Status: closed

DEADLINE TO APPLY: ongoing        CONTACT: projects@bccampus.ca

Since 2012, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has funded B.C. open education initiatives and tasked BCcampus with managing them. The goal of the BCcampus open education project is to provide flexible and affordable access to post-secondary learning resources in B.C. by making available openly-licensed textbooks that align with the most highly enrolled first- and second-year undergraduate courses and with select skills-training and trades subjects.

Building on our open textbooks, open education resources (OER), and H5P projects, in an effort to support the B.C. post-secondary education system with the pivot to online learning, BCcampus has begun to establish a suite of open online courses (OOC) that include OER to provide flexible access for use in B.C. post-secondary institutions.

What is an open online course?

OOC are freely accessible, openly licenced courses, and individual OER that can be used for teaching, learning, and assessment.

Purpose

This call for proposals is to identify qualified institutions, departments, or individual educators to work with BCcampus on the identification, evaluation, and development of OOC and other OER.

With support from BCcampus, the successful applicant or team will identify existing OER for the subject area, review them for quality and appropriateness for the learning context, and align them with one another so that when combined, a complete course can be assembled. Where no appropriate OER exist, the successful applicant or team will create new ones.

Development teams must include B.C. educators who teach in the subject area and are willing to use the resources in their courses and apply instructional design expertise to ensure quality, accessibility, and inclusion. It is expected that the resources respect and honour Indigenous perspectives and practices. All resulting resources from this project must be openly licensed except in extenuating circumstances such as Indigenous traditional knowledge.

This first phase of the work will focus on the following subject areas and need to align with agreements in the BC Transfer Guide:

  • Business management 
  • Math
  • Introduction to university writing 
  • Psychology 
  • Business communications

We also invite expressions of interest from subject matter experts who have identified a highly transferable priority course outside of these subject areas.

Scope

This expression of interest is for institutions, departments, or individuals and their representatives (e.g., faculty members, articulation committees, teaching and learning centres, libraries, and OER working groups) in B.C. who are interested in identifying, aligning, and reviewing courses and available OER and in creating new OER with reference to the common curricula for the identified courses.

The successful applicant must

  • Address accessibility and use the principles of Universal Design for Learning
  • Incorporate Indigenous perspectives and pedagogies
  • Consider equity, diversity, and inclusion and use inclusive practices
  • Include the provision of resources necessary to complete the project, such as the assistance of an instructional designer, multimedia developer, librarian, and copy editor (Note: if the applicant uses available resources, it promotes more institutional buy-in to the project and thus the potential for more adoption)
  • Encourage the use of activities that embrace open pedagogies

Timeline

The project is time-sensitive; therefore, adjudication will be rolling as interest is received.

Budget

Up to $10,000 for the identification, evaluation, and development for each course. Subject matter experts are needed for the courses listed as part of this call.

Expectations and Requirements of Selected Applicants 

The following commitments and actions are expected of successful applicants: 

  • Complete the project on time.
  • Participate in the review and selection process.
  • Align OERs with one another so that when combined, a complete course can be assembled.

Responding to this Call for Proposals

Please submit the application form to projects@bccampus.ca.

If you have questions, please email projects@bccampus.ca.