Faculty: Apply for a Grant to Transition to Open Textbooks & Course Materials

Posted on: November 14, 2023

Are you concerned about the high cost of course materials for your students? Consider applying for a grant of $4,000 to $50,000 to help reduce the costs of higher education for Virginia students by eliminating the costs of textbooks and other course materials.

Open Course Grants, offered by VIVA (Virginia’s Academic Library Consortium), provide support for the time it takes to integrate existing open or no-cost materials into a course.

Apply this spring for a grant of $4,000 to $50,000 to support a course redesign that makes your course materials more affordable and accessible to students by switching to open, no-cost, or library resources.

This year, these grants have four areas of focus: Content Creation, Open Pedagogy, Open Ancillary, and Large Scale Adoption.

Eligibility:

Full-time or part-time faculty may apply. JMU’s Principal Investigator’s requirements necessitates the Principal Investigator (PI) for projects to be a full-time employee. However, to accommodate this, a workaround allows another full-time faculty member to serve as the internal PI, while the part-time employee may be designated as the PI for the sponsor.

Individuals are permitted to participate in multiple project teams, but cannot hold the role of PI in more than one proposal concurrently. Additionally, individuals cannot serve as the PI for more than one active VIVA Open Course Grant simultaneously, including grants received in previous years. (Recipients of an Open Adopt Grant may also PI an Open Course Grant simultaneously.) For questions on eligibility, contact JMU’s Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at jmu_grants@jmu.edu..

Get Approval:

Applications must be approved in advance by the university before you apply. To obtain university submission approval on the application by Friday, March 1, 2024, the deadline provided by VIVA (the sponsor), please provide the Office of Sponsored Programs Administrative Services (OSP-AS) with the following materials no later than Friday, February 23, 2024:

  • Internal Approval Form (signed by the PI, co-PIs, and their respective Deans and Academic Unit Heads)
  • VIVA application form with the final budget and justification

For budget development, the JMU Office of Sponsored Programs Administrative Services (OSP-AS) encourages starting the process at least 3 weeks before the VIVA deadline. Contact the OSP-AS at jmu_grants@jmu.edu for assistance with budget development and to obtain university submission approval. Once approval is received, apply for the grant by March 1, 2024.

Learn more

Learn more or contact viva@gmu.edu with questions about the program, funded by VIVA, Virginia’s Academic Library Consortium.

For questions on eligibility or JMU approval, contact JMU’s Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at jmu_grants@jmu.edu.

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