BCcampus Open Education Calls for Proposals

Announcing the newest BCcampus Call for Proposals, the Zed Cred/Z-Degree grant, the first of its kind in Canada.

A Zed Cred/Z-Degree is a set of courses in a specific program area that allows a student to earn a credential, such as an associate degree or certificate, with zero textbook costs by using open educational resources (OER) and/or free library materials.

Zed Cred/Z-Degree Grants

Successful Zed Cred/Z Degree Call for Proposals will empower faculty to lead the work, develop broad-based support across the institution for using OER, and promote the benefits of enrolling in an OER degree programs to students. The process of developing an OER degree will build institutional capacity for designing clearer and more efficient pathways to credentials and better connecting student learning outcomes to curriculum and pedagogy.

BCcampus will distribute two grants to B.C. Institutions committed to the development of a “Zed Cred” (Z Degree) Program. With the funds, Institutions will not only develop pathways to credential by adopting and adapting pre-existing OER, the funds may also be used to create new OER necessary for the program. The Institutions will also be required to package and publish their degree paths such that other Institutions from B.C. and beyond can borrow from their progress. Any learning materials created under the Zed Cred program will hold a Creative Commons BY license and must be fully editable.

As this initiative is new to British Columbia, we welcome any comments or questions you may have about the grant program, the outcomes, and expectations.

Deadline to submit: Friday, June 16, 2017, 11:59 PM PST

Ancillary Resources Grants

The Ancillary Resources Call for Proposals is to support inter-institutional initiatives to create ancillary support material for existing open textbooks in the BC Open Textbook Collection that could assist faculty in adopting the open textbook. This material can include:

Testbanks of questions based on an existing open textbook.
Presentations (PowerPoint, Open Office, Prezi, etc.)
Multimedia content, such as audio or video, that could further enhance the textbook.
Simulations.
Instructor and student manuals.
Additional learning activities.

A maximum of four Ancillary Resource Grants will be awarded.

Open Educational Resource Grants

The OER Grants Call for Proposals is for institutions or their representatives (e.g. Articulation Committees, Teaching and Learning Centres, Libraries, OER Working Groups) in British Columbia and Yukon to provide small OER grants, funded by BCcampus and matched by the institution. OER grants may be used for, but are not limited to:

Adaptation of open textbooks/open educational resources
Creation of open textbooks/open educational resources
Course redesign using open textbooks/open educational resources
Workshops, training, and institutional support for OER infrastructure (e.g. Open Policy, awareness, how to adopt, how to adapt, Pressbooks support)

A maximum of four OER Grants will be awarded.

Notable quotes:

“We are really starting to disrupt the system now. Enabling this degree of cost reduction for students trying to get a credential embeds openness in the formal structure of an institution. Our system as a whole is changing in favour of students and it’s incredibly exciting to be part of that.” – Mary Burgess, Executive Director, BCcampus