Category Archives: OA

New Title: Learning from our Past

Learning from our Past is a new release published by the University of Victoria Libraries ePublishing Services. It can be downloaded for free on UVicSpace

 


cover for Learning from our Past textbook

This middle school learning resource focuses on the history of livelihoods and lifeways in the Banda District of Ghana, West Africa. Today a rural district in west central Ghana, Banda has long been a crossroads of trade and a place where people from different backgrounds settled and formed communities. The fascinating history of how Banda area people interacted with neighbouring communities, responded to changing climate, and drew on local knowledge and resources to sustain their families comes from studying archaeology, oral histories and textual sources. Among the topics covered in this open-access resource are trade and the effects of global connections on rural life; the science and innovation behind local industries like potting and metallurgy; the role of weaving as a technology that transformed local materials into valued goods; and the range of ways in which people provided for their families through farming, fishing and hunting. The resource combines background information with suggested hands-on activities that support learning. The resource is available in English and in Nafaanra, which is one of several languages spoken in the Banda District.


Authors

Allison Balabuch is a PhD candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria. She earned her degrees from the University of British Columbia – a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Political Science and a Bachelor of Education – and the University of Victoria – a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction. She has been a French Immersion teacher for 25 years in British Columbia and England. Her teaching and research are centered on project-based learning, arts-based learning, land-based learning, and interdisciplinary studies in the classroom. Her current research is focused on community-based and interdisciplinary collaboration with the goal of improving and decolonizing educational systems and pedagogy.

Dr. Esther Attiogbe is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Professional Studies Accra. She holds a PhD in Adult Education and Human Resource Studies from the University of Ghana. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Administration and Master of Philosophy in Administration from the University of Ghana. Esther did her Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the University of Ghana in collaboration with the University of Victoria, Canada. She teaches at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Her research interests are in the areas of higher education management, adult learning and human resource management. Her teaching philosophy is underpinned by the concept of gameful learning where learners and instructors collaborate and interact to make the learning environment interesting, engaging and personalized. With a passion for educating the youth, she is involved in youth programmes in her community. She is an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Human Resource Management, Ghana.

Dr. Ann Stahl is a Professor in the University of Victoria’s Department of Anthropology who earned her M.A. in Archaeology from the University of Calgary (1978) and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley (1985). She is an anthropological archaeologist whose long-term research has focused on how daily life in rural West Africa has been reshaped over centuries by involvement in global exchange networks. Funded by a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant (“Improving African Futures Using Lessons from the Past,” 2018-2022), a recent project involved collaborations with partners in Ghana and the University of Victoria Libraries to develop sustainable and accessible digital heritage resources that help communities to sustain place-based relationships and foster knowledge revitalization (Banda Through Time). Her most recent work, supported by an SSHRC Connection grant, has involved collaborations with educators to enhance the role of heritage-based knowledge in classroom learning. She has held faculty positions at Binghamton University in New York (1988-2008) and University College London’s Institute of Archaeology (1985-1988) and her work has been funded over the years by the British Academy, the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the National Geographic Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the British Museum’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme. She is editor of a key text on African archaeology (African Archaeology. A Critical Introduction, 2005, Blackwell), co-editor with Andrew P. Roddick of a multidisciplinary collection, Knowledge in Motion. Constellations of Learning across Time and Place (2016, University of Arizona) and author of Making History in Banda. Anthropological Visions of Africa’s Past (2001, Cambridge University Press). Her most recent book, Archaeology. Why It Matters was published by Polity Press (2023). She is the 2020 recipient of the University of Victoria’s REACH Award for Excellence in Knowledge Mobilization and a Faculty of Social Sciences Lansdowne Distinguished Fellow (2020-2023).

Translator – English to Nafaanra

Mr. Sampson Attah is a resident of Banda-Ahenkro, Banda District, Bono Region, Ghana. He is a member of the community-based Banda Heritage Initiative and a long-time contributor to work of the Banda Research Project (1986-2011), which studied the archaeology and history of Banda’s global connections. From the mid 1980s to the early 2000s, Mr. Attah worked as a Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) translator and he is a strong promoter of indigenous language literacy and revitalization of Nafaanra, which is among Ghana’s at-risk minority languages.

New Title: “Tell Them Not to Hate”

“Tell Them Not to Hate”: Words of Witness and Sacred Imperatives by Rabbi Victor Hillel Reinstein, and edited by Richard Kool is a new release published by the University of Victoria Libraries ePublishing Services. It can be downloaded for free on UVicSpace: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/13021


From the Editor, Dr. Richard Kool: For those of us growing up in families profoundly touched by the Holocaust, there seemed to be two situations: either our parents rarely said anything about their experiences, or they often or always spoke of their experiences. In the former situation, we knew something was wrong: grandparents, uncles, and cousins were missing from our lives and we didn’t know why. They weren’t spoken of: we didn’t know what had happened, and knew we weren’t supposed to know. Or, we knew about those grandparents, aunts, cousins: we knew about them and we knew exactly what happened to them; we knew about their murders at the hands of the Nazis and other European anti-Semites. My family’s secrets were hidden until 1994, when, at the Victoria Yom Ha’shoah service, I realized I needed to understand what happened to my mother. Rabbi Reinstein’s influence at that time was an important part of my journey to uncovering her history as a Dutch teenager in hiding. Hearing Victor’s talk in Victoria in January 2020, I realized I still owed a large debt to him. This elaboration of his presentation, featuring images of the people he spoke about, is an offering of gratitude to him for all the gifts he’s given me and my entire family. About this project: Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross,, Department of History, University of Victoria Rabbi Victor Reinstein visited Victoria in 2020 as a guest of the Defying Hatred Project at the University of Victoria. The project collaborated with Congregation Emanu-El to explore the local Jewish community’s responses to acts of hate and expressions of anti-Semitism and racism. Led by myself and fellow-historian Lynne Marks, political scientist Matt James, Germanic and Slavic Studies professor Helga Thorson, and Victoria Shoah Project member Frances Grunberg, the project was dedicated to critically examining the history and current possibilities of defying hatred in Victoria. When I met Rabbi Reinstein in Boston in the summer of 2019, I discovered (as many had before me) the warmth and depth of his reflections on these topics. This story, I felt, had to be told back home, in Victoria. Funds from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada made the visit possible.


Author

Rabbi Reinstein was born near Boston, MA, in 1950. He was the rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El in Victoria, BC Canada from 1982 to1998. He then returned to the Boston area and, along with his wife Mieke, founded the Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue in Jamaica Plain, MA. Drawing from Torah and Jewish life, the “vision and the way,” he seeks at the core of his work to help fulfill God’s hope for a world of justice and peace. As founding rabbi, he stepped down from his role as the active rabbi of Nehar Shalom in June, 2020.

 

New Title: Toward a Moral Horizon

Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice edited by Rosalie Starzomski, Janet L. Storch, and Patricia Rodney is a new release published by the University of Victoria Libraries ePublishing Services. It can be downloaded for free on UVicSpace: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/13021


This third edition of Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice will assist nurses and all health care providers to take up the challenge of embedding ethics in health care practice, education, research, and policy at all levels—from local to regional to global. In the current, complex health care environment, more nurses are engaging in graduate studies to enhance their knowledge and expertise in providing necessary leadership in all health care settings. As a result, there is a growing need for an advanced nursing ethics text, and so this book is targeted towards graduate-level and upper-level undergraduate nursing students, as well as nurses in leadership roles—providing a much-needed resource for these groups.

This edition was written during a period when the COVID‑19 pandemic caused a health care crisis in Canada and around the world, provoking what the authors of one of the chapters called “a clarion call for change” in health care provision. The pandemic brought the fault lines of the Canadian health care system to the forefront of awareness, and profoundly affected patients, families, communities, as well as nurses and other health care providers. In addition to the influence of the pandemic, society is in the midst of rapid growth in science and technology. Now, more than ever, nurses need to use nursing ethics when developing their moral compasses for leadership. In this book, the writers focus on ethical knowledge for advanced practice nurse leaders to effect change and improve moral climates in nursing research, education, practice, and policy settings. They focus on social justice and equity as essential values of nursing ethics. Several chapter authors describe ways that nurses can press for improvements in the health care of vulnerable people who may be lacking access to quality health care: for example, Indigenous people, older adults, those who are coping with mental illness, substance use challenges, and those who have a disability. Social justice and equity issues are also explored in a chapter on global health.

This book is structured in three sections, comprised of 22 chapters written by Canadian experts in ethics. In the book, authors map the moral climate for health care and nursing ethics and describe theory related to nursing ethics. They illuminate the use of nursing ethics in diverse populations and with people at all stages of life; and apply nursing ethics to new developments in health care issues and technologies. Educators will be able to bring the content of this book alive with Ethics in Practice scenarios and reflective questions for students that are located in each chapter. Many chapters also include figures or appendices showing models and guidelines that can be used to assist with ethical decision making.

This third edition includes several new chapters, including a chapter on nursing ethical theory as distinct from bioethics, as well as chapters related to people with disabilities, Indigenous health ethics, nursing leadership, and digital health technology. Many topics covered in previous editions are revised and updated. For example, the updated chapter about health care at the end of life now includes an in-depth discussion of medical assistance in dying (MAID). Further updates are included in the areas of research ethics in nursing; the development of the Canadian health care system; nurses as moral agents, and the problem of moral distress; the application of nursing ethics in caring for patients at all stages of life; home health care ethics; ethical issues in biotechnology, and the broad areas of public health ethics and global health ethics. Chapter authors model the use of inclusive language in their writing as applied to gender diverse people and people with disabilities. Extensive references and resources are provided for readers at the end of all chapters.

This edition is cutting-edge as the authors recognize the importance of inclusive language, since language affects attitudes towards people and the way they are treated. In particular, chapter authors in this text model the use of inclusive language in their writing as applied to gender diverse people and people with disabilities.

This third edition is an open access, online publication, meaning that the book is accessible to all with no cost to the readers. This online publication also allows for new features, including two videos, with their accompanying transcripts, where listeners will gain a personal understanding of the contributors’ perspectives. In one video, Indigenous nurse scholars form a traditional circle online, as they discuss nursing ethics from their Indigenous perspectives. The other video showcases two nurses with expertise in digital health technologies in conversation with the book’s editors.

It is the hope of the editors that readers of this third edition will step boldly into shaping the future of health care by becoming more engaged in ethical practice, and becoming more confident in their leadership roles in health care. The content of this text can contribute to the knowledge needed for nurses to make ethical choices knowingly and wisely, so they can demonstrate moral imagination and moral courage in the face of challenges that confront them at all levels of the health care system.


Editors

Dr. Rosalie Starzomski is a professor emeritus at the University of Victoria School of Nursing. She is a graduate of Dalhousie University with a Bachelor of Nursing, the University of Calgary with a Master of Nursing, and the University of British Columbia (UBC) with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Nursing. Her research, practice, teaching, and publications are focused on health care and nursing ethics, organ donation and transplantation, nephrology, biotechnology, end-of-life care, and advanced nursing practice. She is an advanced practice nurse leader in nephrology and transplantation, and for a number of years, was an ethics consultant at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and committee chair for several ethics committees. Dr. Starzomski is co-editor of three editions of the book Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice.

Dr. Janet (Jan) Storch is a professor emeritus at the University of Victoria School of Nursing. She earned her degrees from the University of Alberta: a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Health Services Administration, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Sociology. Dr. Storch has been a scholar in health care ethics and nursing ethics since the mid-1970s. She was a professor in the Health Services Administration program at the University of Alberta and developed and taught courses on the history and values of the Canadian health care system. Dr. Storch is a former dean of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, and a former director of the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria. She is co-editor of three editions of the book Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice.

Dr. Patricia (Paddy) Rodney is an associate professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia School of Nursing. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Alberta; a Master of Science in Nursing from UBC; and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Nursing from UBC. Dr. Rodney worked in critical care nursing at St. Paul’s Hospital, where she had the opportunity to learn about—and later teach in—a rapidly evolving area of clinical nursing practice. She came face to face with ethical challenges regarding end-of-life decision making for patients and their families, and witnessed the moral distress experienced by nurses and other health care providers. This fostered her lifelong interest in nursing ethics and health care ethics. She is a co-editor of three editions of the book Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice.

UVic Libraries Publication Launch: in CIRCULATION

We are pleased to announce the library’s new signature publication, in CIRCULATION––a magazine focused on library impact at UVic and abroad.

Featuring stories about podcasting, digital preservation, the Peter and Ana Lowens UVic Libraries Special Collections Student Fellowship, and recent library news, this donor-focused magazine celebrates the committed work of library staff on campus and in the community.

in CIRCULATION will be published annually with a small print run.

Please share widely with your colleagues and friends.

Best,
Lisa A (on behalf of Christine, Samantha, Artie and Shahira)

OTESSA Journal volume 2, Issue 1 & 2

Please check out the latest work published in the OTESSA Journal (Volume 2, Issues 1 and 2 published Dec 2022). The journal is using a continuous publication model, so will be posting articles as they move through the editorial process. It is an open-access journal with no Article Processing Charges, so your membership, sponsorship, and conference registration supports the publication activities of OTESSA among the other work we do as we build and grow. The journal is now quietly welcoming submissions from the global public in the discourse, research, or practice sections. To join or renew your membership, please visit the membership form on our website.

We will be pushing out our social media promotion of these works from our @OTESSA_org, @OTESSA_fr, and @OTESSAjournal accounts on Twitter and other platforms. Thank you in advance for helping to promote these works as they are shared! We encourage you to share these works out using the #OTESSA and #OTESSAjournal hashtags in addition to those relevant to the article content.

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 

 Discourse Articles

Outside-In: Entangled Openness as Subversion Influencing Emergent Change, Maha Bali

Research Articles

A Synthesis of Research on Mental Health and Remote Learning: How Pandemic Grief Haunts Claims of CausalityStephanie Moore, George Veletsianos, Michael K. Barbour

Crowdsourcing the (Un)Textbook: Rethinking and Future Thinking the Role of the Textbook in Open PedagogyMichelle Harrison, Michael Paskevicius, Irwin Devries, Tannis Morgan

Practice Articles

The UK Open University COVID Response: A Sector Case StudyMartin Weller

Humanizing with Humility: The Challenge of Creating Caring, Compassionate, and Hopeful Educational Spaces in Higher EducationSarah Driessens, Michelann Parr

ePortfolio Pedagogy: Stimulating a Shift in MindsetRita Zuba Prokopetz

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2

Discourse Articles

On the Misappropriation of Spatial Metaphors in Online LearningJon Dron

Research Articles

Surveillance in the System: Data as Critical Change in Higher EducationSamantha Szcyrek, Bonnie Stewart

Introducing A Reflective Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of MicrocredentialsFrancisco Iniesto, Rebecca Ferguson, Martin Weller, Rob Farrow, Rebecca Pitt

Integrating Technology With Instructional Frameworks to Support all Learners in Inclusive ClassroomsDiane Montgomery

Elders’ Conversations: Perspectives on Leveraging Digital Technology in Language RevivalMelissa Bishop

UVic 2022 “Pathways to Impact” Grant: Eric Higgs

 UVic’s “Pathways to Impact” fund aims to move original research that aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and move it into real-world applications for greatest impact. The fund is a partnership between UVic’s Research Partnerships and Knowledge Mobilization (RPKM) unit and UVic Libraries. Funded projects will make their research openly accessible, including via UVicSpace, contributing to the democratization of knowledge and knowledge equity. The inaugural UVic fund is one of a few institutionally led knowledge-mobilization funding initiatives across Canadian research universities and among the first to directly target the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Sentinels of change: Rising treelines and raising knowledge.

UVic researchers address cultural, ecological and environmental urgency behind the Mountain Legacy Project.

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 6, 13, 14 and 15

Among the seven projects that were selected for the 2022 Pathways to Impact fund is Sentinels of change: Rising treelines and raising knowledge, led by Prof. Eric Higgs, a professor at the School of Environmental Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences) at the University of Victoria. The research project uses historical photographs from the Canadian Rocky Mountains to analyze tree line change over the last century. The results will be applied to discuss the effects of climate change on such ecosystems and possible practical implications. The funded project is part of the Mountain Legacy Project.

Besides an article in Scientific Reports, an open access journal by reputable academic publisher Nature…

Trant, A., Higgs, E., & Starzomski, B. M. (2020). A century of high elevation ecosystem change in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Scientific Reports, 10(1), Art. 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66277-2

…an episode of the appraised podcast Future Ecologies was recently published in connection with the project:

“In a forgotten corner of a national archive, some very heavy boxes held a rare promise: an opportunity to look back in time at a landscape scale.”

Listen to the episode here.

Find a list of achievements and publications by Prof. Higgs on his website and on his ORCiD profile.

UVic Libraries congratulates Professor Higgs and his team on the successful application and their valuable research contribution to the fulfillment of the United Nations’ SDGs.

Mt. Assiniboine and Magog Lake: A. O. Wheeler, 1913 & Mary Sanseverino, 2017Mt. Assiniboine and Magog Lake: A. O. Wheeler, 1913 & Mary Sanseverino, 2017

UVic’s 2022 “Pathways to Impact” Grant: Caetano Dorea

UVic’s “Pathways to Impact” fund aims to move original research that aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and move it into real-world applications for greatest impact. The fund is a partnership between UVic’s Research Partnerships and Knowledge Mobilization (RPKM) unit and UVic Libraries. Funded projects will make their research openly accessible, including via UVicSpace, contributing to the democratization of knowledge and knowledge equity. The inaugural UVic fund is one of a few institutionally led knowledge-mobilization funding initiatives across Canadian research universities and among the first to directly target the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

A prospective cohort study of access to safe drinking water in Malawi – Community dissemination and engagement

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 3, 6, and 17

Among the seven projects that were selected for the 2022 Pathways to Impact fund is
A prospective cohort study of access to safe drinking water in Malawi, the summary of the doctoral research of Dr. Alexandra Cassivi – supervised by Dr. Caetano Dorea.

Dr. Cassivi’s research potential was recognized in 2020 with a Green Talents award. She is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at Université Laval. Dr. Dorea is a professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Victoria, research group leader of the Public Health & Environmental Engineering (PH2E) Lab, and the director of the NSERC CREATE in Water & Sanitation for Low-Resource Contexts (#WASHCanada) project.

This research project is dedicated to exploring access to safe drinking water and sanitation for diverse populations in Malawi. It is hoped that the findings can be applied globally to make recommendations for assessing and monitoring access to water, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.

The following articles were published in connection with the project so far:

  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, E. O. D., & Dorea, C. (2020). Trends in access to water and sanitation in Malawi: Progress and inequalities (1992–2017). Journal of Water and Health, 18(5), 785–797. https://doi.org/10.2166/wh.2020.069
  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, E. O. D., & Dorea, C. (2021a). Evaluating self-reported measures and alternatives to monitor access to drinking water: A case study in Malawi. Science of The Total Environment, 750, 141516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141516
  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, E. O. D., & Dorea, C. (2021b). Household practices in accessing drinking water and post collection contamination: A seasonal cohort study in Malawi. Water Research, 189, 116607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116607
  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, O., & Dorea, C. (2021c). Seasonal Preferences and Alternatives for Domestic Water Sources: A Prospective Cohort Study in Malawi. ACS ES&T Water, 1(6), 1464–1473. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.1c00045

Dr. Cassivi’s doctoral thesis, on which this project is based, is available in UVicSpace:

Find a full list of achievements and publications by Dr. Caetano Dorea here and those of Dr. Cassivi here.

UVic Libraries congratulates Professor Dorea, Dr. Cassivi, and the rest of their team on the successful application and their valuable research contribution to the fulfillment of the United Nations’ SDGs.

UVic Open Education Resource Grant – CFP

The University of Victoria provides grants for the purpose of the adoption, adaptation or development of Open Educational Resources (OERs), with the aim of replacing existing textbooks or other types of educational resources that can be prohibitively expensive. Ideally, the completed OERs will be useable not just at UVic, but other post-secondary institutions.

Open Educational Resource (OER) Grants are offered as a partnership between UVic Libraries (Libraries) and the Division of Learning and Teaching Support and Innovation (LTSI), with invaluable support from the 2020 BCcampus OE Sustainability Grant, as well as the Division of Student Affairs, the University of Victoria Students’ Society (UVSS) and University Systems.

About the Grant

Grant Deadline: January 31, 2023