VCC Library
The call for proposals is now closed.
The recipients of VCC OER Grant are:
About the Grant
The VCC Open Education Working Group is offering grants to faculty and staff who are interested in adopting, adapting or creating open education resources (OER) that incorporate universal design for learning (UDL) principles. Even if you are new to open education and UDL, we welcome your proposals! Grant recipients, and staff or faculty interested in learning more, are supported in the following ways at VCC:
The OER working group
Call for Proposals
This call for proposals is for all VCC educators who wish to adopt, adapt, or create OER, using UDL principles for use in VCC courses and programs.
Applicants are encouraged to search the BC Open Textbook Collection and to work closely with liaison librarians and the OER Coordinator in the library who will be available to assist in locating existing high-quality open resources as an alternative to copyrighted course materials. Open resources are considered to be as good or better than copyrighted resources and collectively have saved BC post-secondary students millions of dollars. In addition, benefits for educators include increased flexibility, adaptability and customization of resources to better meet the requirements of their courses.
Incentives will be awarded in one or more of the following ways*:
Directly to the educator as a contract arrangement. Work is completed outside of regular work hours.
To the department. The money is awarded to the department to allow for replacement.
To the department. Work is completed as part of assigned duty time.
*Subject to collective agreement and Dean approval
There are three levels of grant available to adopt, adapt, or create OER.
1. Adopt
A maximum of $800 is available to adopt an open textbook or other OER (e.g. interactive H5P, ancillary materials) using UDL principles.
The amount available considers the time needed to make an assessment and exploration of OERs that you will recommend and ideally use in the future.
In this case, the existing open educational resource will require very little or no modification for it to be ready to use in your course.
Examples:
Existing OER textbooks or other OERs (e.g., BC Campus Collection) that are accessible and employ UDL.
2. Adapt
A maximum of $8000 is available to adapt and/or revise an open textbook or other OER (e.g. interactive H5P, ancillary materials) using UDL principles.
Apply for a grant to adapt resources when an existing relevant OER has been found, but some modifications would make it more accessible (e.g. applying UDL principles).
Examples:
Adding headings and/or descriptions of images in an OER that does not have image descriptions/headings.
Converting images of a few tables to a text readable by assistive devices.
Describing math symbols in an e-text.
Adding or editing existing closed captioning or transcriptions for videos or H5P materials.
Creating an audio version of a textbook or resource
Adapting to incorporate more inclusive representation
3. Create
A maximum of $12,000 is available to create a new open textbook or other OER (e.g. interactive H5P, ancillary materials) using UDL principles.
If a search for a relevant open resource reveals that no existing resource is available, instructors would then be eligible to receive a grant to create new material.
Examples:
Creation of an original e-text that incorporates UDL
Creation of original multimedia materials: videos with captions or transcripts, H5P activities, assessment or test banks, professional standard tools, etc.
Licensing
All works created under this grant will carry a Creative Commons CC BY license. This means that anyone will be free to:
Retain - to make, own, and control copies of the content
Reuse – to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
Revise – to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
Remix – to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
Redistribute – to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)
Open Education Resources (OER) encompass myriad forms of learning resources, teaching practices and education policies that use the flexibility of OER to provide learners with high quality educational experiences (Hewlett Foundation, 2021).
Creative Commons defines OER as teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities– retaining, remixing, revising, reusing and redistributing the resources.
To find out more about OER at VCC, see the VCC Library’s OER Guide.
Fill in the form above with as much information as you can. The VCC Open Education Working Group may contact you with further questions as part of the application process.
The deadline to submit completed proposals is December 6th, 2021
The deadline to complete all deliverables for this call for proposals is March 1st, 2021.
To make this process successful and sustainable, successful applicant are expected to:
Complete the project on time following the process provided. At the end of the project send to open@vcc.ca either a link to an OER or a brief description of the work completed.
All created/adapted/adopted materials will carry CC open licensing and use the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
Share your experience, e.g. participate in an OER promotional campaign: a panel, lightning talk or short presentation on the project process and/or outcomes during Open Access Week (March or October)
Criteria for Successful Proposals
Successful proposals will meet the following primary criteria:
will result in the use of open education materials in the course.
will include a timeline that will allow work to be completed by March 1st, 2022
will apply the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
Submitting applications
Please submit the completed application form to open@vcc.ca
The OER Working Group will let you know about the outcomes of your application in approximately two weeks.
If you have questions, please email at open@vcc.ca
The members of the OER Working Group are:
Andrew Dunn, Manager: Online Learning Strategy & Design
Brianna Higgins, Department Head of Disability Services
Shantel Ivits, OER author, Department Head for Basic Education
Elena Kuzmina, Open Resources Coordinator & Librarian
Tannis Morgan, AVP Academic and Innovation
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that gives all students equal opportunity to succeed. A major component of UDL is accessibility. “Accessible design is a design process in which the needs of people with disabilities are specifically considered” (Center for Universal Design in Education, 2015). Common examples of accessible design include captioning videos and formatting text documents so that they can be read by screen readers.
Many creators have considered accessible design practices when developing OER and, as a result, their works can be readily used by those with visual, hearing, and learning disabilities. While some existing OER do not already possess accessible design components, the open license applied to the work allows for them to be revised to better serve all students.
Here is three a minute How to Make Content Accessible video that gives insight into why we need to consider UDL.
Content by Vancouver Community College Library is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License 