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Open Educational Resources

Adapt an Open Textbook

Would you like the flexibility to adapt your course textbook and re-mix it to suit a specific course learning outcome, in-class activity, or assessment? 

The Open Textbook Library maintained by eCampusOntario provides access to more than 180 high quality, peer reviewed, openly licensed textbooks. Authored by faculty peers in Arts, Business, Science, Health, and other disciplines, the content can be fully re-mixed to suite your syllabi and learning outcomes.

Proposals are invited for projects to adapt an existing open textbook for use in an upcoming course or program.

Total funding available for each project: $800.

Eligibility

Applications are encouraged for:

  • Large undergraduate courses
  • Courses with high-cost traditional ‘closed’ textbooks
  • New or emerging disciplines or subjects. 

How to Apply

  1. Identify a textbook aligned to your course, subject matter expertise from the Open Textbook Library maintained by eCampusOntario. 
  2. Submit a Proposal using the following form: 

Submission deadline: November 30, 2018. 

If you have any questions or comments, please email: open.education@queensu.ca. 

Evaluation Criteria

Project proposals will be evaluated using a rubric that balances the following criteria:

Criteria / Weight

Description

Quality (40%) 

The project description and objectives are:

  • Clearly articulated and reasonable
  • Mapped to specific course learning outcomes or competencies 
  • Indicate proposed subject matter to be addressed
  • Indicate proposed assessment strategies

The Project Plan Overview includes clearly defined project milestones such as a high-level overview of:

  • The project plan (timelines, budget estimates, resources)
  • Approaches in content design supporting the innovative uses of technologies and/or pedagogies
  • Approximate timelines for the completion of the project (e.g project plan, book outline; final copy; editorial processes; review and publication etc.,)
  • Approaches to ensure the future sustainability of the project e.g. how open content will be maintained and kept up to date.

Impact

(35%)

The Impact Assessment Plan clearly describes how you will determine the use, effectiveness and impact of your project, including: 

  • The estimated student savings compared to grant amount
  • The estimated number of students who will take the course
  • How content will be made openly available at Queen’s
  • An articulation of how content will be developed to promote remixing, reuse and redistribution by individual educators to meet their own course plans

Budget (25%)

The proposal clearly outlines: 

  • Estimated cost projections and priorities of the project at a high-level
  • The budget does not exceed the maximum amount allowed per course 
  • Staff roles associated with the respective cost estimates (e.g. subject matter expert, instructional designer, project manager, etc.), provide FTE percentage for each phase of the project, and rate/cost
  • Information about any other direct costs included in the project

Eligible Expenses: 

  • Salary costs associated with hiring an educational designer
  • Salary costs associated with hiring a research assistant, etc;
  • In-kind support
  • Costs associated with editing or copy-editing, peer review etc.

Requirements for Successful Grant Recipients

Successful grant recipients will be required to:

  • Work with Open Education Resources project staff (including the Library and other units on campus) to identify an existing open textbook appropriate to your course or discipline and adapt it to meet specific course needs
  • Integrate your new textbook in an upcoming Queen’s course or program
  • Share your new textbook under an appropriate Creative Commons License ((the recommended license is Creative Commons CC BY 4.0)
    so that others can easily create a new iteration of it and /or simply re-use it as-is, while always giving appropriate attribution to the copyright owner
  • Work with Open Education Resources project staff (including the Library and other units on campus) to develop a timeline of deliverables, and an impact assessment plan (once your textbook is completed).
  • Publicize your work by providing project staff with press-worthy updates; participate in related events; and post your adoption on the Open Educational Resources Project Page.

Creative Commons License

This guide has been created by the Queen's University Library and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license unless otherwise marked.  Sections of this guide have been adapted from the Open Access Educational Resources Guide by Ryerson University licensed under CC/BY 4.0.