The Open Education Grant Program is supported by the Centre for Educational Transformation (CET) and provides funding and in-kind expertise to support KPU instructors engaging in open educational practices.
Open educational resources (OERs) remove cost as a barrier to learning, and KPU invests directly in faculty who do that work. Since the program began, KPU instructors have used these grants to create, adapt, and adopt open resources across a wide range of disciplines — saving students real money while giving instructors more flexibility over their course materials.
A Strategic Investment
Open Education Grants are a small, targeted investment with compounding returns: once a course transitions to an open resource, the cost savings and access benefits repeat every semester the course runs — for a fraction of what an equivalent textbook licensing cost would be over the same period. It's also one of the most direct ways an institution can act on its affordability and access commitments, putting control over course materials back in the hands of the people teaching. Supporting OER development pays off in several directions: lower costs and better-fit materials for students, flexibility and freedom for educators, and a stronger, more resilient claim to educational leadership for the institution.
KPU's Open Education Grant Program provides funding to support KPU instructors engaging in open education. Most of our current grants support the creation and adoption of open resources (OER); the program also supports open pedagogy through the UN SDG Fellowship.
Current Grant Opportunities
As and when funds are available.
OER Adoption Grant
The OER Adoption Grant supports faculty who replace a required, paid course resource with an existing open one. It's designed as a lighter path — a single-resource swap rather than a full development project — for cases where a suitable open resource already exists.
ZTC Advancement Grant
The ZTC Advancement Grant supports transitioning a course to Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) status where no ready-made open resource currently fits. It has two streams reflecting different stages of that work: Exploring, where an instructor researches and evaluates potential open resources for a course, and Creating, where an instructor develops the resource itself. Courses are identified through KPU Open's ongoing ZTC Program Analysis, and instructors are invited to apply through periodic calls for expressions of interest.
UN SDG Open Pedagogy Fellowship
The UN SDG Open Pedagogy Fellowship brings together instructors from KPU and partner institutions to collaboratively design renewable assignments connected to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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