UBC LIBRARY BLOGGERS

While open educational resources (OER) are often created by faculty and instructors for use in the classroom, there is a growing interest in giving students the opportunity to engage with the open publishing process directly as part of their coursework.

Centering trans voices and translating knowledge

Dr. Isabel Machado is a Lecturer at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ). Machado teaches Introduction to Trans Studies (CSIS 301), as well as other introductory and critical studies courses at UBC that engage with topics like social justice, intersectionality and sexuality. Like all Machado’s courses, CSIS 301 is project-driven, where students work on a single project by completing scaffolding assignments throughout the term. The course also follows open pedagogy practices, where students create, share and openly license new work as part of the course.

In the fall 2024, CSIS 301 students were tasked with creating illustrated essays on a memoir or autobiography written by a trans person. Everyone was also given the choice to submit their work privately or as part of a published essay collection.

“An important aspect that I’ve had in all of these courses is knowledge translation,” says Machado. “I think now more than ever, with the delicate topics that we’re dealing with, there’s so much misinformation out there. So I always challenge my students: why take this knowledge and you know, bury it in disposable assignments, in language that’s not accessible?”

Anne Olsen, Humanities & Social Sciences Liaison Librarian at Koerner Library, also regularly works with students in Machado’s classes to provide library research support: “Isabel’s approach to all of her classes is to incorporate some kind of open knowledge translation, and that’s a real highlight.”

Ten students opted to publish their essays in Trans* Journeys: Illustrated Essays of Trans Persons Autobiographies, which was published in PressBooks by UBC Library in December 2024.

“It was amazing collaborating with other queer and trans members of the community, sharing ideas and discussing concepts from class. Isabel really encouraged collaboration and open discussion,” says Cas, one of the student authors of Trans* Journeys. “It was incredibly gratifying to be able to share Black trans stories, make them more visible, and engage in the knowledge production of transness in the contemporary discourse. What would be amazing is if more work like this could make it into the mainstream, as I think trans stories and trans joy are more important than ever in the world right now.”

Opening up new ways to learn

There is another book in the works, Drag Around the World, expected to be published on PressBooks this spring by students in another of Machado’s courses.

Allen Baylosis, a Ph.D. candidate at GRSJ, is supporting students in this course and sees a unique opportunity to foster an early interest in Drag Studies: “In this course, we could have future academics who could provide significant contributions to the fields of Drag Studies, Performance, Theater Studies and others.”

“I think what is unique about [these projects] is the topic areas, because there is a level of bravery and activism needed,” says Erin Fields, Open Education and Scholarly Communications Librarian at UBC Library. Fields works with Machado and her students, through the UBC Library Open Publishing Program, to prepare and publish the books on PressBooks.

“For most of the students in these classes, this is their first time publishing,” says Fields. “So they’re learning a lot of skill sets along the way that you wouldn’t learn through traditional class assignments at the undergraduate level.”

Explore the open book

About Open Education Week at UBC

Check out all the Open Education events at UBC this month, including an online panel discussion on the Canadian National Open Education Landscape on March 25.

About the UBC Library Open Publishing Program

UBC Library’s Open Publishing Program is an open access journal and text service to help UBC faculty, researchers, instructors, students, and staff develop open access publications for scholarship and instruction. This free service aims to advance open scholarship by providing the supports needed to make UBC information resources openly available. Learn more about our eligibility criteria and how to submit a proposal.