The Toronto Metropolitan University Library is pleased to announce its 2023 Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants to encourage the creation and adoption of open educational resources. OER are learning materials that are openly licensed such that they are freely available to be adapted, copied, and shared. OER can be: courses, modules, textbooks, multimedia, assessments, and supplementary materials.

These grants advance the University’s priorities to foster an innovation ecosystem and ensure excellence in student learning experiences, and build on TMU  Library’s digital initiatives, expertise in Open Access and Open Education Resource publishing and dissemination, and academic priorities of access and openness. The Library is very pleased to collaborate with the Office of eLearning and the Learning and Teaching Office in the review and adjudication of the grants, and in the support of successful projects.

This year there will be a maximum of four grants.  Two grants will be for the creation or adaptation of OER textbooks ($10,000 each), and two grants will be for the creation of openly licensed content immersive content (AR/VR, 360° video) ($5,000).

More information is available on the 2023 OER grants page.

The Toronto Metropolitan University Library is pleased to announce its 2022 Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants to encourage the creation and adoption of open educational resources. OER are learning materials that are openly licensed such that they are freely available to be adapted, copied, and shared. OER can be: courses, modules, textbooks, multimedia, assessments, and supplementary materials.

These grants advance the University’s priorities to foster an innovation ecosystem and ensure excellence in student learning experiences, and build on Ryerson Library’s digital initiatives, expertise in Open Access and Open Education Resource publishing and dissemination, and academic priorities of access and openness. The Library is very pleased to collaborate with the Office of eLearning and the Learning and Teaching Office in the review and adjudication of the grants, and in the support of successful projects.

Applications for the 2022 round of Library OER grants are now being accepted.  See the 2022 Library OER Grant page for more details. This time we will have grants for both textbook creation and for the development of open immersive video content. Successful applications will be announced in April with funding being made available in early May.

Applications for the 2022 University Library and Ted Rogers School of Management OER Partnership grants are also being accepted until May 13, 2022.

Ryerson Pressbooks titles are now accessible in the recently released Pressbooks Directory.  The Pressbooks Directory pulls together titles published on various Pressbooks networks and provides an easy-to-use interface to aid in the discovery of Open Educational Resources (OER).  Ryerson Library has made a considerable investment in OER through several years of grant funding which has greatly benefited Ryerson students.  By being included in the directory, books produced at Ryerson are now more easily discoverable beyond the institution.

In the Pressbooks Directory you can search for books by keyword and then filter the results by Creative Commons license type, publisher, presence of interactive content (H5P) and other facets.  You can also see what books have been adapted and revised with additional content and supplementary materials.

The most recent Ryerson titles to be added to the Pressbooks Directory include 360 Essentials, a book about 360 degree journalism by Adrian Ma, Joshua Cameron and Gary Gould and Mediaucracy, by Irene Berkowitz which discusses Canada’s national TV policy and it’s failure to adapt to the global, online era.