Status: open
On behalf of the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills and the Shared Educational Resources and Technology (SERT) Advisory Committee, BCcampus is pleased to present a call for case studies that explore models for delivering and sustaining shared technologies and curriculum across multiple organizations or institutions.
British Columbia’s post-secondary system has produced many locally developed, shared educational technology and curriculum initiatives. However, these initiatives often face challenges in long-term delivery and sustainability. To address this challenge, the SERT Advisory Committee is seeking case studies from initiatives within and beyond post-secondary. We welcome case study proposals from initiatives operating globally and across other sectors (i.e., health care, community engagement, workforce development). We also welcome studies detailing unsuccessful initiatives and an analysis of the reasons they may not have succeeded.
The selected case studies will be collected and published under an open license and used to support similar projects.
Focus
We are looking for case studies describing the sustainability models of initiatives that:
- Provide technology or curriculum services or tools to multiple organizations.
- Have a formalized organizational structure.
- Use a well-established, non-profit revenue model that is not reliant on short-term grant funding (we will consider commercial initiatives if they are openly licensed)
Examples
We are interested in funding case studies about initiatives that:
- Are governed by a community, such as through a consortium or a cooperative model.
- Provide centralized hosting and support for a technology, or set of technologies, available to multiple organizations.
- Bring organizations together to negotiate service agreements with technology providers.
- Have established a sustainable business model around open source software or openly licensed curriculum.
- Collaborate across multiple organizations to develop, share, and maintain curriculum.
- Develop licensing agreements to share curriculum across organizations.
Evaluation Criteria
Case study proposals will be evaluated by a committee based on the following criteria:
- Relevance: The proposal addresses the sustainability model of a shared technology or curriculum service. It outlines a long-term funding model, established organizational structure, and an active community or user base.
- Potential impact: The initiative is a useful model from which B.C. post-secondary initiatives could learn.
- Diversity of focus: Case studies will be selected to ensure a range of initiative types, contexts, and models are represented in the collection.
- Clarity: The proposal is complete and easy to understand.
Preference will be given to case study proposals aligned with the following criteria:
- Has a non-profit financial model
- Employs a practice of sharing and collaboration across multiple institutions or organizations.
- Can demonstrate sustainability over multiple years.
If Your Case Study Proposal is Selected
If your case study proposal is selected, you will be asked to write and submit a case study of 2,000-4,000 words addressing the following topics:
- Overview and background of the project
- Revenue model
- Organizational structure and governance
- Sharing agreements
- Community engagement
- Legal compliance (i.e., accessibility, privacy, security)
- The work that went into establishing the model that exists now
- Reflection on successes, challenges, and learning
A template will be provided to guide your case study. You will have five weeks to write it, and you will receive $2,000 CAD upon submission and approval by BCcampus.
Approved case studies will be published online under an open license. BCcampus will handle the copyediting and publication of the case study. Authors will need to be available to respond to copyediting queries.
Authors will retain copyright of their case study and grant BCcampus permission to publish the case study online under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license. We are open to discussing other open licensing options if the CC BY license is not appropriate.
How to Apply
People interested in submitting a case study proposal can download and fill out the following proposal template:
Completed proposals can be emailed to the SERT Project Manager, Josie Gray at jgray@bccampus.ca.
We are reviewing proposals on a rolling basis until November 1 or until funds are allocated.
About the SERT Initiative
The Shared Educational Resources and Technology (SERT) initiative is part of the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills’ Digital Learning Strategy, which aims to support digital learning in B.C. The SERT initiative aims to develop a provincial ecosystem supporting sustainable approaches to the development or use of shared or open educational technologies and curriculum in the B.C. post-secondary system. The SERT initiative is managed by BCcampus and guided by the SERT Advisory Committee, comprised of people with experience supporting system-wide collaboration, open licenses, educational technologies, and educational resources.