Status: closed
Closing date for proposals: February 7, 2020
Successful submission notification date: February 14, 2020
Grant recipient announcement date: February 24, 2020
Open to faculty and staff from post-secondary institutions in British Columbia and the Yukon.
Introduction
Since 2012, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has funded B.C. open education initiatives and tasked BCcampus with managing them. BCcampus Open Education’s goal 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 subject areas, as well as with select skills training and trades subject areas.
In April 2019, funding of $3.26 million for open educational resources (OER) was announced by Melanie Mark, Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training, at the Cascadia Open Education Summit. BCcampus will be using this funding for the development of OER.
BCcampus has identified gaps in available Open Educational Resources (OER) for marketing programs in conjunction with a business OER environmental scan conducted by eCampusOntario.[1] With financial support from the Ministry, BCcampus will distribute grants to institutions in B.C. and the Yukon and faculty members for the development of open educational resources in marketing, with the goal of creating OER that will contribute to the possibility of a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) program in marketing.
Any learning materials created will hold a Creative Commons BY licence and must be fully editable. The programs chosen must demonstrate significant student savings and impact across the B.C. system.
There are three options for how the funds are distributed:
- Grants for course/time release
- Individual grants
- Department-level grants
What is an open educational resource?
Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing, as well as for research purposes.
What is an open textbook?
An open textbook is a textbook licensed under an open-copyright licence and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers, and members of the public. Print-on-demand copies are also made available at cost.
What are open educational practices?
Open educational practices (OEP), also known as open pedagogy, are the use of open educational resources (OER) to support learning. Another definition is the open sharing of teaching practices with a goal of improving education and training at the institutional, professional, and individual level.
What is a ZTC?
A ZTC program is a set of courses in a specific program area that allows a student to earn a credential—such as an associate degree, certificate diploma, or undergraduate degree—with zero textbook costs by way of using open educational resources and free library materials.
Synopsis
This call for proposals is for institutions or their representatives (e.g., faculty members, articulation committees, teaching and learning centres, libraries, and OER working groups) in British Columbia and the Yukon that wish to receive open educational resource grants, funded by BCcampus, in order to create OER that will contribute to B.C.’s first ZTC program in marketing. The Marketing OER Grant may be used for, but is not limited to*, the creation of open textbooks/ancillaries/open educational resources in the following subject areas:
- Research methods for marketing
- Consumer behaviour
- Strategic marketing management
- Integrated marketing communication
- E-marketing/digital marketing
- Marketing plan development
Estimated completion time: 1 year
Amount: $10,000 per textbook or $15,000 including ancillaries
*If you have a proposal that does not fit within the subject areas listed above, but has identified a need within another marketing subject area, you are encouraged to apply.
Expectations and requirements of selected applicants
The following commitments and actions are expected of successful applicants:
- Grant recipients will identify cross-functional supports with representation from faculty, instructional support services, library, student support services, institutional research, communications, and other personnel from units of the institution that will be affected by or can contribute to the development of the OER.
- Grant recipients will commit to sharing educational materials developed through this project with the public, specifically by:
- Employing the latest version of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY International 4.0), which permits the broadest use by others (subject to giving attribution to the creators of the works).
- Ensuring that all content is technologically open so that others may reuse and repurpose it. All files will be provided to BCcampus in an editable format.
- Grant recipients must agree to and participate in an interview about the project.
Application process
The application form should be completed and emailed to open@bccampus.ca.
While the application form provides the basic information required, those wishing to submit more detail may attach appendices as required. The evaluation committee looks for proposals that are well written and specifically address the guidelines. Because proposals may include multiple institutional partners, you must designate a lead representative for the project and submit the proposal through the lead. Institutional partners should include a letter of support identifying the names and roles of participants.
Criteria for successful proposals
Successful proposals will meet the following mandatory criteria:
- Must not exceed $15,000 funding request from BCcampus per project.
- Identify the program as well as a list of courses that will use OER.
- Include a signed letter from the chief academic officer.
- Complete resource development within one year.
- Exhibit characteristics of quality teaching and learning.
- Demonstrate sustainability and cost-effectiveness.
- Demonstrate collaboration within a single institution or between two or more post-secondary institutions.
- Be released with an open licence, such as a Creative Commons licence, which allows others to freely adapt, modify, copy, and/or redistribute the content.
- Include a budget documenting the use of the funding being requested.
The following criteria are preferred, but not mandatory. Preference will be given to proposals that:
- Impact large numbers of students across multiple institutions.
- Consider all courses across the province that might use this OER.
- Address accessibility and make use of the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
- Incorporate Indigenous perspectives and pedagogies.
- Consider equity, diversity, and inclusion and make use of 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. 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.
- Matching funds from the institution is preferred and recommended.
Project requirements
For funding to be released, all OER grant projects must:
- Be released with an open license, such as a Creative Commons licence, which allows others to freely retain, copy, modify, remix, and/or redistribute the content.
- Be completed on time.
- Include all source and editable files used in creating the resource (including any multimedia files) to easily enable further remixing and modifications.
- Be copy-edited.
Review and selection process
Evaluation, selection, and awards are determined by an internal review committee against the Evaluation Criteria.
If you have any further questions, please email them to open@bccampus.ca.
[1] eCampusOntario Open at Scale Business OER Environmental Scan Tracking Spreadsheet available: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f3BhcWacUsFfZ-toc68_fb0Hwu2foVkifoa8P4NlUWs/edit#gid=0