Canada’s important areas of expertise in open educational resources (OER) are beginning to be built upon or replicated more broadly in all education and training sectors. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in OER initiatives and open higher education in general in Canada, providing insights into what is happening nationally and provincially. There are growing examples of OER initiatives from several Canadian institutions offering free courses to Canadians and international learners. The concept of open education includes the provision of activities for educators, programs to support not only the development of OER but also MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and for research and development initiatives to ensure effective practices. However, despite a growing body of literature and public opinion supporting the economic, social, and political benefits of open education, there remains a need for the development and implementation of policies at government and institutional levels in order for OER to become fully active. This paper presents a pan-Canadian overview of key government and institutional practices designed to support OER initiatives and enhance openness in many areas in post-secondary education. This overview maps significant initiatives with the aim of sharing and promoting more vigorous policies designed to maximize OER development using open education practices in Canada. Canada has important areas of expertise in open education, mostly at the post-secondary level, which is beginning to be built upon or replicated more broadly in all education and training sectors. Although there is no federal government strategy specifically supporting open educational practices at present, there has been activity at the provincial level in Western Canada. There are few other signs of any significant initiatives or policy designed to support OER development and open practice-related activity across Canadian governments, institutions or industry. OER development and open initiatives in Canada have tended to focus at the level of individual institutions and concentrate on access and availability issues as opposed to development of practice and policy and/or initiatives to encourage openness. In this paper we have focused on the action of governments and institutions to provide incentives for the development and trialing of OER in the form of textbooks and scholarly publications and the development of the open education movement that supports MOOCs. In large and complex countries with diverse educational institutions, especially in a confederation such as Canada, where, as previously mentioned, each province has total autonomy in education, it is difficult to be aware of many varied practices and policies that are emerging. While other countries can develop national policies, it is possible in Canada to develop trans-Canadian provincial partnerships but these partnerships operate without national government involvement. The implementation of open education in Canada remains in its early stages. However, the growing interest in MOOCs, the recent OER initiatives, and the inter-provincial partnership MOU in Western Canada could well be harbingers of future cooperative and/or collaborative developments in Canada, placing it on a fast track to national collaborations, policy, and standards in open education.
