Call for Applications for Open Educational Resource Grants

The Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, UBC Vancouver is pleased to invite the UBC community to apply for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Rapid Innovation and Implementation Grants.

The UBC Vancouver OER Fund, established through the UBC Academic Excellence Fund in 2019, aims to support affordable and inclusive access to learning materials through the adaption, adoption, development, and integration of open educational resources in UBC credit courses. At launch, UBCV committed $1-million over a four-year period to support OER initiatives. In the first year of the program, the OER Fund provided funding to over 25 faculty, staff, and student OER projects

The OER Fund consists of two grant pathways:

  1. OER Rapid Innovation Grants: Grants of up to $2,000, which are available to the UBCV community for innovative activities that increase open educational resources development, awareness and capacity building. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the year’s funds are exhausted.
  2. OER Implementation Grants: Grants of up to $25,000 for UBCV faculty who wish to incorporate open educational resources as the primary materials into their UBCV credit courses. The application deadline for this grant is 3 PM Friday, November 20th.

Thinking of applying for an OER Grant? Learn more about the grants process at the information session on Wednesday, October 14.

For more information and to apply, visit http://open.ubc.ca/oer-fund.

About Open Education Resources

Open educational resources are defined as “teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by the use of an open license (for example, a Creative Commons license), which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere.” Open educational resources “include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge” (Hewlett Foundation).

Using OERs in online courses is an excellent strategy. They:

  • Make it easy for instructors to provide meaningful, contextualized resources for their students:

    • Instructors can modify the resources to suit student needs, teaching methods, curriculum, and learning goals.
    • There’s no need to gain permission—or pay—to use, copy, or distribute an OER.
    • OERs are easy to circulate among an unlimited number of students.
  • Save students time and money:

    • Online versions of open resources are free to students (and instructors). 
    • There’s no access code needed or expiration date with open resources.
    • Most OERs can be easily downloaded for offline viewing in low bandwidth contexts. 

To read more about open education resources and their use at UBC, please visit the Open UBC website.


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