VIVA: VIVA Open Adopt Grants
VIVA Open Adopt Grants provide awards of $2,000 to individual instructors to support the time it takes to integrate existing open or no-cost materials into a syllabus, and to ensure that the results of those efforts are widely available to Virginia educators.
Instructors interested in applying for this opportunity are encouraged to explore VIVA's repository of Open Education Resources, VIVA Open, to discover open resources that may be of use in their courses. Applicants do not need to choose a resource listed in VIVA Open to apply for the grant.
Team and departmental adoptions, as well as projects seeking to adapt or create new Open Educational Resources, should apply for the larger scale VIVA Open Course Grants.
Important Dates
The first round of VIVA Open Adopt Grants was announced on August 4, 2020. Applications are due October 19, 2020 via email at vivaopen@gmu.edu. Notification of award recipients will take place by December 9, 2020. Funds will be disbursed at the beginning of the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Adopted course materials must be piloted in the classroom by fall, 2022.
Informational webinars are scheduled for the following dates. Advance registration at the provided link is required:
August 18, 2020, 10 am: https://vivalib.libcal.com/event/6916951
September 14, 2020, 2:00 pm: https://vivalib.libcal.com/event/6916978
October 5, 2020, 9:30 am: https://vivalib.libcal.com/event/6916979
Questions about all VIVA Open grants can be sent to vivaopen@gmu.edu.
Grant Purpose
The VIVA Open Grants Program reduces the costs of higher education for Virginia students by eliminating the costs of textbooks and other course materials. These costs can be a significant barrier to student success, shaping everything from what majors are chosen to whether or not degrees are completed. The high cost of textbooks, technology and course materials, currently estimated by The College Board to be around $1,300 per student per year, means that students often do not purchase course materials, and academic performance suffers as a result. Barriers to curricular resources have been further exacerbated by COVID-19.
Although the need is clear, faculty who wish to design courses using open or no-cost materials have few resources available to them. The purpose of the Open Adopt Grant program is address this challenge by providing support for the time it takes to integrate existing open or no-cost materials into a course.
Grants are intended to:
Grant Guidelines
Full or part-time faculty may apply for a grant to support the adoption of OER, including textbooks, software, test banks and ancillary materials, and library resources that replace a traditional textbook or other costly class resources. Applications must be from an individual course instructor only. Each grant recipient will receive a $2,000 award intended to support their time as they transition to open and affordable course materials, including the time required to gather assessment data and provide VIVA with any ancillary materials developed as complementary to the selected course content. Successful applications will receive 75% of the funding at the outset of the project and the remaining 25% upon completion of a final report.
Applications will be reviewed by members of VIVA’s Open and Affordable Course Content Committee and VIVA administrators. Grants will be awarded based on:
Each awarded grant will receive support from VIVA in adopting existing OER, including access to Pressbooks, ISKME’s Open Author Tool, and copyright consultations. Recipients will have the option (but not the requirement) to meet with the VIVA grant coordinator and participate in the annual VIVA grant recipient kickoff meeting. Grant recipients will be expected to complete the following activities: