Many of Taylor’s plays are available in digital format from the series: North American Indian Drama Other First Nation writers from Canada represented in this collection include Tomson Highway, Daniel David Moses, Yvette Nolan, Marie Clements, and Shirley Cheechoo.
The following are some suggested resources on anti-black racism. For additional resources, please refer to the Black Experience in Canada libguide. For more information about these resources, please contact: Jane Schmidt| jschmidt@ryerson.ca
Black Women in Canada / Wallace, Jen Katshunga; Notisha Massaquoi; Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit, City of Toronto; Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI); and Justine Wallace
Want to ‘meet’ at the Library? Now you can be there virtually with Zoom backgrounds! Select your preferred background from the collection below. Come here without leaving home.
What is Zoom?
Zoom is an online meeting tool recommended for teaching-related web conferencing, especially if your classes comprise more than 100 people. All staff, faculty and teaching assistants have licensed Zoom accounts at this time.
Features: screensharing, breakout rooms, annotations, chat, record meetings, and more.
Room capacity: 300 people per room.
Delivery method: Zoom desktop app (preferred) or Chrome web client (limited features).
The archive will serve as a repository for future research and experiential learning
The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” has proven true as the COVID-19 global pandemic has unfolded. People have searched for images that show what the virus has done to cities across the globe, and have found comfort in videos of neighbours singing together from their balconies in isolation. Ryerson Library Archives and Special Collections have created a digital home for content just like this, and are inviting the Ryerson community to contribute through an online portal. The material they receive will be used for future research and experiential learning.
The Archives and Special Collections have posted an excellent blog dedicated to celebrating the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
Author’s blog note: The planning for this blog started in November 2019, to tie into exhibits and other events to celebrate the World Health Organization’s declaration that 2020 would be The International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. At that time COVID-19 was not a known entity and now 5 months later we are in the midst of an international health crisis. We would like to take this moment to recognize Nurses and Midwives for all of their hard work and dedication. The Nurses who care for us and our loved ones on a day to day basis, and those who are working on the front line of this pandemic – Thank you. The Midwives who support and care for their patients and are doing so now during these unprecedented times – Thank you.
As the University moved courses, exams and services online, the Library quickly responded. Expanding its laptop loan program to include wifi lending, moving 3D printers to assist FCAD’s efforts to prototype PPE, ensuring improved access to electronic resources, and participating in a global call to archive lived experiences during the pandemic, the Library swiftly adjusted to this new environment.
Library online services and resources
In response to COVID-19, the Library quickly mobilized and expanded its digital infrastructure to ensure students and faculty continued to have access to critical Library services and resources. This included highlighting and adding digital collections (ebooks, ejournals, data, streaming media), expanding virtual reference hours (a 63% jump in use), shifting workshops, instruction and programming online, and ensuring graduate students and faculty have advanced SRC support. The Library also joined the Keep Teaching Taskforce and continues to play an important role in shifting courses to virtual delivery advising on learning resources including open education resources, assisting with learning and teaching technology support, providing online information literacy instruction, and ensuring copyright compliance through the transition.
Laptops and mobile wifi hotspot loans
Quickly stepping up to adjust and expand the laptop loan program (doubling size, and extended loan periods), the Library added mobile wifi hotspot lending to ensure students had the technology and connectivity needed to complete their courses during the COVID-19 crisis. Additionally, the Library worked closely with the President’s Office to liaise with Rogers to provide temporary unlimited data to students with a Rogers or Fido phone plan. This included receiving, verification and processing of student requests for Roger’s activation of this generous offer. The program has now closed for the winter term, and the Library is reviewing and revising the program to support the unique needs of students taking spring and summer courses.
Expanding digital collections
The purchase of a number of critical academic and SRC resources continued, adding to an already robust research collection. To date, the existing scholarly collections has expanded and has received more than 36 new packages in support of all disciplines, faculties, and schools, including: substantial expansion of essential ebook content, electronic academic journals, data sets and business reports, and streaming media content along with other specialized and unique collections and research tools. These new resources will have a positive impact on the Library’s ability to continue supporting high quality academic programs and SRC initiatives, especially in times of increased digital delivery.
COVID-19 Digital Archive
Through the leadership of the Archives and Special Collections unit, the Library is inviting community members to contribute to our own local COVID-19 Digital Archive. The goal of this project is to develop a portal to serve as a repository for those of us – students, faculty, staff and alumni of Toronto Metropolitan University – who may be documenting their current experiences during these troubling times. This grassroots primary source documentation will be of significant value to future researchers studying this period. The Ryerson COVID-19 Digital Archive seeks to preserve and make accessible content that was captured and created by community members about their lived experiences.
Community members are encouraged to contribute original digital content from a wide variety of possible formats including photographs, videos, diaries, journals and other written content related to COVID-19. Contributed content will eventually be made publicly available.
Library building closure
While sad to see the building closed, and a normally bustling academic library empty of students, faculty, librarians and staff, the Library was able to easily shift essential academic services to online delivery. Like all academic libraries, the Ryerson Library has been operating at the nexus of digital, experiential and in-person for years. Its digital expertise, focus on personalized services, and a pre-existing robust online infrastructure were already in place and could be easily leveraged and expanded. Though print resources, academic study and learning spaces (including experiential, SRC technology, and R&D spaces) are currently inaccessible, Librarians and staff continue to explore new and creative ways to advance their work in supporting SRC, teaching and learning at Ryerson.
Open Education Week is a global event designed to raise awareness of free and open sharing in education and the benefits they bring to faculty, instructors and students.
The Library, in partnership with the Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching and The Chang School, are hosting a series of discussions, workshops and events in support of Open Education work underway at Ryerson.
Open Education Week events:
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Using Open Education Resources (OER) for Teaching and Learning Workshop
Time: 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Location: Library Collaboratory-3rd floor, Library (Enter from the SLC)
This Chang School workshop will give an overview of how instructors can use open educational resources in their teaching, and introduction to open licensing. Through guided support by a team of instructional designers and librarians from Toronto Metropolitan University Library, participants will locate relevant resources for their respective courses and draft an action plan for OER use for the future.
Open Education Week Keynote: Highlight on Open Textbooks
Time: 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Location: Library Collaboratory-3rd floor, Toronto Metropolitan University Library (Enter from SLC)
Come and join us for an afternoon of lunch and learning about Open Education and how it can support both your teaching and your students. Our keynote David Porter, is the new Dean of Innovative Learning and Senior Special Advisor for Flexible Learning at Humber College and was the former CEO of eCampusOntario. Dr. Porter will speak about charting a course towards innovation using open education, open practices and open pedagogy. Next, learn about how Ryerson faculty have worked with students to create Open Textbooks with Jennifer Lapum and her team who will present on “Creating and Adapting OER with Students for Students.” The third session of the afternoon will be a panel of Ryerson students and faculty who have recently worked on open textbooks or have worked on the first round of the Toronto Metropolitan University Library OER Grants.
Keynote: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. “Charting a Course Towards Open Innovation: Open resources, open practices, communities of innovation” with David Porter, Dean of Innovative Learning and Senior Special Advisor for Flexible Learning, Humber College
Dr. David Porter is the current Dean of Innovative Learning and Senior Special Advisor for Flexible Learning, Humber College, and the former CEO of eCampusOntario, the primary face of the Ontario Online Learning Consortium (OOLC), a not-for-profit corporation whose membership is composed of all publicly funded colleges and universities in Ontario.
David is a long-time advocate for the benefits of adapting new technology to deliver educational opportunities, and has been involved in open and distance learning since the 1990s, at both the K-12 and higher education levels.
Discussion: 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. “Creating and Adapting OER with Students for Students” with Jennifer Lapum, Oona St-Amant, Nada Savicevic
Panel: 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Faculty and Student Panel on creating OER with Library Grants
Curating in the Open: A Webinar with James Skidmore
Time: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: Online Webinar
Informative for both faculty and administrators, this webinar will focus on a content curation approach to open and online education. James will also cover the role of policy in supporting OER initiatives at your institution.
James Skidmore is a faculty member at the University of Waterloo. He is also the Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies. He has been a University of Waterloo Teaching Fellow, and is just finishing up a one-year appointment as one of six eCampusOntario Open Education Fellows.
Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Location: Library Learning Commons-2nd floor, Toronto Metropolitan University Library
Students! Drop by our OE Week Table, grab a free cookie and find out more about Open Textbooks.
Open Pedagogy Workshop
Time: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Location: Daphne Cockwell Centre for Health Sciences (DCC-713)
Led by: Michelle Schwartz and Nada Savicevic, Educational Developers, Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching
Open pedagogy is about “rethinking the relationship between teachers, students, and knowledge” (DeRosa & Robinson). This experiential learning technique defines the role of the students as that of a creator of knowledge, rather than a consumer. Teachers learn alongside their students, and course content is dynamic, rather than set in stone. Assessments are designed so that student work can be shared outside the classroom, contributing to public knowledge, and, if openly licensed, to be built on by others. Join us to learn more about this learner-driven, experiential, and inclusive pedagogy. Bring your course outlines or assessments so we can discuss how they could be transformed through open teaching principles.
Time: 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Location: DCC – 7th floor, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
Drop by the Centre to talk with experts on open access and open pedagogy. Have some coffee and work with a librarian to find open resources or textbooks, or talk with one of our educational developers about how your course can be more open.
Chang School Open Educational Resources Showcase
Time: 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Location: 7th floor, Chang School
This is an excellent opportunity for Chang School Continuing Education Contract Lecturers and Academic Coordinators to network with colleagues and check out open educational resources created by the Digital Education Strategies unit at The Chang School.
Resources to be showcased include:
Web Accessibility Open Textbooks
Educational games for nursing, accessibility and academic integrity
Guide to The Art of Serious Game Design for multidisciplinary teams in higher education
The event features a special address by The Chang School Dean, Dr. Gary Hepburn who will share his experience on open education.
Chang School staff will be available to guide you on exploring some of the key repositories for Open Educational Resources and OpenTextbooks relevant to your discipline.
Please drop in to introduce yourself and explore! Refreshments will be provided.
OER textbooks available through Ryerson Library Pressbook platform
For nearly a decade, the Ryerson Library has worked with external and internal partners (Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and Digital Educational Strategies at the Chang School) to provide leadership in, and support for, Open Education Resources (OER) in higher education. OERs are openly licensed and freely available learning materials for students that can be used, adapted, reproduced, copied, and shared. These include: courses, modules, textbooks, multimedia, assessments, and supplementary materials.
At Ryerson, the Library’s role in building a positive university-wide OER environment has focused on supporting the adoption, adaptation, and creation of OER. Most recently, the Library introduced OER grants to help fund the development of open education resources that support specific course needs. From the outset, grant objectives have been “to provide support for the review, revision and adoption of open textbooks and other OER materials,” and to, “increase the use of OER at Toronto Metropolitan University resulting in pedagogical innovation, enhanced access for students, and reduced textbook and class material costs.”
Simply put, the grants allow Ryerson faculty to adapt current OER, or create new OER content in support of student learning at the university—positively impacting equity and ensuring all students have access to required course materials.
An added benefit of the grants has been the Library’s ability to employ students to work on OER projects with faculty and librarians. Students learn about open publishing, expand their digital skill sets and subject matter knowledge, all while making a positive impact on student success.
“Open Education Resources can be transformative for student learning and teaching innovation,” say Ryerson Chief Librarian, Carol Shepstone. “The Library is thrilled to provide these experiential opportunities for students, while also providing leadership in advancing OER at the university, as well as nationally and provincially.”
In addition to granting opportunities, Ryerson librarians and OER experts Sally Wilson, Ann Ludbrook and Kelly Dermody work to build partnerships with Ryerson faculty who are also committed to creating OER materials. Increasingly, the Library, faculties and departments, have witnessed greater interest from faculty members in developing and employing open resources in courses. And, for the past several years, the Library has provided publishing support through Ryerson Pressbooks, which now hosts fourteen open course resources, not including the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 OER grant recipient projects.
This past summer, working with the Library, Faculty of Community Services Professor Ian Young, created and published Mathematics for Public and Occupational Health Professionals for his fall course that had an enrollment of 150 students. The response from the students, and Library, was overwhelmingly positive. “Working with Dr. Young and a Library Career Boost student to create a customized textbook was very rewarding,” says Web Services Librarian, Sally Wilson. “The result was a text tailored to a particular course, freely available to all students.”
Once open resource material is published on the Pressbook platform, the Library is then able to provide additional support by gathering metrics, usage statistics for authors, and information about the community impact beyond Ryerson. Along with important copyright advice and education, the Library also helps to ensure discoverability by applying enhanced metadata and ISBNs.
Creating freely available, pedagogically innovative, and current learning resources are certainly primary motivations for supporting the development of OER, but equity is also about accessibility and adhering to the principles of Universal Design for Learning. Accessibility Services Librarian, Kelly Dermody notes that, “OER’s are a more ideal solution for ensuring accessibility since they are already online and have no digital locks—meaning they can be quickly converted to multiple accessible formats.”
Supporting and strengthening OER resources at Ryerson, as well as provincially and nationally, is about student success and relieving some of the barriers to higher education. In addition to campus initiatives, the Ryerson Library works in collaboration with academic libraries across Ontario and Canada through the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL), eCampusOntario (2018 to 2019), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and internationally with the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), to advance OER. “Students’ needs are foremost when it comes to supporting OER,” says Copyright and Scholarly Engagement Librarian, Ann Ludbrook. “It is one more way the Library can help make attending university more affordable, equitable and accessible for all students.”
The week of February 24th isFair Use/ FairDealingWeek – an annual event to highlight, celebrate and educate about fair use in the United States and fairdealing in Canada and other jurisdictions. As part of our celebration of Fair Use/FairDealingWeek, the Library is hosting a panel discussion, Copyright, and Education: 2020 Update
At this panel presentation, the speakers will review significant legal developments in the areas of fairdealing and copyright, which impact on the educational use of copyright materials. This includes the ruling in the Access Copyright v. York University case, as well as an update on the federal government’s review of the Copyright Act, and recent decisions by the Copyright Board impacting higher education. These developments will be of interest to instructors, faculty, and librarians, and others looking to ensure legal compliance with copyrighted materials in the classroom. Participants will also learn about the available supports at the Library to ensure copyright compliance, including the Library’s E-Reserves service.
Date: Monday, Feb. 24th, 2020
Location: SLC508
Time: 2:00-3:00pm
Speakers:
Julia Shin Doi, General Counsel General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Governors
Carol Shepstone, Chief Librarian
Ann Ludbrook, Copyright and Scholarly Engagement Librarian
Congratulations to Professor Michael Carter, Professor Jennifer Lapum and Professor Jacqui Gingras on receiving 2019-2020 Open Education Resource (OER) Library Grants.
The OER Library grant supports the development of open education resources by Ryerson faculty and staff. OERs are openly licensed learning materials that are freely available to be adapted, copied, and shared. These can include: courses, modules, textbooks, multimedia, assessments, and supplementary materials.
The grants advance the University’s priorities to foster an innovation ecosystem and ensure excellence in student learning experiences, while supporting access to essential learning materials.
Funding and support provided through the granting process is upheld by the Library’s commitment to and expertise in open access and open education resource publishing and dissemination.
Each year recipients are selected through the review and adjudication process carried out by the Library in collaboration with the Office of eLearning, the Learning and Teaching Office, and Digital Education Strategies at the Chang School.
2019-2020 Grant recipients:
Michael Carter, Director of Industry, Master of Digital Media Program at FCAD, and Co-Investigator, Vincent Hui, School of Architecture
Project: Knowledge-making and 3D (Re)Visualization of Eastern Woodlands Indigenous History An Integrated and Interactive approach to Indigenizing Curriculum Carter’s proposal supports the development of text-based curriculum to complement an existing virtual, interactive, 3D (re)visualization of an Eastern Woodlands longhouse. Working with a Ryerson Indigenous advisor and Ryerson Indigenous community members in partnership with the Nation Huronne Wendat, Prof. Michael Carter and his team will develop teaching resources to support an existing virtual and interactive learning environment, including an executable digital game asset. Through the creation of an open educational resource (OER), additional material will also provide instruction on how to use the digital assets, and further explore the historical and archaeological knowledge already available in multimedia format. The proposed OER will also offer an open source environment to allow for the material to be reinterpreted, repositioned and reengaged by those who wish to expand on its offerings.
Jennifer Lapum, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing
Project: The Nurse’s Physical Examination of the Patient The proposal addresses the need for the creation of an open educational resource (OER) covering the four assessment techniques that comprise the nurse’s physical examination of the patient, which include: inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation (IPPA). These IPPAs are techniques foundational to physical assessment skills, and are applicable to each body system. Because such skills require tactile knowledge, the topic is well-suited for multimodal learning. In comparison with existing copyrighted resources, the proposed OER will offer experiential learning opportunities that leverage multimedia elements and interactivity to enhance students’ competency in conducting physical assessments and in preparation for clinical practice.
Jacqui Gingras, Department of Sociology
Project: Sociology of Education in Canada, Critical and Indigenous Perspectives The proposal addresses the need for an updated textbook for the course SOC 503: Sociology of Education. This course focuses on the “the functions of schooling and training in Canadian society.” This will include critical perspectives, including Indigenous perspectives on education that are informed by Indigenous ways of knowing with Indigenous consultation. The reason for the creation of an OER for this course is two-fold: 1) to update current scholarship related to the sociology of education; 2) provide opportunities to learn about Indigenous education in Canada, a topic not currently covered in many Sociology textbooks. As an OER, the book will be publically available, reusable and may serve to inform education decision-making.
God and the Indian: A Play / Taylor, Drew Hayden 
Kiyâm: Poems / McIlwraith, Naomi 
The Thunderbird Poems / Ruffo, Armand Garnet 
Teaching community : a pedagogy of hope
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black liberation 
How to be an antiracist
As the University moved courses, exams and services online, the Library quickly responded. Expanding its laptop loan program to include wifi lending, moving 3D printers to assist FCAD’s efforts to prototype PPE, ensuring improved access to electronic resources, and participating in a global call to archive lived experiences during the pandemic, the Library swiftly adjusted to this new environment. 
Michael Carter, Director of Industry, Master of Digital Media Program at FCAD, and Co-Investigator, Vincent Hui, School of Architecture
Jennifer Lapum, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing
Jacqui Gingras, Department of Sociology