Apply to the Teaching and Learning Grants Program

Recipients of Teaching and Learning Grants will: 

• Follow the processes required for starting their projects, as described materials provided with the Notice of Award 
• As soon as possible upon receiving a Notice of Award, apply for ethics certification (required for release of funds) and follow an ethics protocol for research involving human subjects
• Follow University of Calgary procedures to have their project reviewed by Research Services and set up in the Research Accounting system 
• Implement the proposal as approved (adhering to budget, evaluating impact on learning, following the timeline, disseminating, etc.), unless changes requested in writing are approved by the grants administrators 
• Attend, as possible, gatherings of grant recipients at the TI 
• Submit a progress report halfway through the project (required for release of second-year funding for multi-year projects), as well as a mandatory final report 
• Share the results of the completed project with relevant audiences as outlined in the proposal, and through a TI online showcase 
• Participate in adjudication of Teaching and Learning Grants applications in subsequent years

The Teaching and Learning Grants program is intended to support effective teaching and learning initiatives proposed by individuals or groups who contribute to the learning experiences of University of Calgary students. Recognizing that everyone at the university makes these contributions, we invite applications that involve academic staff and librarians, archivists, curators, teaching assistants, post-doctoral scholars, student service professionals and administrative staff. In addition, fundable projects may involve a range of contexts and activities, not just those that occur in the classroom.  

However, there are specific guidelines about who can serve as Principal Grant Holders (PGH). See below for details. 

While collaboration with colleagues from other institutions is valued, grant funds may only be used for expenses incurred by University of Calgary collaborators on a project. 

Principal grant-holders (PGH) must be continuously employed by the University of Calgary for the duration of the proposed grant. Sessionals, graduate students and others with appointments that don’t continuously span the full duration of the grant may be co-applicants but not PGHs. In addition, Research Services stipulates that only the following may serve as PGHs: 

• Academic Appointee - any employee of the University holding an academic appointment (continuing, limited term, contingent term or sessional) or a non-employee of the University holding a clinical or adjunct appointment.  
• Manager, level M2 or above.  
• For Qatar any employee is eligible, provided sponsor guidelines allow for this provision.
• Any individual may be the PGH on only one Teaching Scholars project at a time

Any individual may be the PGH on only one Teaching and Learning Grant per grant cycle. Current grant holders in good standing—successful human ethics certification (if required by Research Services), required reports submitted by the deadlines—may apply for new Teaching and Learning Grants. A PGH on one grant may participate as a collaborator on one or more concurrent Teaching and Learning Grants.  

If a PGH terminates employment with the university, a new one may be proposed to the Teaching and Learning Grants program administration, or the grant may revert back to the fund. 

A key goal of the Teaching and Learning Grants program is to support initiatives that will contribute to enhanced teaching, learning, and student experience over the long term. When preparing their budget, applicants are asked to describe how the design of their project and their dissemination activities will allow the impact and outcomes of their project to be felt for learners beyond the funding period of the project.

University of Calgary teaching and learning grant funds are distributed through Research Services Office (RSO) and grant funds should be used in alignment with the project's approved budget. All grant spending must adhere to University of Calgary policies and rules (see links below). Small modifications and adjustments to the budget are expected during the course of a project.

Applicants should consult the recommendations and guidelines below when preparing their project budget.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Requirements for budget proposals

• A description of each expense, with itemized estimates for individual costs and purchases (e.g., registration fees, hospitality, hourly rate for research assistant).
• A brief rationale for every expenditure, explaining how it supports the project's goals and inquiry, and student partnership where relevant. Please include information on how any equipment, material, or hardware purchases will be used after the project’s completion.

Common uses of the University of Calgary Teaching and Learning Grant funds

• Hiring a student research assistant as partners in the project (see below for recommendations).
• Indigenous honoraria, protocols, and gifts.
• Travel and conference registration fees to share project findings (see below for stipulations).
• Travel and associated costs for community-engaged work.
• Paying open-access publication fees (see below for stipulations).
• Fees to complete relevant training, workshops, or professional development.
• Research participant incentives (e.g., gift cards). Please consult with the appropriate University of Calgary Research Ethics Board.
• Hiring a transcriptionist, communications consultant, artist, videographer, or other consultants essential to completion of the project (see list of UCalgary approved transcription services).
• Purchase or rental of materials, supplies, printing, communications, hardware, equipment, or software licenses required for completion of the project. Please provide a justification for why equipment or hardware is needed and how non-expendable materials will be used after the completion of the project.
• Supplying hospitality, catering, or renting a venue for a gathering or event.

Spending Timeline

Awards are announced in March. Spending must be complete before the fiscal year end (March 31) of the project’s final year.

Full budget funding will be released after your project has undergone ethics review and you have completed the required paperwork to set-up a project with the Research Services Office. Early release of funds can be available for projects prior to research ethics approval. These funds can be used to support expenses related to the project that do not require research ethics approval (e.g., hiring a student to support with project design and the research ethics application process).

Project creation and funds transfer typically takes 6 weeks, but can take longer. We recommend beginning this process as soon as awards are announced. You can begin recruitment for student hires as soon as awards are announced, but will not be able to pay students until the project is created and funds transferred.

In-kind contributions

We recommend that applicants include in-kind contributions in support of work proposed in the application that will be supported through other sources (as a request of $0 in the grant budget). For example, if you are proposing to share work at conferences, you can include in your budget that you plan to cover some or all of the expenses through Professional Expense Reimbursement. Including these in-kind contributions can help adjudicators assess the feasibility of your proposed project, and the alignment of project goals with the proposed budget. Funding from your department, academic unit, or other sources can also be included in the budget as in-kind.

GUIDELINES

Ineligible expenses

The following are ineligible for funding through the University of Calgary Teaching and Learning Grants:

• Costs normally budgeted by University of Calgary units or services offered by the university (e.g., office space, departmental administrative support).
• Costs associated with student course fees (e.g., student costs with field trips, tuition reimbursement, etc.).
• Salaries, wages, or compensation for full-time employees of the University of Calgary.
• Employing Teaching Assistants for timetabled courses.
• Principal Grant Holders may not pay themselves.
• Journal subscriptions or professional memberships.
• Creation of sub-grants.
• Purchasing equipment or supplies normally supplied by the University.

Student Hires

We strongly recommend (but don't require) hiring a student research assistant to assist with the project. To support students' development as teachers and researchers and to inform how we conduct research into teaching and learning, we encourage involving student research assistants (RAs) not just as support but as co-inquirers or fellow members of the research team (i.e., more fully understanding the teaching and learning context, providing a student's perspective throughout the project, planning and designing the project, gathering and analyzing evidence, disseminating findings by co-authoring and/or co-presenting).

In the budget justification, please specify the RA's types of activities, wages, and the number of hours. We recommend including an additional 20% to the hourly rate to account for mandatory employment-related costs. We recommend a minimum rate of $25/hour for undergraduates, $30/hour for graduate students, and $35 for PhD students. Please contact UService or your HR partners for information on student hiring processes.

Travel
A maximum of 30% of the budget may cover conference travel and registration fees to learn about teaching and learning or to present a project's findings. Travel costs must be approved by the university. Requests for travel-related budget items should be accompanied by a strong rationale for their relevance to the project. If students as partners are involved in your project, we recommend including them in plans for sharing knowledge.

Dissemination
A maximum of 30% of the budget may be allocated to disseminate findings, such as open-access publication fees or page charges.

Teaching Release
Requests for course releases must have the explicit approval of the relevant leadership in your academic unit (e.g., department and/or Dean). If a teaching release is included, the cost of that release must be included and justified in the budget.

RELEVANT UCALGARY HANDBOOKS AND POLICIES

Teaching and Learning Grants are internal grants and are subject to UCalgary finance policy and procedures.

Applicants should consult their appropriate department administrator, HR advisor, finance partner and the following relevant handbooks and policies.

• Travel & Expense Reimbursement Handbook (updated May 2023)
• Human Resources – Collective Agreements, Handbooks, Terms of Conditions of Employment
• Gifts, Donations and Sponsorship Policy
• Gifts and Invitations to Events and Conferences
• Hospitality and Travel Expenses Policy
• Intellectual Property Policy
• Indigenous Cultural Protocol
• Meetings and Working Sessions Expense Procedure
• Research Integrity Policy

We invite applications on any issues relevant to teaching and learning, but we are especially interested in topics that are supported by an institutional strategy, plan, or framework. The University of Calgary has a variety of strategic initiatives, and the TI has several areas of focus. The areas of focus for this year are indicated on the Teaching and Learning Grants program webpage. We encourage potential applicants to read about the important campus initiatives below. Applicants will be asked to demonstrate how their project aligns with elements of the relevant campus strategies. Some resources include: 

• The 2018-2023 Academic Plan 

• The Indigenous Strategy: ii' taa'poh'to'p 

• The Campus Mental Health Strategy 

• The Institutional Sustainability Strategy 

• The University of Calgary International Strategy 

• The Strategic Framework for Learning Technologies 

Most Teaching and Learning Grants projects will need ethics certification. In particular, grant applicants whose research plans involve studying students and/or students’ work are strongly encouraged to consult the TI’s Ethics in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Guide. Grant applicants are also advised to initiate the ethics certification process early (which involves creating an account with IRISS and completing the CORE tutorial, before an ethics application can be submitted). Projects that require ethics certification will not have funds released until the CFREB or CHREB has approved the project. From application to submission, this process can take 4 to 6 weeks or longer, so applicants are advised to initiate this process early on.

The TI and the University of Calgary recognize that diversity benefits and enriches the work, learning and research experiences of the entire campus and greater community. We are committed to removing barriers that have been historically encountered by some people in our society. We therefore require applicants to explain how they have considered principles of equity, diversity and inclusion in the design of their research and in the composition of their research teams. An excellent discussion of these principles in research can be found here. While this information was designed for applicants to federally funded Tri-Council programs, it applies equally to TI initiatives.

Including students as co-investigators in the scholarship of teaching and learning has been shown to have tremendous potential to increase the impact of our work. We strongly encourage applicants to consider how to engage students directly in the research process in order to bring their perspectives to bear on the work, and we ask applicants to explain their approach to student engagement in their application. Resources to assist in thinking about student involvement in the scholarship of teaching and learning can be found on the Teaching and Learning Grants webpage.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation, and redistribution by others (UNESCO).

If you have chosen to apply for the TI Grants Area of Focus for the development of an open educational resource (OER), there are additional considerations for adapting or creating an OER. Please review the following considerations and conditions.

Considerations:

1. Will you be adapting an existing OER, creating a new OER, or developing ancillary/supplemental materials (e.g. question banks, videos, sample exams, etc.)?
   • Adapting an OER means grant proposals will focus on modifying one or more existing open educational resources. Existing OER may be adapted in a number of ways including updating or localizing content, incorporating interactive components, improving diversity and inclusion, developing ancillary or supplemental materials to add to an existing open textbook, etc.
     • Ancillary materials, also known as supplemental or supplementary content, are resources that can be used to support additional teaching and learning needs within a course. They can be used in conjunction with an open textbook, but also as separate components of a course. These resources may include question banks, videos, images, simulations, lesson plans, lecture notes and slides, open homework platforms, assessments, workbooks and lab manuals, or interactive content.
   • Creating an OER means grant proposals will focus on developing a new open educational resource that does not exist in their desired form within their discipline. These projects will generally be more involved as the content largely does not already exist in another OER, so this type of OER project will likely take more time and effort.
   • When you are developing OER, the resource you create can be changed and updated over time as the content within your course and within the field evolves. We recommend developing a sustainability plan for ongoing support for the OER, so that you can continue to benefit from it for years to come.
2. Have you already conducted a search for open educational resources that relate to your proposed OER project? You can access the OER By Discipline Guide or the Open Course Matching Service for support in getting started with your OER search.
3. It is expected that OER projects will be shared under a Creative Commons (CC) license. What Creative Commons License are you planning on applying to your OER project?

Conditions:
Grant Recipients agree to …

• Ensure that the open educational resource (OER) is available and accessible under a Creative Commons license that allows for the creation and (re)use of derivative works.
• Obtain written permission from all contributors of the OER project, including students, for the publication of their work under this license and each contributor’s preferred form of attribution.
• Share their OER openly and have a current version with its source files, in an editable format, deposited in an appropriate open repository for preservation and reuse.
• Ensure their OER project will follow the guidelines set out in the BCcampus Open Education Accessibility Toolkit, 2^nd edition