08-18-2022, 11:32 AM
"Dear Colleagues,
VIVA awarded six VIVA Open Course Grants in its spring, 2022 round of funding. VIVA Open Course Grants award funds to innovative, collaborative efforts to bring free course resources to students at higher education institutions in the state of Virginia in order to reduce costs, improve student performance, and facilitate creative approaches to pedagogical goals. Funded by the General Assembly and sponsored by the State Council of Higher Education, Open Course Grants are awarded in amounts from $2,000-$30,000 to teams and individuals adopting, adapting, and creating open content.
The spring 2022 grants totaled $127,145 in awards to projects doing work at nine institutions throughout the state in six different disciplines. The awarded projects will create more than $1.4 million in cost avoidance over the next five years and impact as many as 15,000 students. Those students will be found in nine different institutions across Virginia, from classes in required, introductory classrooms to medical school campuses. The awarded projects are:
• A multidisciplinary, collaborative project in Spanish for Medical Education headed by Dr. Diana Galarreta-Aima at James Madison University that brings together medical Spanish educators, a professional medical interpreter, the JMU School of Nursing Simulation and Clinical Laboratories, and the JMU Libraries Media Production Services department. The team, which also includes faculty from the University of Virginia, William & Mary, and Eastern Virginia Medical School, will create an interactive text, downloadable exercises, and seven videos that feature common medical scenarios with Spanish-speaking patients and medical interpreters.
• Dr. Matthew Powlowicz and a team of anthropology instructors at Virginia Commonwealth University will adapt and create an introductory anthropology text that will provide full coverage of each of the four subfields of anthropology—biological anthropology, archaeological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. In will include diverse perspectives and case studies to achieve diversity, equity and inclusion objectives and better represent where anthropology is as a discipline.
• Tonya Howe at Marymount University and John O’Brien at the University of Virginia will build on work begun on a previously awarded NEH grant, which funded the development of a digital literature anthology from which faculty can generate individually-themed coursepacks. In their continuing work, they will develop nine student editions of materials focused on the decolonized survey of English literature. These student editions will include headnotes, annotations, and facsimile page images, will incorporate frequently-taught texts, and create a framework for the decolonial survey of English literature.
• Intending to globalize and modernize the typical, expensive Art History textbooks required of many first year students, Paula Winn will lead a team at Brightpoint Community College and Northern Virginia Community College that will create a new introductory Art History text. Using openly-licensed materials, public use images, and Smarthistory, the new text which will impact as many as 1100 students in the first year alone. Lecture notes, testing materials, study guides, and PowerPoints will also be compiled for instructors.
• Alexander Bohn, Kyle Gipson, and Kumnit Nong at Northern Virginia Community College and James Madison University will develop open course materials with the potential to be used for students throughout physical science and engineering degree course requirements. The project will include (1) specifications for projects mapped to mathematics, physical science, and engineering course objectives, (2) development of videos intended to aid students during project work, (3) an interdisciplinary text that would replace materials being used in calculus, physics, and engineering courses, (4) the development of an introductory course for engineering and physical science degree programs, and (5) integration of student contributions to the text and course materials.
• At the University of Mary Washington, Janine Davis will lead a project to address the need for open course materials in the UMW College of Education’s required class in Instructional Design and Assessment. The team will create a new textbook that will center evidence-based best practices for classroom instruction and assessment and include recommendations from practicing teachers as well as teacher educators. Videos, case studies, digital learning tools and simulations will be included, as will ancillary materials for instructor use.
Award amounts and anticipated student impact can be found on VIVA’s website here: https://vivalib.org/va/open/grants/spring2022. When complete, final products will be available in VIVA’s OER Commons repository, here: https://vivaopen.oercommons.org/hubs/viv...022-cohort. Texts and other educational resources created will be accessible to faculty in Virginia and beyond, making the savings and pedagogical advantages of those course materials available to students and faculty throughout the state.
More information about VIVA’s Open Grant program can be found here: https://vivalib.org/va/open/grants.
Stephanie Westcott, Ph.D.
VIVA Open and Sustainable Learning Coordinator
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
she/her/hers
swestcot@gmu.edu"
VIVA awarded six VIVA Open Course Grants in its spring, 2022 round of funding. VIVA Open Course Grants award funds to innovative, collaborative efforts to bring free course resources to students at higher education institutions in the state of Virginia in order to reduce costs, improve student performance, and facilitate creative approaches to pedagogical goals. Funded by the General Assembly and sponsored by the State Council of Higher Education, Open Course Grants are awarded in amounts from $2,000-$30,000 to teams and individuals adopting, adapting, and creating open content.
The spring 2022 grants totaled $127,145 in awards to projects doing work at nine institutions throughout the state in six different disciplines. The awarded projects will create more than $1.4 million in cost avoidance over the next five years and impact as many as 15,000 students. Those students will be found in nine different institutions across Virginia, from classes in required, introductory classrooms to medical school campuses. The awarded projects are:
• A multidisciplinary, collaborative project in Spanish for Medical Education headed by Dr. Diana Galarreta-Aima at James Madison University that brings together medical Spanish educators, a professional medical interpreter, the JMU School of Nursing Simulation and Clinical Laboratories, and the JMU Libraries Media Production Services department. The team, which also includes faculty from the University of Virginia, William & Mary, and Eastern Virginia Medical School, will create an interactive text, downloadable exercises, and seven videos that feature common medical scenarios with Spanish-speaking patients and medical interpreters.
• Dr. Matthew Powlowicz and a team of anthropology instructors at Virginia Commonwealth University will adapt and create an introductory anthropology text that will provide full coverage of each of the four subfields of anthropology—biological anthropology, archaeological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. In will include diverse perspectives and case studies to achieve diversity, equity and inclusion objectives and better represent where anthropology is as a discipline.
• Tonya Howe at Marymount University and John O’Brien at the University of Virginia will build on work begun on a previously awarded NEH grant, which funded the development of a digital literature anthology from which faculty can generate individually-themed coursepacks. In their continuing work, they will develop nine student editions of materials focused on the decolonized survey of English literature. These student editions will include headnotes, annotations, and facsimile page images, will incorporate frequently-taught texts, and create a framework for the decolonial survey of English literature.
• Intending to globalize and modernize the typical, expensive Art History textbooks required of many first year students, Paula Winn will lead a team at Brightpoint Community College and Northern Virginia Community College that will create a new introductory Art History text. Using openly-licensed materials, public use images, and Smarthistory, the new text which will impact as many as 1100 students in the first year alone. Lecture notes, testing materials, study guides, and PowerPoints will also be compiled for instructors.
• Alexander Bohn, Kyle Gipson, and Kumnit Nong at Northern Virginia Community College and James Madison University will develop open course materials with the potential to be used for students throughout physical science and engineering degree course requirements. The project will include (1) specifications for projects mapped to mathematics, physical science, and engineering course objectives, (2) development of videos intended to aid students during project work, (3) an interdisciplinary text that would replace materials being used in calculus, physics, and engineering courses, (4) the development of an introductory course for engineering and physical science degree programs, and (5) integration of student contributions to the text and course materials.
• At the University of Mary Washington, Janine Davis will lead a project to address the need for open course materials in the UMW College of Education’s required class in Instructional Design and Assessment. The team will create a new textbook that will center evidence-based best practices for classroom instruction and assessment and include recommendations from practicing teachers as well as teacher educators. Videos, case studies, digital learning tools and simulations will be included, as will ancillary materials for instructor use.
Award amounts and anticipated student impact can be found on VIVA’s website here: https://vivalib.org/va/open/grants/spring2022. When complete, final products will be available in VIVA’s OER Commons repository, here: https://vivaopen.oercommons.org/hubs/viv...022-cohort. Texts and other educational resources created will be accessible to faculty in Virginia and beyond, making the savings and pedagogical advantages of those course materials available to students and faculty throughout the state.
More information about VIVA’s Open Grant program can be found here: https://vivalib.org/va/open/grants.
Stephanie Westcott, Ph.D.
VIVA Open and Sustainable Learning Coordinator
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
she/her/hers
swestcot@gmu.edu"