Making learning materials freely accessible and available to the Waterloo community is part of the Library's mission. Staebler Insurance is bolstering these efforts by donating $100,000 to the Library to support the update of open educational resources (OER) at Waterloo.
The Staebler Insurance OER Fellows Grant will provide a maximum of $20,000 annually over five years (2023-2028) to fund projects that develop OER for use in Waterloo courses.
The grants can be used to:
- design and create original resources,
- adapt existing resources (ex. revising an open textbook for a Canadian/Waterloo context), or
- develop resources that mix original and adapted content.
All materials funded by the grant will be assigned a Creative Commons licence and made publicly available. In addition to working on their projects, OER Fellows will share their work in progress and demonstrate their finished products at periodic events arranged by Waterloo's OER Working Group (e.g. a presentation during Open Education Week). A final project report is also required.
Amount per grant: up to $5,000
Application Deadline: Monday, April 3, 2023 Monday, April 10
Successful applicants will be notified by Friday, April 28, 2023, and will have until April 30, 2024 to complete their projects.
Information Sessions:
Staebler Insurance OER Fellow Grant information session, Monday, March 6, 11am
How can the Agile Development Team (ADT) support your OER?, Tuesday, March 7, 11am
Questions? Just ask
Interested but want to learn more about OER first? Start on our page about Open Educational Resources first. Then have a look at some of the open resources created by Waterloo instructors.
Send your questions about the grant to OERgrant@uwaterloo.ca. Lauren Byl (copyright and licensing librarian) and Abbey Colucci (open education and instructional design librarian) will answer questions sent to that address.
Grant guidelines
Eligibility
Full-time instructors whose employment will span the length of the grant (i.e. until April 30, 2024).
Eligible expenses
Funds from this grant may be used broadly to compensate for time and/or to buy software needed to develop the proposed OER. Examples of eligible expenses include:
- Hiring research assistants
- Hiring third parties to do design and/or production work
- Purchasing specific apps/software needed for project
- Honoraria: contributions of experts, UX testing, etc.
Ineligible expenses:
Examples of possible projects
- Adapting an available open textbook for use in a Waterloo course
- Turning self-developed materials into OER
- Creating open learning objects for a Waterloo course (e.g., a series of learning tasks, demonstrations, experiments)
- Creating course resources that involve students as co-creators
- Developing open ancillary materials for a Waterloo course (e.g., a student-developed glossary of terms)
- Creating audio or visual material featuring topic experts
Projects funded in the pilot year (2022-2023)
- Barb Bloemhof, Anything but a tariff: Visualizing alternative policies for the small open economy
- Alana Cattapan, Welcome to Canadian Politics: Collaborative Editing for a Student-Generated OER
- Elena Neiterman & Catherine Tong, Life Stories of Older Adults: Digital Storybook for Gerontology Students
Evaluation criteria and process
The evaluation committee will consist of two librarians, one instructor, and one member from an Academic Support Unit. The committee will consider the following criteria when making their decision:
- Usefulness of the planned OER for the course
- Number of learners served
- Potential cost savings to students
- Potential for reuse of the OER in subsequent terms or in other courses at UW or elsewhere
- Feasibility of plan and timelines
- Feasibility of budget
- Plan for sustainability of OER developed during the project
- Plan for evaluating learners’ experience with the OER
- Evidence of teaching experience and familiarity with course content
Resources and support available
Interested in OER but not sure how to get started? Check out these resources:
In addition to the above web resources, the Library and CEL are able to support project planning before submission to the grant, and can provide development support for successful projects. Areas of support include:
- Library - Consultations with Lauren Byl (copyright and licensing librarian) and Abbey Colucci (open education and instructional design librarian) on project planning, Creative Commons licensing, accessibility, and copyright concerns. Send your consultation request to OERgrant@uwaterloo.ca.
- Centre for Extended Learning - Consultations with the CEL's Agile Development Team on instructional design (e.g. online pedagogy, online digital learning materials), multimedia development, accessibility review, and user experience testing
- Centre for Teaching Excellence - Provides information and tips on accessibilty in teaching and inclusive instructional practices.
