Grant Program

Open Education and Publishing Program Funded Grants

The University of Regina Open Education and Publishing (OEP) Program funds small and large grants for the development of open educational resources (OER). Faculty, &  instructors who want to adapt or create open educational resources are welcome to apply for these grants.

The Program adopts the UNESCO definition of OER:

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.”  UNESCO OER Recommendation 2019

From this definition, OER range from full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks and supplementary teaching resources, such as PowerPoint slides and test banks, and so on.

Eligibility Criteria

  • Tenure-track or tenured faculty and instructors employed by the University of Regina and its federated colleges.
  • Applications from faculty/ instructors who are on term-appointment and sessional lecturers will also be considered. However, since their employment contract is temporary, applicants falling into one of these groups must make a convincing case that there is a very good prospect that the proposed textbook or supporting teaching material will be used in U of R/ federated college courses within one year of product completion.

Eligible projects

There are two main types of projects eligible for funding through the OEP Program as described below.

Small Project

The small project will be awarded to projects that fall into one of the following categories:

  • Supplementary resources for existing open content including testbanks, PPT slides, videos, audios, images, H5P, animations, etc.
  • Minor adaptation of an existing open textbook resource (addition/change of up to 25% of existing content)
  • Open pedagogy projects with students working as co-creators of content

Large Project

The large project will be awarded to projects in one of the following categories:

  • Creation of a new open textbook resource (creation/addition of more than 50% new content)
  • A major adaptation of an existing open textbook resource (creation/addition of up to 50% new content)

Levels of Funding

The following grants are available:

1. Small Project Grants:

a. OER Adaptation Grant: This grant assists interested faculty and instructors with undertaking small OER projects, such as the minor adaptation of materials, and helps them to get started using existing OER.

    • Minor adaptation of an existing open textbook resource (addition/change of up to 25% of existing content)
    • Open pedagogy projects with students working as co-creators of content
    • Approximate timeline for project creation: 4-6 months
    • Funding available: up to $3,500 per application
    • Download the application form: OER-adaptation-grant-form

b. OER Supplementary Grant: The second option for this grant is for faculty and instructors to undertake the creation of supplementary materials for use in courses.

    • Supplementary resources for courses including testbanks, presentation slides, videos, audios, images, H5P, animations, case studies, etc.
    • Approximate timeline for project creations: 4-6 months
    • Funding available: up to $3,500 per application
    • Download the application form: OER-supplementary-grant-form

2. OER Large Project Grant: This grant is meant to support faculty and instructors to undertake large OER projects. This type of project requires larger budgets and commitments from participants in terms of time (e.g., course releases and research assistance) and resources (e.g., instructional design, peer review, and copy editing).

    • Example: Creation of a new open textbook
    • Example: A major adaptation of an existing open textbook (creation/addition of up to 50% new content)
    • Approximate timeline for project creation: 1-2 years (maximum 3 years)
    • Funding available: up to $25,000 per application
    • Download the application form: OER-Large-grant-forms

Additional resources useful for OER development

Here is a list of documents and links useful for OER development at the University of Regina:

  1. For books, manuals and case study projects, ISBN forms:
  2. For digital accessibility requirements Accessibility Toolkit 2nd Edition [PB], WCAG 2.1 [HTML]
  3. OEP Program branding assets for OER projects [ZIP]
  4. Government of Canada Catalogue in Publication page [HTML]
  5. Rubrics for diversity and content creation:

Peer Review Process – Large project Grants

The quality of open content has long been one of the barriers some faculty face in adopting OER. In response to this perceived lack of quality, most institutions funding the development of OER require their open textbooks to undergo a peer review process. The University of Regina OEP Program requires that all large project grants undergo a single-blind peer review process.

The OEP Program Manager is responsible for contacting 2 – 3 potential reviewers after the submission of the open content draft. Project authors should contact the OEP Program Manager 3 to 4 weeks prior to the end of development. This will give the OEP Program Manager sufficient lead time to contact potential reviewers.

Once selected, these reviewers will be provided with 6 weeks to complete the review and return a report for the project authors. Then it will be the responsibility of the project authors to incorporate reviewer comments into the resource before it is released publicly. Note that for resources developed in Pressbooks, the project must remain in private mode until this public release.

Need help with your application?

The OEP Program is available to work with you and your department to complete your application. Please email Shuana Niessen at open.textbooks@uregina.ca.

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