New Support For Open Projects As 15,000 Students Benefit In 25-26

The GMCTL is rolling out an increased level of support for open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy. This support will be available for all steps in projects and includes an option to be part of a cohort, all in addition to financial support.

By Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning

In an effort to support instructors and departments in expanding the use of open textbooks (OER) and the integration of open pedagogy into their programs, the GMCTL will be offering a new level of support for such projects. This support is in addition to the funding available for open work. 

Any instructors or departments interested in creating, modifying, or moving to an open textbook or are currently working on such a project are eligible to be part of a cohort of open educators who will receive this support. This is also available for open pedagogy projects (authentic assessment leading to students creating openly licensed materials) or instructors or departments interested in moving away from a commercial homework system.

The timeline for the overall process includes:

  1. Interested instructors/departments should contact Heather Ross at heather.ross@usask.ca
  2. She will work with them on the funding application (this must be completed by November 7, 2026)
  3. Notification of approval of funding application
  4. Those accepted will join the cohort
  5. Periodic meetings as a group, ongoing support from GMCTL throughout the project. This includes assistance in finding existing open materials, instructional design, technical help, and copyediting from start to finish of the project.
  6. Showcase of projects when completed (need to be completed within 2 years of joining the cohort)

Instructors or departments are eligible for the cohort if they are or would like to:

  1. Adapt or create an open textbook or textbooks to replace a commercial text in at least one course
  2. Move from a commercial homework system to either Canvas quizzes or a low-cost system such as Mobius (used by Engineering) or ADAPT (being piloted for the next two years at USask)
  3. Have learners engage in open pedagogy (creating open materials as part of authentic assessment)
  4. Move to an open textbook or textbooks, and need slides and assessments updated

Funding can go to sessional instructors, graduate students, and undergraduate students who are supporting the project(s) but are not receiving course credit for the work. It can also be used if media needs to be created as part of it.

If you or any of your instructors are interested in this or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the GMCTL.

Title image credit: Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com
This resource is shared by the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL), University of Saskatchewan, under a CC BY-NC-SA license.