuals and Pressbooks-hosted materials integrate weekly guided activities, templates, exemplars, and archives of student-created research, supporting over 3,600 students and saving an estimated $622,000 in textbook costs.
Dr. Wirtz’s OER approach is deeply pedagogical: materials are modular, flexible, and empirically tested, allowing students to develop research literacy, methodological reasoning, and collaborative skills through project-based learning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his resources were rapidly adapted to virtual formats, preserving critical experiential components such as poster symposia. This work reflects an intentional shift from instructor-created course materials to provincially hosted, openly licensed textbooks, enhancing sustainability, reuse, and community contribution across institutional and disciplinary contexts.
A central advantage of OER is not only affordability, but flexibility. The modular design of the PSYO 270 materials allows them to be continuously refined and aligned with course objectives while supporting a scaffolded, term-long research experience. Students engage in a sequence of structured activities that culminate in the production of a research proposal, dataset, analysis, and poster, ensuring equitable access to hands-on research experience that is often critical for academic and professional advancement.
A defining feature of Dr. Wirtz’s approach is the integration of student-generated content into the OER ecosystem. Through open archives of undergraduate research posters, students contribute to publicly accessible knowledge, engaging in authentic forms of scholarship and shifting from passive learners to active producers of psychological science. Affordability, in this context, is not merely an economic outcome but a pedagogical one.
Beyond his own teaching, Dr. Wirtz has championed OER adoption within the department and across UBC, demonstrating the transformative potential of open education to enhance accessibility, equity, and innovation.
UBC Okanagan: Group award
Dr. Robin Young, Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, UBC Okanagan
Dr. Lauren Dalton, Senior Instructor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Oregon State University
Heather Ng-Cornish, Scientific Illustrator and Master’s Student in Science Communication, Laurentian University
Fundamentals of Cell Biology represents a transformative collaboration advancing open educational resources in foundational life sciences. Developed by Dr. Robin Young, Dr. Lauren Dalton, and illustrator Heather Ng-Cornish, the textbook provides an accessible, high-quality resource for one of the most widely required courses in biology programs.
Since its 2024 publication, the textbook has served as the primary resource for cell biology courses at UBC Okanagan and Oregon State University, supporting over 1,000 students annually while eliminating approximately $100 in textbook costs per student. Adoption has expanded to more than 24 institutions worldwide, including UBC Vancouver, reaching thousands of additional students each year. The resource has recorded over 300,000 page views, 100,000 unique users, and more than 18,000 downloads.
Designed for students encountering cell biology for the first time, the textbook emphasizes clarity, accessibility, and engagement with the scientific process. Rather than presenting knowledge as fixed, it situates core concepts within the experimental methods through which they are understood, fostering critical thinking, problem-solving, and scientific literacy. The text follows best practices in open education, incorporating Universal Design for Learning principles, accessible formatting, and inclusive design features such as colour-blind-friendly graphics, alt-text, and multimodal access.
A defining strength of the project is its commitment to representation and student connection. Drs. Young and Dalton intentionally create space for diverse identities within the scientific narrative, acknowledging varied cultural and educational backgrounds while highlighting contributions from underrepresented scientists. This approach reflects a broader pedagogical aim: to ensure that students can see themselves within the discipline and engage meaningfully with its practices.
Ms. Ng-Cornish, then an undergraduate student at UBC Okanagan, played a central and indispensable role as the primary illustrator. Her more than 200 original illustrations are integral to the clarity and accessibility of the material, particularly for students encountering complex cellular processes for the first time.
Importantly, the impact of this resource extends well beyond affordability. It exemplifies how open, thoughtfully designed materials can enhance learning, expand access, and support student success across diverse educational contexts.
Dr. Robin Young
Dr. Lauren Dalton
Heather Ng-Cornish
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