Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant

Please read all of the information about the Grant Program in the OER Grant (McMaster) Research Guide before starting your application.

OER Grant Application form

Important Dates for 2024/25

• Applications open: Monday, April 8, 2024  
• Deadline for applications:  Friday, May 31, 2024 by 11:59 pm  
• Notification date of applicant status: Monday, June 17, 2024  
• Grant recipients announced: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 
• Deadline for completion of grant projects and peer reviews: Monday, June 30, 2025  

Important Documents

• OER Grant Application form
• Planning document

Eligibility

Any instructor of a McMaster credit course is eligible to apply, including instructional teams, instructional assistants, and staff in educational roles. Sessional instructors, teaching assistants, and students are eligible as co-applicants if at least one member of the team is employed by the university for the duration of the grant.

Eligible grant projects must:

• Apply to upcoming courses or programs taught at McMaster University
• Use existing open educational resources or create new open educational resources
• Incorporate a plan for evaluating the effectiveness of the resource in the classroom

Applications are particularly encouraged for large undergraduate courses, courses with high-cost traditional textbooks, and new or emerging disciplines or subjects.

Applications will be reviewed by members of the McMaster OER Committee, including members from the MacPherson Institute, the University Libraries, McMaster University Continuing Education, and faculty and student representatives.

Applicants are eligible to apply more than once, to more than one category. However, Applicants may receive only one award from the Creation, Adaptation and Adoption categories in any given year.

Individual grants are for one year only.

Expectations of Grant Recipients

For Adoption, Adaptation or Creation:

• Meet with the OER Committee co-chairs to complete a project plan with agreed-upon timelines and deliverables*
• Commit to use the resource in a McMaster credit course specified in the application form
• Ensure the resource meets with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) standards**
• Submit a final report, including a final budget, after completion of the project***
• Share their project plans with the McMaster community through sessions held during Open Access Week, Open Education Week and at McMaster’s 2023 Innovations in Education Conference.

*See the Planning document to help create your project plan.

**See information on Accessible Publishing for instructors. Contact Library Accessibility Services for assistance.

***See the https://bit.ly/OERGrant2024_25Docs

For Adaptation or Creation:

In addition to the expectations listed above,

• Release the completed resource with an open license, such as a Creative Commons license (CC-BY preferred).
• Make the resource available in the eCampusOntario Open Library and MacSphere, McMaster’s Institutional Repository (optional).

For Peer Review Honorarium:

• Submit and permit the open publication of the review for a textbook, in the corresponding collection.
• If suitable, add the reviewed textbook to the OER by Discipline Guide: McMaster University
• Consider adopting the reviewed textbook as a course resource.
• Note: A submission of a final report is not required.

Evaluation Criteria

The following criteria will be considered during the evaluation process:

• Number of learners served (as measured by class size and/or number of sections)
• Potential impact on cost savings to students
• Potential for the reuse of the OER in subsequent terms or other credit courses to be offered at McMaster and at other institutions
• Evidence of need for OER on this topic (for Adaptation or Creation)
• Feasible goals and timelines
• Feasible budget
• Plan for measuring learners’ experience with the OER*
• Plan for measuring project success*
• Plan for regular review (and revision, if Adapting or Creating)*
• Inclusion of content map/plan (for Creation)
• Outline of proposed plan (for Adoption)
• Outline of proposed plan/changes or additions (for Adaptation)
• Evidence of teaching experience or courses taught in the subject of the textbook the applicant has applied to review (for Peer Review Honorarium)

*Draft plans may be submitted upon application with the understanding that successful applicants will meet with the OER Committee co-chairs to complete agreed-upon timelines and deliverables. See the Application Process and Support and FAQ pages for more details.

See the OER Grant Application form

Please read all of the information about the Grant Program included in the OER Grant (McMaster) LibGuide before starting your application.

Applications will be evaluated by members of the McMaster OER Committee, which includes members from the University Libraries, the MacPherson Institute, McMaster University Continuing Education, and faculty and student representatives.

The MacPherson Institute and the University Libraries are building a service to assist instructors to adopt, adapt or create open textbooks or other open educational resources for use in their courses. The grant will give instructors support through collaboration and/or consultation with staff in the MacPherson Institute and the University Libraries.

H5P Orientation

Interested in learning how to use H5P to create an OER for your course? Watch this recording to learn more about H5P Studio and the content types available.

Watch here: https://www.macvideo.ca/media/Creating+Interactive+Content+with+H5P/0_wftgg59y

Pressbooks Orientation

Watch this recording and learn how to create, adapt, and publish open content using Pressbooks, Ontario’s free open textbook authoring platform.

Watch here:  https://www.macvideo.ca/media/Pressbooks+101+-+Open+Education+Week/1_518f5p7n

More Information

For additional questions about the McMaster OER Grant program or to request a consultation regarding your application, project or peer review, please contact Joanne Kehoe, Lead Educational Developer, Digital Pedagogies (kehoej@mcmaster.ca)

Please read all of the information about the Grant Program before starting your application.

There are many OER collections or repositories available to find open textbooks and other open educational resources for coursework. These collections or repositories normally contain a combination of peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed titles. If an open textbook has already been reviewed, the review(s) will appear with the record for the textbook.

OER collections or repositories, including those listed below, may be found in the McMaster OER Research Guide.

• eCampusOntario Open Library – Search almost 700 open textbooks and other open resources in top subject areas in post-secondary education. Print for low cost; download for free.
• MERLOT – This collection contains over 91,000 discipline-specific, peer-reviewed free learning materials. Materials are categorized in 22 different types, including assessment tools, quizzes, modules, open textbooks and presentations.
• OASIS – A search tool for discovery of open content from 97 different sources. Search by content type such as full textbooks, course materials and interactive simulations, or browse by subject using Advanced Search.
• OER by Discipline Guide: McMaster University – This guide highlights quality open textbooks organized by academic programs at McMaster.
• Pressbooks Directory – Search this directory of 2,300 open textbooks and other books published across 94 Pressbooks networks.

Several OER Faculty toolkits are available to get you started on your open textbook project. These resources, including those listed below, may be found in the McMaster OER Research Guide: OER & Faculty.

• Faculty OER Toolkit (BCcampus Open Education)
• OER Toolkit (College Libraries Ontario, et al.)

OER Toolkit document (in Getting Started With OER by Cheryl Cuillier, Open Oregon Educational Resources)

In addition to searching for open textbooks in collections or repositories such as those listed in the McMaster OER Research Guide: Collections, some organizations release a call for reviews. The Collections page of the OER LibGuide will be updated as calls for the peer review of open textbooks are announced.

The Rebus Community maintains a Contributor Marketplace forum where you can post or reply to calls for contributors, peer reviewers, editors, etc. for open textbook projects.

Mark Busser, manager, Careers and Experiential Education
Open Content Creation: Careers in Local and Municipal Government

Anthony Chibba and Sharonna Greenberg, assistant professors, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Open Content Creation: Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology for the Students by the Students

Amin Reza Rajabzadeh, associate professor, and Konstantinos Apostolou, assistant professor, W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology
Open Content Creation: Interactive Open Educational Resources for Energy Balances in Chemical and Biochemical Processes

Miranda Schmidt, assistant professor; Sara Cormier, instructional assistant, and Kari Dalnoki-Veress, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Open Content Creation: Manual for Introductory Physics Hybrid Labs

Erica Speakman, assistant professor, Social Psychology
Open Content Creation: Exploring Social Psychological Theory

Christine Swintak, assistant professor, Integrated Arts Program
Open Content Creation: The AI for Artists Workbook

Rebecca Turner, instructional assistant, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Open Content Creation: Chemistry Lab Manuals

Felicia Vulcu and Caitlin Mullarkey, associate professors, Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences
Open Content Creation: BBS Thesis Course Guidebook

Ruhai Wu, associate professor, Marketing
Open Content Creation: Digital Marketing

Christopher Anand, associate professor, Department of Computing and Software, Faculty of Engineering
Open Content Creation: Creating with Code: An Introduction to Functional Programming and User Interaction Using 2D Graphics in Elm

Anthony Chibba and Sharonna Greenberg, assistant professors, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Faculty of Science
Open Content Creation: Developing an OER for organic chemistry and chemical biology for first-year chemistry students

David Heidebrecht, advisor on special projects and sessional instructor, Office of the Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning, and manager, Office of Community Engagement, Faculty of Social Sciences
Open Content Creation: The Art of Change: Introduction to Individual, Systems, and Organizational Change

Anne Holbrook, director, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, and professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences
Open Content Creation: Development of a Canadian open textbook for medical students learning clinical pharmacology and prescribing skills

Konstantinos Apostolou and Amin Rajabzadeh, assistant professors, W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology
Open Content CREATION: Introduction to Mass Balances 

Mirna Carranza, professor, School of Social Work
Open Content CREATION: The Colonial Mirror: Newcomer Families as Civic Bodies

David Feinberg, associate professor, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
Open Content CREATION: Python for Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour

Chad Harvey, associate professor, School of Interdisciplinary Science
Open Content ADAPTATION: Adaptation of Biology 2e (OpenStax)

Ali Hashemi, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
Open Content CREATION: Revisiting the History of Psychology

Anne Holbrook, professor, Department of Medicine
Open Content ADAPTATION: Adaptation of the National Prescribing Curriculum (NPC) of Australia

Miroslav Lovric, professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Open Content CREATION: 99 Numbers: Mathematics of Everyday Life

Antonio Paez, professor, School of Earth, Environment & Society
Open Content CREATION: Spatial Statistics