{"id":69,"date":"2025-03-19T11:23:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/sertcasestudies\/?post_type=chapter&p=69"},"modified":"2025-07-16T10:54:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T14:54:50","slug":"rebus-foundation","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/sertcasestudies\/chapter\/rebus-foundation\/","title":{"raw":"Leading with Values as an Education Charity: The Rebus Foundation","rendered":"Leading with Values as an Education Charity: The Rebus Foundation"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\n\u00a9 2025 The Rebus Foundation. CC BY 4.0 license<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Abstract<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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\r\n\r\nThe Rebus Foundation is a registered Canadian charity, initially founded as a non-profit in 2016, with the mission of forging new avenues for learning in open publishing. Rebus works across borders to deliver professional development programs and resources for low-to-no costs, such as its signature Open Publishing Projects Certificate and webinars. Despite being a small team in an underfunded sector, Rebus\u2019s charitable status enables the organization to prioritize people over profits and establish itself as an award-winning organization and thought leader. As an organization that works across multiple educational jurisdictions, Rebus has experience building capacity and community through collaboration and sharing. The Rebus team recommends practicing deep listening, elevating community, and leading with values to any organization seeking to make a difference in open education.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

About the Rebus Foundation<\/h2>\r\n
\u201cRebus envisions a liberatory future where lifelong learning is valued as a public good and communities leverage education as a catalyst for positive change.\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u2014 The Rebus Foundation Strategic Plan<\/a><\/em>, 2024<\/p>\r\nThe Rebus Foundation<\/a> strives to make knowledge freely available in the pursuit of equity, understanding, and the common good. These objectives, which first manifested during the development of open-source software and technology projects that improved workflows for reading and publishing open educational resources (OER) and traditional scholarly materials, evolved into leading professional development practices in higher education. Founded in 2016 as a global non-profit, Rebus became a registered Canadian charity in 2019 to better serve individuals and organizations working across all levels of education. This change in status coincided with the immense growth of the Rebus Community, the Foundation\u2019s professional development arm which offers guidance, community, and spaces for educators to collaborate on pedagogy and publishing. Rebus encourages educators to rediscover passion, purpose, and potential in their work so all learners can embrace the ripple effects of education. Guided by the organization\u2019s values (Table 1), Rebus promotes a supportive culture and education system that centers on student experience and learning. A cornerstone of the Rebus Community is the Open Publishing Projects Certificate (OPC) \u2013 formerly the Textbook Success Program \u2013 an upskilling pathway for OER creators.\r\n

About the Open Publishing Projects Certificate<\/h3>\r\nThe Rebus Foundation\u2019s Open Publishing Projects Certificate (OPC) is a cohort-based model for training educators to create OER. A facilitator guides project teams from institutions across North America through three phases of professional development over the course of a year. The program focuses on leadership development and community-building, while collaborating on the creation and publication of a large-scale open education project. Institutions assemble one to four team members \u2013 including faculty, librarians, administrators, students, instructional designers, and managers \u2013 who join a cohort of up to six project teams.\r\n\r\nIn Phase 1 of the OPC, the cohort meets remotely for eight weeks to deepen their knowledge around open publishing topics, including project scoping, storytelling, team management, accessibility, and more. Phase 2 extends over six monthly meetings that alternate between full cohort meetings and one-on-one meetings between the facilitator and each project team. This phase encourages individual exploration as project teams focus on putting their plans into action to author their resources. The cohort reconvenes for weekly meetings in Phase 3 to prepare review processes for their resources, plan, and promote their releases. See Figure 1 for an outline of the three phases.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_73\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"624\"]\"Image Figure 1: Phases of the Open Publishing Projects Certificate.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nParticipant learning encompasses not only authoring, but also essential project management skills for leading a diverse team with confidence. Participants foster community by connecting with fellow educators and support staff, many of whom they might have never encountered, on their campuses in the creation of their projects. Participants also expand their networks externally by connecting with OER leaders across North America as they move through the program together.\r\n\r\nFollowing graduation, Open Publishing Projects Certificate alumni may elect to become facilitators of the program, cultivating a robust set of skills in mentoring, facilitating, and guiding project management. The facilitator pathway involves not only preparing for and facilitating the course material provided by Rebus but also coordinating with project teams and coaching each team through their publication timeline. Learning objectives in the facilitator pathway program include supporting participants in the creation of efficient workflows, applying best practices to ensure smooth project progression, and creating meaningful connections and relationships to assist participants in OER capacity building at their institutions, both within and beyond the cohort. Benefits for facilitators include opportunities to refine their leadership skills, encouraging sharing knowledge across institutions\/states, and securing the offer of tenure and promotion letters and other letters of support to further their career advancement.\r\n

Sustainability Model<\/h2>\r\n

Organizational Structure and Compliance<\/h3>\r\nThe Rebus Foundation is a registered Canadian charity, a category distinct from other non-profit organizations<\/a>. While non-profits and charities are both entities working towards social welfare, civic improvement, or similar purposes without the goal of generating profit, the charity classification is assigned only to organizations that operate exclusively for charitable purposes. Based on the structure, source of funding, and mode of operation, registered charities are further designated into 3 types. Rebus\u2019s designation is a \u201ccharitable organization,\u201c meaning that:\r\n