Nasser Saleh is the Librarian for Educational Initiatives at Queen’s University starting January 1, 2023. A new position that focuses on Teaching & Learning with a focus on open education and partnership with different campus units. Prior to that Nasser was the Head of the Engineering and Science Library for 10 years. Nasser received his PhD in Information Studies (2012) from McGill University and graduated his Masters of Library and Information Science (2003) from Syracuse University . His professional interests include educational technology, scholarship of teaching and learning in libraries, and alignment of library strategic goals with the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Nasser is an advocate for open access to knowledge in order to reduce inequality within and among communities. Nasser envisions a world where personal and social circumstances are not obstacles to achieving potential, and where kindness, inclusivity, and conservation prevail!
Nasser started the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program in Fall 2022 with an original plan to work on Capstone project to address OERs in STEM with a focus on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). During the program Nasser found a deep passion in Open Education and made a decision to start a new role focusing on educational initiatives in teaching and learning and had to revamp of originally developed capstone project for the period of Jan-April 2023 to be related to work and to explore an initiative to foster a community of practice (CoP) in OpenEd on campus with collaboration with many colleagues in the library and across campus departments.
Nasser’s capstone project, Fostering a Community of Practice in Open Education, focused on the steps needed to develop a community of practice through procedural steps and also to work strategically in aligning Open Education with the strategic goals for the library and the university. The project provided a framework the will have a dedicated working group for Open Education in the library for the next three years. The community resource for this capstone includes an updated version of the library public webpage on OERs, a LibGuide and a showcase of OER’s developed at Queen’s University.