Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellows

BCcampus welcomes applications for the 2018-2019 Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellowships.

Post by Amanda Coolidge, Senior Manager, Open Education

BCcampus is in the process of identifying post-secondary faculty in British Columbia for three 1-year Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellowships. Successful candidates will help raise awareness of open educational practices through advocacy and will conduct, present, and publish research on open educational practices (including, for example, the adoption of open textbooks) at B.C. institutions. The Fellows will receive mentorship in OER advocacy and research along with funding to attend the Festival of Learning in May 2018 and one articulation committee meeting in their discipline. The overall funding support for Fellows will be approximately $2,000, to cover the cost of conference and meeting fees.

Note: B.C. faculty who currently hold an OER Research Fellowship with the Open Education Group at Brigham Young University are not eligible to apply for a 2018 OEAR Fellowship.

We are looking for academic leaders who are committed to improving the student learning experience through the use of OER and Open Educational Practices and who are eager to share their experiences with colleagues and peers across institutions:

It is the intention of this Fellowship program to locate candidates who:

Best represent the B.C. post-secondary system, and
Are representative of both phases of BC Open Textbooks, i.e. at least one faculty who represents the 40 most highly enrolled subjects, and at least one who would represent the 20 textbooks for technical and skills training, and the trades.

The Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellowship is designed to achieve the following results:

Encourage adoption of existing open textbooks
Advocate for and educate faculty about the adaptation and creation of open textbooks
Advocate for the use of student-centered learning design in open educational resources
Advocate for the integration of open practices in teaching and learning in B.C. Post-secondary institutions
Assist BCcampus staff with ensuring that the resources in our collection are relevant and of high quality
Conduct research on open education in B.C. post-secondary institutions.

Fellow responsibilities

OEAR Fellows will:

Engage in research on Open Educational Practices
Attend the Festival of Learning and present on research progress
Attend one articulation committee meeting in discipline (related expenses part of stipend) to advocate for open education
Author 1-2 blog posts for BCcampus blog related to the open education advocacy and research work she/he is engaged in
Conference fees, travel, attendance, articulation committee attendance equates to approximately $2,000 value

Term

Appointments will be for a one-year term.

Application process

Faculty who wish to apply should submit a document outlining their interest and including their qualifications for a fellowship to open@bccampus.ca by Feb. 22, 2018.

Evaluation

Fellowship applications will be evaluated using three criteria:

Activity related to and familiarity with open educational resources and open textbooks (up to 30 points)
Ability to represent their institution and discipline (e.g. articulation committee meetings, institutional committee representation, institutional and discipline-specific collaboration) (up to 20 points)
The third criterion will be the applicant’s home institution. If there are multiple candidates with total scores within 5 points, the fellow will be selected from the institution that best represents the B.C. post-secondary system (i.e. one institute, one research university, one college). Where the institution factor does not apply, the highest scoring applicant will be awarded the position.