BCcampus Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellow

Status: closed

BCcampus is in the process of identifying post-secondary faculty in British Columbia for three one-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 and present at conferences. The overall funding support for Fellows will be $5,000 per Fellow, 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 2019 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:

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

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

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

Fellow responsibilities

OEAR Fellows will:

  • Engage in research on open educational practices
  • Attend conferences and present on research progress
  • Attend one articulation committee meeting in discipline (related expenses are part of the stipend) to advocate for open education
  • Author one–two blog posts for BCcampus blog related to their open education advocacy and research work
  • Receive funding for conference fees, travel, and attendance, and articulation committee attendance for an approximate value of $5,000

Suggested research topics include:

  • Indigenization and open
  • Decolonization and open
  • Open education in B.C. institutions in northern, rural, and remote regions
  • Open education in the trades
  • Student-focused studies on open
  • Open homework systems

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 Monday, July 8 2019.

Evaluation

Fellowship applications will be evaluated using three criteria:

  1. Activity related to and familiarity with open educational resources and open textbooks (up to 30 points)
  2. Ability to represent their institution and discipline (e.g., articulation committee meetings, institutional committee representation, institutional and discipline-specific collaboration) (up to 20 points)
  3. The applicant’s home institution. If there are multiple candidates with total scores within five 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.