The Online Program Development Fund, this year totaling $750,000, is now accepting proposals. BCcampus invites B.C. public post secondary institutions to send their submissions by December 14, 2010. (Find the Call for Proposals and related documents here.)
New this year: a portion of the available funding is targeted for online science curricula, in support of Year of Science.
An evaluation committee made up of peers drawn from across the post secondary system will review the proposals, and awards will be announced near the end of January 2011. This year’s fund will give preference to:
- fully online courses and course components,
- proposals that increase access to BC’s public higher education through multi-institution enrollment and provision of credit,
- partnerships between multiple public post secondary institution,
- development of for-credit online courses and course components that build out complete online programs leading to a credential,
- integration of new online learning resources with previously funded OPDF resources to construct credentials,
- use of effective and engaging online teaching and learning pedagogies, and
- proposals that are cost effective.
Each year since 2003 BCcampus has provided Online Program Development Fund (OPDF) to help the B.C. public post secondary sector develop for-credit online learning resources. These resources give students access to more programs leading to complete degrees, diplomas and certificates.
The OPDF is targeted to public post secondary institutional partnerships where each institution contributes to the development of the online learning resource and uses it when development is complete.
From 2003 through 2009, 131 grants have been awarded for development of hundreds of online courses and course components such as textbooks, videos, and labs. All resources are licensed for free sharing and reuse across B.C.’s public post secondary system, and 41 credentials have been developed in whole or in part to date.
All resources developed through the OPDF are licensed for free reuse, revision, remix, and redistribution. Resources licensed this way are known around the world as “Open Educational Resources” (OER). When OPDF resources are fully developed they are put in the BCcampus Shareable Online Learning Repository where they become available for review and download.
The 2010 OPDF Call for Proposals, application form and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are all available on the BCcampus OPDF workspace wiki.
For further information on OPDF, contact Paul Stacey: pstacey [at] bccampus [dot] ca