There are numerous benefits to publishing research open access, including increased exposure and impact. Open publishing is also a requirement of many research funders, including the Canadian tri-agency funding bodies. However, UM researchers who publish their research in peer-reviewed, open access journals often bear the cost of Article Processing Charges (APCs). These charges average over $2000 per article and are dictated by the publishers.  

UM Libraries is often able to reduce APC costs by 15 to 20% and, in some cases, have the entire APC cost waived, which can save researchers thousands of dollars per article. By working with library consortia such as the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, UM Libraries has acquired APC discounts or waivers for over 9000 open access journals.  

Faculty and researchers can now search for this APC discount and waiver information using the library’s new database. In addition to searching by journal title, researchers can also use this new tool to filter the list of journals by subject area and by discount or waiver amount.  

Browse the UM Libraries APC Discount & Waiver Database. 

The promotion and support of open scholarship are essential to UM’s realization of its commitments to research excellence. UM Libraries supports faculty in publishing scholarly articles openly, making research data available, creating or adopting open education resources (OER), and in open journal publishing. 

Explore Open@UM to learn more about open access and open scholarship at UM. 

UM instructors care about making education more affordable and relevant to their students, as evidenced by the eleven projects underway that have already received Advance Open Ed funding.

Funding and support

Advance Open Ed provides financial and practical support along with educational opportunities to help the UM community create, adapt, and adopt open educational resources (OER).

Grants up to $10,000 are available to help faculty, instructors, and librarians create, adapt, and/or adopt an open educational resource.

Financial support is also available for individuals to participate in the Creative Commons certificate program or attend the virtual Open Education Conference taking place October 8-10.

Applications for funding are still being accepted.

Additional supports are also available. Contact Glenn Bergen, OER coordinator, Libraries, for further information.

Apply for funding.

OER in action

Celine Latulipe, professor, Department of Computer Science, is using her funding to develop a Java Active Learning Workbook for use in COMP1020. The new resource is providing activities for students to work on during class and it allows students to write code online in the pages of the online book. Thus far, student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with 85% of survey respondents indicating that the activities helped them to test their understanding of the material.

Julianne Doner, linguistics resources designer, Department of Linguistics, is writing an open textbook for a second-year course in Introductory Morphology and Syntax. While UM combines both subjects into a single course, there is no combined textbook available, which would require students to buy two textbooks for the course.  Regarding the new open educational textbook, Doner says the students “definitely appreciate that it’s free. You can see it in their body language when I announce that it will be a Zero Textbook Cost course on the first day of class.”

You can help

To help us plan for the future, we would like to know about open educational resources that have been or are being developed at UM. Libraries has recently sent a short survey to all faculty and instructors asking about their experience with OER and how open resources are currently being used at the university. Feedback is being collected until the end of September. Please respond to our survey to contribute to the bigger picture of OER adoption at the University of Manitoba.

Explore Open@UM to learn more about open access and open scholarship at UM.

(Graphic: Cover image from The Linguistic Analysis of Word and Sentence Structures, by Julianne Doner, created by Ysabelle Tankeko.)

Through the Advance Open Ed 2023-24 project, UM Libraries provided financial and practical assistance for the creation of nine open educational resources (OER) publications. This will continue in the 2024-25 academic year, with educational opportunities about open scholarship for the UM community.

Funds are available to participate in the upcoming Creative Commons certificate programs and the virtual Open Education Conference in October 2024.

UM OER Grant

Full-time tenure track/tenured faculty, continuing/probationary instructors, and librarians are eligible to apply for a grant to create, adapt and/or adopt an OER. Applications are now being accepted.

Grant value: $10,000 maximum
Application deadline: September 27, 2024
Notification of successful applications: ongoing basis

See the Advance Open Ed web page and Grant Application Guideline for details.

Free workshop: Publishing as Knowledge Sharing in the Digital Age

UM Libraries will host a free in-person workshop on community-based Indigenous studies, digital publishing, and the RavenSpace publishing platform. 

Tuesday, May 14, 2024
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Archives Classroom
Room 339, 3rd Floor
Elizabeth Dafoe Library
University of Manitoba

The morning session (10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon) will include an interactive discussion contrasting conventional publishing with new possibilities for digital scholarship. The afternoon session (12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) will provide a hands-on workshop for authors and groups exploring publication.

The workshop will be facilitated by Darcy Cullen, Assistant Director, Acquisitions, UBC Press.

A light lunch will be served. There is no cost to participate in the workshop. Please register before Thursday, May 9. Contact Glenn Bergen for further details.

Funds for educational opportunities

CC Certificate courses

Creative Commons (CC) licensing is an essential tool for open education to protect intellectual property while permitting access, sharing, and collaboration. To promote knowledge and awareness of CC, UM Libraries is offering a limited number of paid registrations to CC Certificate courses.

The 10-week asynchronous online courses (with an estimated 6-10 hours per week of coursework) are offered on June 10 – August 18, 2024, and September 23 – December 1, 2024. They lead to specialization in open licensing and training to help others understand and implement open licenses.

Applications are open to faculty, staff, and students. Preference will be given to those actively involved in open pedagogy and open publishing. Visit the Advance Open Ed web page for details.

Open Education Conference

The Open Education Conference will take place on October 8-10, 2024. Details will be provided as soon as registration is available.

About OER and Open at UM

OER are freely available and adaptable course materials. Typically shared under a Creative Commons license, they can be produced in many formats, including video or interactive modules, but most are produced as open textbooks or teaching materials.

According to an UMSU survey with over 1000 students in 2021, students identified the adoption of OER as their highest priority. UM is committed to facilitating student learning and enhancing the student experience by making education affordable and accessible with OER.

Explore Open@UM to learn more about open access and open scholarship at UM.

UM OER grant recipients

The nine OER projects are supported by the UM Libraries Advance Open Ed 2023-24 fund through the UM OER grant. An OER Lab was established to provide editorial and project management assistance, as well as help with publication and distribution for the projects.

OERs are teaching materials that have an open license that allows them to be used, adapted, and shared by instructors and students at no cost. The successful OER grant proposals from UM faculty and instructors include:

Enhancing Learning through Educational Videos
Project lead: Jackie Elliott (Athletic Therapy)

Endoscopy Curriculum
Project lead: Eric Hyun (Surgery)

Curriculum for Teaching Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine
Katherine Kearns (Family Medicine), Meghan Azad (Pediatrics and Child Health), Joanne Hamilton (Family Medicine), and Christina Raimondi (Family Medicine)

EmFATically Inclusive: Identifying and Redressing Anti-Fat Stigma in Medical Education
Deborah McPhail (Community Health Sciences), Joanne Hamilton (Office of Innovation and Scholarship in Medical Education), Chelsea Jalloh (Office of Innovation and Scholarship in Medical Education), and Valerie Williams (Office of Equity, Access and Participation)

Teaching with Images: An AI Resource for Understanding Urban Animals
Project lead: Mark Meagher (Environmental Design)

Adapting an Open Textbook for First-Year Non-Major Microbiology Course
Project lead: Madison Wright (Microbiology)

Telling the Stories of Indigenous Business Leaders in Canada
Project lead: Katherine Davis (Asper School of Business)

Management: Financial, Social, and Ecological Well-Being
Project lead: Bruno Dyck (Asper School of Business)

Linguistics Textbook (participation in Rebus Textbook Success Program)
Project lead: Julie Doner (Linguistics)

Applications are still being accepted

We continue to accept proposals for UM OER grants, and applications will remain open while funds are available. Apply for UM OER grant and reviewing an open textbook now.

Funding and educational opportunities

UM Libraries received the Advance Open Ed 2023–2024 fund to enhance the use of OERs and advance the principles of open access. In addition to the UM OER grant, the fund supports open publishing projects, peer review of existing OERs, and educational opportunities for students and faculty, including a speaker series and support for participation in open education conferences.

UM OER speaker series session one was presented by Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani, Vice Provost Teaching & Learning, Brock University. Watch the video “From access to justice: Realizing the transformative potential of open educational practices”.

Explore Open@UM to learn more about open access and open scholarship at UM.

Advance Open Ed 2023-24 provides financial and practical support along with educational opportunities to help the UM community create, adapt, and/or adopt OER. OER are teaching materials that have an open-copyright license that allow them to be created, adapted, adopted and shared by instructors and students at no cost.

UM OER grant

Full-time tenure track/tenured faculty, continuing/probationary instructors, and librarians are eligible to apply for a grant to create, adapt and/or adopt an OER.

Grant value: $10,000 maximum
Application deadline: September 29, 2023
(Applications will be accepted until all funds are dispersed.)
Notification of successful applications: Beginning October 16, 2023

View the Advance Open Ed web page and Grant Application Guideline for details. Apply for UM OER Grant now.

Get inspired by checking out UM’s OER by Discipline Guide and the OER web page.

Get help from the OER Lab

An OER Lab comprising multiple experts and practical help will be available to those awarded a grant, at no additional cost to the applicant. 

Examples of project support provided include

• Help to create maps, illustrations, and diagrams
• Copy-editing
• Data entry and Pressbooks support
• Help with curriculum development
• Copyright advice

OER conference grants

Funds are available to cover the costs of attending two upcoming OER conferences. Grants of $2000 are available to cover the costs associated with attending the OE Global Conference in Edmonton in October. Registration fees will be covered for the virtual Open Education Conference in November.

To apply, send an email to mariechristine.beaulieu@umanitoba.ca. Include your full name, phone number, and whether you are faculty, graduate student or undergraduate student. Indicate for which OER conference you are applying.

OER peer review grant

A $500 grant is available for reviewing an existing OER in your subject specialty. Reviews will be published publicly in order to help other instructors evaluate resources. To apply, send email expressing your interest to UM Libraries.

UM OER speaker series

UM will host a speaker series beginning October 3 with Rajiv Jhangiani, Vice Provost Teaching & Learning, Brock University: From access to justice: Realizing the transformative potential of open educational practices.

Open@UM

According to an UMSU survey with over 1000 students in 2021, students identified  the adoption of OER as their highest priority. UM is committed to facilitating student learning and enhancing the student experience by making education affordable and accessible with OER. Explore Open@UM to learn more about open access and open scholarship at UM.

“Canadian researchers are at the cutting edge in many important emerging fields, including AI, quantum technology, biosciences, and clean technologies. These leading practices will help to ensure Canadian research stays secure,” said Chad Gaffield, CEO of U15 Canada. “Our universities recognize that research is a global enterprise, and our aim is to help make Canada’s research ecosystem as open as possible and as secure as necessary.”

Open collaboration internationally, with other research institutions, and locally, with community and industry partners, is fundamental to research success at UM. Later this year the federal government is expected to release new requirements for research collaborations in sensitive research areas. The Office of Research Security is working to ensure that new practices can be implemented seamlessly, without creating a burden for researchers.

“UM is committed to upholding the safety and protection of research knowledge, data and intellectual property for the benefit of Canada’s entire research community,” says Mario Pinto, Vice-President Research & International. “That is why the Office of Research Security is taking additional measures to safeguard research and intellectual property from interference and espionage. This new unit is dedicated to identifying and addressing potential security risks and collaborating with partner institutions to ensure UM’s continued leadership in this area.”

If you work in a sensitive research area or wonder how the new guidelines may impact your work, please email for one-on-one advice: Research.Security@umanitoba.ca

The Office of Research Security is also supported by the Research Security Fund.

This new agreement with Wiley publishing has been made in partnership with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). The Canadian Science Publishers (CSP) agreement through CRKN has also been renewed for a three-year term to include a fee waiver for five titles in addition to a 25% discount on CSP’s other hybrid titles.

Hybrid titles are those journals that are available as a subscription and in which some of the articles are open access.

Advantages

There are several advantages to these types of agreements, the primary ones being:

• Cost savings for UM researchers
• UM research is made more accessible – discoverable worldwide in perpetuity

Details of this discount information, together with other discounts and waivers, can be found on the Libraries Open Access services website.

UM Libraries supports both open access and publishing as part of its scholarly communication suite of services. Learn more about these and related services for Open Scholarship at UM.

We will be scheduling presentations to faculty/departmental members in the Spring. Please contact Andrea Szwajcer, Research Services Librarian, if you wish to arrange a session for your faculty/department.