Exploring Faculty Use of Open Educational Resources at British Columbia Post-Secondary Institutions

This research examines the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) by post-secondary faculty in British Columbia, including their motivations and perceptions, as well as what factors help to enable or act as challenges for OER use and adaptation. Although the findings provide a snapshot of the BC post- secondary system as a whole, we also explore similarities and differences in OER use among faculty across the three institution types in British Columbia: research-intensive universities, teaching-intensive universities, and colleges/institutes (see Appendix A). This research also investigates the relationships between faculty use of OER and institutional policies, the tendency to share teaching materials, and the personality trait of openness

Trace elements at the intersection of marine biological and geochemical evolution

Life requires a wide variety of bioessential trace elements to act as structural components and reactive centers in metalloenzymes. These requirements differ between organisms and have evolved over geological time, likely guided in some part by environmental conditions. Until recently, most of what was understood regarding trace element concentrations in the Precambrian oceans was inferred by extrapolation, geochemical modeling, and/or genomic studies. However, in the past decade, the increasing availability of trace element and isotopic data for sedimentary rocks of all ages has yielded new, and potentially more direct, insights into secular changes in seawater composition – and ultimately the evolution of the marine biosphere. Compiled records of many bioessential trace elements (including Ni, Mo, P, Zn, Co, Cr, Se, and I) provide new insight into how trace element abundance in Earth's ancient oceans may have been linked to biological evolution. Several of these trace elements display redox-sensitive behavior, while others are redox-sensitive but not bioessential (e.g., Cr, U). Their temporal trends in sedimentary archives provide useful constraints on changes in atmosphere-ocean redox conditions that are linked to biological evolution, for example, the activity of oxygen-producing, photosynthetic cyanobacteria. In this review, we summarize available Precambrian trace element proxy data, and discuss how temporal trends in the seawater concentrations of specific trace elements may be linked to the evolution of both simple and complex life. We also examine several biologically relevant and/or redox-sensitive trace elements that have yet to be fully examined in the sedimentary rock record (e.g., Cu, Cd, W) and suggest several directions for future studies

Open for Collaboration : is it time for Canada to implement a unified open strategy for higher education?

Embedded within the vision of post-secondary institutions across British Columbia are the values of contributing to knowledge across disciplines and sharing the results of research with the local and global communities. Spurred by the need to make higher education accessible to all, the open movement has gained ground as the Internet evolved to enable easy sharing of different forms of media. However, while the notion of “open” in higher education has been growing in British Columbia, the default scholarly approach is still closed. It is time for the scholarly conversation to shift from why open, to why not open? This event will feature discussion about collaboration within the open movement and role of openness in higher education in British Columbia and examine: • if and why BC’s universities and colleges should embrace open practices • what impact open access and the reuse of educational materials would have on the cost and efficacy of higher education • what role the governments of Canada and British Columbia should play in opening higher educationScience, Faculty ofZoology, Department ofNon UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

Open for Collaboration: Is it Time for Canada to Implement a Unified Open Strategy for Higher Education? An Open Access Week 2015 presentation

Embedded within the vision of post-secondary institutions across British Columbia are the values of contributing to knowledge across disciplines and sharing the results of research with the local and global communities. Spurred by the need to make higher education accessible to all, the open movement has gained ground as the Internet evolved to enable easy sharing of different forms of media. However, while the notion of "open" in higher education has been growing in British Columbia, the default scholarly approach is still closed. It is time for the scholarly conversation to shift from "why open", to "why not open"? This event will feature discussion about collaboration within the open movement and role of openness in higher education in British Columbia and examine: if and why BC\u27s universities and colleges should embrace open practices what impact open access and the reuse of educational materials would have on the cost and efficacy of higher education what role the governments of Canada and British Columbia should play in opening higher educatio

The Selaginella Genome Identifies Genetic Changes Associated with the Evolution of Vascular Plants

International audienceVascular plants appeared ~410 million years ago, then diverged into several lineages of which only two survive: the euphyllophytes (ferns and seed plants) and the lycophytes. We report here the genome sequence of the lycophyte Selaginella moellendorffii (Selaginella), the first nonseed vascular plant genome reported. By comparing gene content in evolutionarily diverse taxa, we found that the transition from a gametophyte- to a sporophyte-dominated life cycle required far fewer new genes than the transition from a nonseed vascular to a flowering plant, whereas secondary metabolic genes expanded extensively and in parallel in the lycophyte and angiosperm lineages. Selaginella differs in posttranscriptional gene regulation, including small RNA regulation of repetitive elements, an absence of the trans-acting small interfering RNA pathway, and extensive RNA editing of organellar genes

The compact Selaginella genome identifies changes in gene content associated with the evolution of vascular plants

We report the genome sequence of the nonseed vascular plant, Selaginella moellendorffii, and by comparative genomics identify genes that likely played important roles in the early evolution of vascular plants and their subsequent evolutio