Open Education Resources Grant: Curate

Open Educational Resource Grant: Curate, Customize, Create

This call for proposals is now closed.

Key Dates – EXTENDED

  • Closing date for proposals: Friday, April 27, 2018, 11:59 PM PDT
  • Successful submission notification date: Tuesday, May 8, 2018
  • Grant recipient announcement date: Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Open to faculty and staff from post-secondary institutions in British Columbia and the Yukon

Application Form

Application form: OER Grant Curate, Customize, Create

Introduction

Since 2012, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has funded B.C. Open Education initiatives and tasked BCcampus with managing it. 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 2018, BCcampus will continue to advance the province’s open and affordable education vision by working closely with B.C.’s post-secondary institutions to continue to build the B.C. Open Textbook Collection. With financial support from the Hewlett Foundation, BCcampus Open Education will broaden those efforts in two key ways:

  1. Support the development of engaging, interactive open educational resources that complement the B.C. Open Textbook Collection.
  2. Encourage faculty to incorporate open educational practices in their teaching.

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.

Synopsis

This call for proposals is for institutions or their representatives (e.g., articulation committees, teaching and learning centres, libraries, and OER working groups) in British Columbia and the Yukon to provide small open educational resource grants, funded by BCcampus and matched by the institution, in order to build Canadian OER. The Open Educational Resource Grants for Curation, Customization, or Creation may be used for, but are not limited to:

  • Adaptations (small or large) of open textbooks/open educational resources
  • Creation of open textbooks/open educational resources
  • Course redesign using open textbooks/open educational resources.

For those interested in working on open textbooks, the following three development options are available to you:

Option 1 – Curate. Conduct a thorough search of all collections in the desired subject area to ensure a book isn’t already available. If a textbook is located, but not exactly what you need, conduct a minor adaptation to customize it.
Estimated completion time: 2 – 6 months
Grant: $2,000<

Option 2 – Customize. Create a major adaptation by customizing an existing book. Canadian content and examples must be included. Author must follow the suggested stylings and spellings for a “Canadian” textbook as outlined in Measurements and Canadian Spellings and Word List in the Self-Publishing Guide.
Estimated completion time: 6 – 12 months
Grant: $3,500

Option 3 – Create. Write a new textbook.
Estimated completion time: 1 – 2 years
Grant: $7,500

Eligible Subject Areas

In an ongoing effort to sustain and build the B.C. Open Textbook Collection, BCcampus asked institutions to identify subject areas in the B.C. Open Textbook Collection that are missing open textbooks and/or open content entirely, in specific categories and/or for certain course levels.

As such, preference will be given to the following subject areas, based on a needs analysis:

  • Anthropology
  • Agriculture
  • Communication skills
  • Counselling and helping professions (e.g., Counselling Psychology, Social Work, Child and Youth Worker, for senior undergraduate or post-secondary applied programs in these areas)
  • Early-childhood education
  • Education
  • Gender studies (e.g., sexuality, literature, social movement, popular culture, masculinities)
  • History, European (e.g., Western civilization, Britain)
  • Nursing
  • Plant Physiology
  • Political Science (e.g., Canadian Studies (introductory level); intro to politics (Cdn); Canadian foreign policy (3rd year); European studies; Feminist theory; popular culture; United Nations)
  • Sports Science, Kinesiology (biomechanics)
  • Statistics for Psychology (e.g., adaptation of OpenStax: Introductory Statistics)
  • Trades (e.g., electric, plumbing)
  • Languages:
    • French (intermediate to advanced; e.g., language, composition culture)
    • Indigenous languages
    • Japanese
    • Mandarin
    • Spanish

Preference will also be given to projects that:

  • Support Indigenous students and practices and that encourage and use Indigenous perspectives and pedagogies.
  • Address accessibility and make use of the principles of Universal Design for Learning.

If you have a proposal that does not fit within these subject areas, please continue to submit. While these subject areas are preferred, they are not mandatory.

Past Successful OER Grant Recipients/Projects

  • Open Textbook Creation for Human Resource Management – CNC
  • Open Case Studies – UBC
  • Open Textbook Creation: Philosophy Reader – TRU
  • Virtual Reality Geography Tours – UBC

Application Process

The application form should be completed and e-mailed 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 names and roles of participants.

Note: Applicants must secure matching funds by their institution (for the requested OER Grant amount) in advance of submitting a proposal.

Criteria for Successful Proposals

Successful proposals must meet the following mandatory criteria:

  • Obtain administrative approval of matching funds from your institution.
  • Document the reuse of openly-licensed materials. These OER may originate from any source (see Open Textbook/OER Directory) including those created by B.C. post-secondary faculty and staff, and stored in SOL*R. (Note: SOL*R materials released under a BC Commons licence are not eligible.)
  • Exhibit characteristics of quality teaching and learning such as, alignment with learning outcomes or curriculum guidelines.
  • Demonstrate sustainability and cost-effectiveness.
  • Demonstrate collaboration of project faculty and staff in one or more of the following ways: 1) within a single institution, 2)  between two or more B.C. post-secondary institutions, 3) within an articulation committee, 4) within a professional organization.
  • Be released with an open licence, such as a Creative Commons licence (preferably CC BY), which allows others to freely retain, copy, modify, remix, and/or redistribute the content.
  • Include a budget documenting the use of the funding being requested.
  • Include a project timeline.

The following criteria are preferred, but not mandatory. Preference will be given to proposals that:

  • Impact large numbers of students across multiple institutions.
    • So as many instructors as possible can use this resource to help their students save money: Consider all courses across the province that might use this OER and include in your proposal.
    • So all students have an equal opportunity to learn: Address accessibility and make use of the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
    • So First Nations students and the aboriginal viewpoint are included: Incorporate Indigenous perspectives and pedagogies.
    • So all students identify with and feel included while learning: 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.

Project Requirements

For funding to be released, all OER grants must:

  • Be released with an open licence, 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/editable files used in creating the resource (including any multimedia files) to easily enable further remixing and modifications.
  • Be copy edited.
  • Agree and participate in an interview about the project.

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.