The Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, UBC Vancouver is pleased to announce a new call for applications for the Open Education Resources (OER) Fund. In alignment with UBC’s Strategic Plan, Shaping UBC’s Next Century, the Office of the Provost has committed $250,000 in annual funding for the next four years to support:
- The adoption, adaptation or creation of open educational resources which address affordability and access to learning resources within UBCV credit-based courses.
- Course enhancements using open educational resources, including assessment materials.
- Activities and events that seek to engage the UBCV community in increasing awareness and capacity for supporting open educational resources.
About the OER Fund
The UBC Vancouver OER Fund was established through the UBC Academic Excellence Fund to support affordable and inclusive access to learning materials through the adaption, adoption, development, and integration of open educational resources in UBC credit courses.
The OER Fund will consist of two grant pathways:
- OER Rapid Innovation Grants: Grants of up to $1,000 which are available to the UBC community for innovative activities that increase open educational resources development, awareness and capacity building. The application cycle for this pathway will be available on a rolling basis until the funds allocated each year are exhausted.
- 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 3PM Friday, November 29.
The UBC OER Fund is guided by the following principles:
- Increase the creation, adaptation, adoption and integration of high-quality open educational resources, including assessment materials, in UBC credit courses.
- Reduce student costs for learning materials and assessments.
- Enable instructors to modify, edit, or adapt high-quality open educational resources to fit their unique specifications and goals in order to help provide meaningful, contextualized learning materials for UBC students.
- Engage with the UBC community to increase awareness of open educational resources.
- Grow capacity at UBC to support and sustain open educational resources activities.
To learn more, application forms, criteria, and support for both grants are available at 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).
The UBC Strategic Plan specifically addresses open educational resources through the theme of inclusion:
- “Led by strong student advocacy efforts, UBC is expanding the use of open textbooks to improve affordability;
- UBC is committed to making education more affordable and accessible, with expanded creation and dissemination of open educational resources;
Strategy 1: Great People also supports this important initiative:
- “To help address affordability pressures, we will expand financial assistance programs for students, including funding and support for continued growth in open educational resources.
To read more about open education resources and their use at UBC, please visit the Open UBC website.
