College of the Canyons announced it was one of 25 winners to receive a 2024 Open Education Awards for Excellence for its Open For Antiracism Project.

The OFAR project demonstrates how faculty can use Open Educational Resources and open pedagogy to make their instructional materials and teaching practices anti-racist.

OEAwards recognizes distinctive open education sites, technological innovations, notable open courses, and exemplary OER leaders worldwide.

OFAR, which is co-led by COC and the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, was honored with the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award.

“Receiving this award is deeply meaningful,” said James Glapa-Grossklag, dean of educational technology, learning resources and distance learning at the college. “The award is conferred by the global community of educators who use open education to provide greater access to students everywhere. For our program to be recognized as the best in the world confirms the world-class nature of the education, support, and ideas that we at College of the Canyons bring to our community.”

Glapa-Grossklag says OFAR was created in 2020 as a response to the desire by faculty to make their teaching antiracist, but also to receive training and support to do so.

“Now in our fifth year, we’ve supported over 150 faculty from across 50 California Community Colleges to use the benefits of Open Educational Resources to revise their curriculum to better support all our students,” added Glapa-Grossklag.

For more information about OFAR, please click here.