Inside Fanshawe’s OER Design Studio: An Inspirational Model for OER Creation
What does it take to build a thriving open education ecosystem at a college? At Fanshawe College, the answer lies in a simple but powerful idea: support faculty and students, and give them the tools and trust to create meaningful change together.
Fanshawe College, located in London, Ontario, Canada, is one of the largest and most dynamic public colleges in the country. It serves roughly 43,000 students across its multiple campuses in Southwestern Ontario each year with more than 200 degrees, diplomas, certificates and apprenticeship programs spanning arts, business, technology, health, and more.
Known for its emphasis on flexible, experiential education and partnership-driven pathways to employment and further study, Fanshawe also plays an active role in addressing student affordability and access—goals that underpin its leadership in open educational resources.
A Studio Approach to Open
Founded by Shauna Roch, an accounting professor-turned-ed tech leader, Fanshawe’s OER Design Studio was born out of a practical observation: faculty wanted to create or adapt open educational resources (OER), but they were overwhelmed.
The solution? A structured, studio-based approach that offers hands-on support from idea to publication. Housed within the college library, the OER Design Studio brings together faculty, instructional designers, and students to produce high-quality, accessible learning materials, and to do it at scale. Faculty receive paid development grants. Instructional designers ensure quality and accessibility. Students do the work in Pressbooks, formatting, designing, testing, and more.
“Working with the OER Design Studio was an invaluable experience. I was initially very nervous about creating a publication, but their professionalism, responsiveness, and ongoing support gave me the confidence to move forward. They equipped me with the tools and knowledge I needed and truly helped bring my ideas to life.”
Mary Mitches
Professor and Field Coordinator, Honours Bachelor of Early Childhood Leadership
The results speak for themselves. Despite sector-wide funding cuts, Fanshawe’s team produces multiple new OER projects each year. They produced 32 texts in 2022, 28 in 2023, 31 in 2024, and 24 in 2025. They are among the top contributors to the Pressbooks Directory, with over 100 open texts available here.
Students at the Centre
One of the most innovative and successful aspects of the OER Design Studio is its student-powered workforce. Each semester, the team hires students through co-op placements and work-study programs, drawing on talent from across disciplines, and in particular programming, web design, and media.
Students aren’t just helping, they’re co-creating. They work directly on open textbooks in Pressbooks, build custom tools, and contribute to design and user experience. Under the mentorship of instructional designers, they learn technical, collaborative, and project management skills while contributing to resources that benefit their peers.
One standout example is Jason Benoit, a student developer who built the App Hub, a suite of open-source tools to streamline common publishing challenges, like creating accessible attributions or formatting front matter. “If I notice something repetitive or annoying in our process,” says Roch, “I throw it out to the students: ‘Can we automate this?’ And they go build it.”
View their GitHub repository to see these custom-built tools.
Creating a System That Works
The studio isn’t just a publishing operation, it’s an infrastructure for sustainable, equity-focused change. The team has developed an OER Development Guide to help faculty plan, scope, and complete open textbook projects.
This guide serves as a comprehensive roadmap and resource hub for educators, and content creators working with Fanshawe’s OER Design Studio to create, adapt, and share high-quality open educational materials. This guide also offers instructions, best practices, and insights on designing, developing, and distributing OER. This guide is a work in progress and will be continually updated.
“Projects move through a structured four-month development cycle which happens three times a year to coincide with the semesters”.
Shauna Roch
Project Lead, OER Design Studio
Faculty are supported, students are paid and mentored, and instructional designers keep everything aligned with best practices and institutional priorities. The studio reports monthly to the library director and maintains close ties with divisional leadership to align with broader goals.
Community, Collaboration, and the Future
Fanshawe’s OER Design Studio doesn’t just serve one campus, it’s helping to shape the future of open education in Ontario. Roch now leads a monthly cross-college meeting for open education practitioners across the province, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing between institutions. The studio’s development model and openly shared resources are helping other colleges kickstart their own OER initiatives.
Fanshawe’s OER Design Studio shows what’s possible when open education is resourced with care, creativity, and vision. It’s not just producing more open textbooks. It’s creating a replicable model for student-centered, sustainable innovation in higher ed.
In a world where faculty are time-strapped, funding is tight, and technology is constantly evolving, Fanshawe has built a system that works for students, for instructors, and for the broader open education movement.
Project Spotlight: Growing Calm
“We have had the pleasure of working with Shauna and the OER Design Studio on our textbook, Growing Calm. This textbook came out of a passion to address and educate on an under-represented field (self-regulation), and the OER Design Studio helped us transform our ideas.
Growing Calm is now used not only in our courses, but throughout our vocation and wider community. Since publication we have facilitated workshops in our local community, and are able to offer this textbook as a free, accessible resource for all educators and families.
The OER Design Studio was able to bring all of our ideas to life, and create an interactive textbook that is more than just content- it is an experience. Shauna and her team helped us create a beautifully interactive, immersive experience for our readers, filled with activities, reflections and hands-on learning.
We are deeply thankful for our collaboration with the Design Studio, and for the lasting impact on our learners, and our vocation. I truly believe our OER will continue to make a difference for years to come, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing support of the Design Studio.”
– Marie Poss
ECE Accelerated Coordinator
Want to learn more about Fanshawe’s OER Design Studio? Join CCCOER’s From the Field webinar featuring Shauna Roch and student representatives for a look inside this collaborative space where faculty, librarians, designers, and students work together to bring Open Educational Resources to life.
Lead Photo By: Fanshawe OER Design Studio