The Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, UBC Vancouver is pleased to invite the UBC Vancouver community to apply for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Rapid Innovation and Implementation Grants. The OER Fund aims to support affordable and inclusive access to learning materials through the use of OER in UBCV credit courses. Since 2019, UBCV has provided $650,076 in OER grant funding for 61 projects across 11 different Faculties.
The OER Fund consists of two grant pathways:
- 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 has been extended to Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 3pm.
- OER Rapid Innovation Grants: Grants of up to $2,000, which are available to the UBCV community for innovative activities that increase open educational resource development, awareness and capacity building. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the year’s funds are exhausted.
Increased Support for Making OER Accessible
In order to help ensure that OER developed with support from the OER Fund are open, accessible, and equitable for all users, the UBC Centre for Accessibility and the OER Fund will be partnering on a support pilot during the upcoming year. This pilot will provide OER Fund grant holders with accessibility project support and it will also help to develop additional capacity and resources for the creation of accessible open learning materials at UBC.
About Open Educational 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).
The use of OER is a great strategy for providing access to course materials, as:
- Instructors can modify the OERs to suit student needs, teaching methods, curriculum, and learning goals.
- There is 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.
- Online versions of open resources are free to students and instructors and thus lower financial barriers for course materials.
- Open resources have no expiration dates and require no access codes.
To read more about open education resources and their use at UBC, please visit the Open UBC website.
Application Information
Thinking of applying for an OER Fund Grant? Attend an upcoming OER Fund online proposal consultation session. For more information and to apply, visit: https://oerfund.open.ubc.ca/.
