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Open Educational Resources

Create an Open Textbook

Proposals are invited to create a substantially new open textbook to support an upcoming course/program at Queen's.  You may be interested in this essay by Tony Bates: Writing an online, open textbook: is it worth it?

Total funding available for each project: $7,500.

Eligibility

Applications are encouraged for:

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

How to Apply

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 Criterion

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
  • ​An initial conceptualization and/or content map for the book
  • 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 $7500
  • 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 plan and sustain your new textbook project 
  • 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 (or derivative) of it and /or simply re-use it as-is, while always giving appropriate attribution to the copyright owner
  • Work with Open Education Resources team (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.