Recognition of Publication of Open Subjects 2025-2026

Resources Open Subjects
  • 05 Jun, 2025

Resolving Your Doubts about the Call!

On Tuesday, June 3, a session was held to present the call and answer all your questions about the call. Whether you’re just starting to inform yourself or already have a proposal in progress, the video of this session may interest you.

Call

Calls are available on the University’s virtual campus, in the calls section. (You can also download it directly by clicking here)

Requests

  • Subjects for the first quarter: Until November 17, 2025, for subjects of the first quarter (but only guarantees the processing of documents uploaded to BURJC Digital until November 15, inclusive).
  • Subjects for the second quarter: Until February 16, 2026, for subjects of the second quarter (but only guarantees the processing of documents uploaded to BURJC Digital until February 14, inclusive).
  • Request forms: in the calls section, search for “Call for recognition of open publication of teaching materials for the 2025-2026 academic year”, for the first or second quarter, depending on the subject.

Auxiliary Material

Main Characteristics

This fourth call is being held at the Rey Juan Carlos University to promote the creation of high-quality open educational resources among teachers and encourage their use in the subjects they teach. The call is an initiative of the Vice-Rectors of Digital Transformation and Teaching Innovation, Community Campus, Culture and Sports, and Academic Organization and Teacher Training.

The details of the call can be consulted in the document Call for recognition of open publication of teaching materials for the 2025-2026 academic year. Below, some of its most important aspects are summarized and explained. In case of differences between this summary and the call, the call will prevail, which is the officially published document by the University.

Object

This call aims to promote the work of URJC teaching staff to publish their materials in open access, evaluating their work and assigning, if applicable, an economic incentive and other benefits and effects, recognizing the effort made in the preparation of materials published during the 2025-2026 academic year.

Participation

Participation in this call can be made by proposing individual subjects, understood as subjects that are presented as such in the virtual campus. In the case of groups of subjects that share the same materials (e.g., different groups of the same subject, or similar subjects in different degrees) they will be presented as a single grouped subject.

To formalize the request for a subject or group of subjects, once their materials have been published in open access, the responsible person of the group of acts of one of the grouped subjects (as appears in the Teaching Organization Plan) will fill out the requested data in the request procedure for this call, which is available on the University’s electronic headquarters (see link at the beginning of this document).

Subjects that are taught during the first quarter can be presented until November 17, 2025, and those taught during the second quarter, until February 16, 2026.

Resolving Doubts

You can consult the frequently asked questions, with their answers, further down in this document. If you cannot resolve them, you can send an email to ofilibre@urjc.es, where we will try to resolve them as soon as possible.

Checklist for Material Deposited in BURJC Digital

For all materials that are deposited in BURJC Digital with the intention of presenting them to this call, you can follow this checklist to ensure that the indicated requirements are met, and good practices for open access teaching materials are recommended:

  • Cover:

    • Title of the material: Has a title of the material been included on the cover? Normally, this title will refer to the name of the subject, and the type of material. For example, “Notes for the student of Telematic Applications Design” or “Slides of the subject Art in the Middle Ages”.
    • Text: “Open access teaching material of the Rey Juan Carlos University”
    • Authors and/or authors: Is the full name of the people considered authors of the work indicated?
    • Degree(s) in which it is taught: Has the list of degrees (and, if applicable, specific names of the subject in those degrees) been included? This list can be included in a smaller font size than the title, but it should give a quick idea of which subjects and degrees the material is used in.
    • Date or year: Has a date, or at least a year, been included? This is important so that the reader can quickly see how up-to-date the material is, and especially refer to the version of the material that interests them.
    • Logo of the chosen license: Has the logo of the chosen license been included on the cover? It is important that the logo of the chosen license (Creative Commons Attribution or Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike) appears on the cover, even if it is in a small size, so that the reader can quickly see that the document is distributed under an open access license.

  • On an interior page, normally the first page after the cover:

    • Copyright notice: “Has a complete copyright notice been included? It must include the word or symbol “Copyright”, the year (or interval of years) and the list of people and/or organizations that hold the author’s rights of the work.
    • Reference to the license: Has a precise reference to the license used been included? A detailed reference to the specific license used (Creative Commons Attribution or Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike) must be included. Additionally, this license must be the same as the one indicated, including its logo, on the cover.
    • Example of complete text:
Open teaching materials from the Rey Juan Carlos University

©2025 Author Mengánez Zutánez

Some rights reserved

This document is distributed under the "Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International" license of Creative Commons,
available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.es

  • In the metadata of the deposit:

    • Same data as on the cover: Do the data on the cover match the data indicated in the deposit forms? In particular, it is important that the title, list of authors, and license match exactly with what is indicated on the cover of the work.

You can see more details on how to license and mark the license of the work in the document Publication of open access teaching materials.

Frequently Asked Questions about this Call🔗

If I have already participated in previous calls, can I participate in this one with the same subject?

Only subjects that have not received the qualification of open access subjects in previous calls of the last two academic years can participate.

Is there a specific format for documents (presentations, text documents…)?

Although it is not mandatory, templates have been prepared in OfiLibre that can be used for open access materials.

How do I specify the license in my documents?

Depending on the type of document, the license is usually included at the beginning or end. In text documents, it usually appears at the beginning where the copyright notice would normally go. In videos, it can appear at the beginning where the title appears, or at the end where the credits appear. In audio recordings, it can appear at the beginning or end. The important thing is that it appears within the material so that the license can be recognized.

Who can upload the materials of a subject to the open access repository?

Any of the authors can upload the materials, prior to signing and sending a document of authorization for open access publication signed by the author who uploads the materials, which serves as a declaration of conformity.

How do I upload the materials to the open access repository?

The instructions for uploading materials to the open access institutional repository can be found on this page of BURJC.

Who can submit the request for my subject in the call?

Only the person responsible for the group of acts of the subject, if it is a single subject that is being presented, or of any of the grouped subjects, if it is a group of subjects with the same materials that is being presented.

What happens if my materials do not fit into any of the categories contemplated in the call?

In the case of materials that do not fit into any category, include them in others and justify it adequately.

Where do I put my open resources in my virtual classroom?

You don’t need to put them anywhere special, just include the links in the participation form.

How do I upload my videos?

Videos and podcasts must be uploaded first to the TV URJC platform. It is recommended to consult the Procedure for publishing open access materials on TV URJC. In this procedure, it is indicated how to publish videos on TV URJC in a single collection, which will be the one indicated later in the request form of this call. Also, the procedure shows how to insert the videos uploaded to TV URJC into the virtual classroom.

The videos uploaded from TV URJC to the virtual classroom following this procedure are visible to the students of the subject. If the subject is approved to be available in open access, that collection will be opened to the general public, so anyone can see it.

I have already sent the request, but I want to make changes, how do I do it?

Once the request has been sent, it cannot be modified. You can submit another request, and the evaluation committee will consider the last version sent for each subject.

Can I submit software (computer programs) that I use in my classes in any category?

Free software used in teaching could be submitted in the “Other materials” category of the call, if it meets certain requirements. To explain these requirements, and in general for consultation by teachers who are authors of free software used in their classes, we have prepared specific recommendations: Open Courses Call: Software for Teaching.

Do I need to change how I present my materials to participate?

Not necessarily. Although to upload them to the URJC Institutional Open Archive (BURJC Digital) they must be grouped together. The idea is to maintain how we teach classes while creating a compilation for deposit.

Are only CC Attribution and CC Attribution-ShareAlike licenses allowed? Why not others?

The accepted licenses are CC Attribution and CC Attribution-ShareAlike. Others are not accepted because they haven’t been approved as open access publication licenses by the Open Publishing Council, following the Berlin Declaration on Open Access.

When is the last day to participate in the Call?

Dates can be seen at the beginning of this document. However, to submit an application, materials must be uploaded beforehand to the corresponding repositories. It’s important to note that the URJC Institutional Open Archive (BURJC Digital) must be able to process the material, accept it, and assign a handle (URL identifier). Therefore, the material upload deadline is two days before the call deadline. If the material is rejected by the library, no handle will be assigned and thus participation won’t be possible for that item.

This process will be handled by the Digital Archive itself. When materials are included in the archive and a link (handle) is generated, this information will be included in the deposited material by the archive.

I want to publish an exercise package, but they’re often inherited from many years ago… Can I use them and upload them to the repository?

The call is designed to release and publish original materials, or co-authored materials with permission from all authors. Publishing something as your own without being certain of authorship is not advisable.

Last year there were two professors teaching the course. This year only the other professor will teach it. Can I participate in the call?

No. Only faculty teaching the course this year can participate. Regarding materials (which may be co-authored with other professors), if they receive financial recognition, it will go to professors teaching the course in the current academic year.

If I have my videos on YouTube, does that count for the call?

No. They must be in the URJC-TV repository with one of the proposed licenses.

I have a computer program I’d like to submit to the call. How do I include it?

Computer programs can participate in the call. There’s a specific procedure for their storage, and in the participation form, they should be included in the “Computer programs” category.

If I teach classes in the second semester… Can I participate now?

Yes, the call for the second semester opens at the same time as the first, though it will close on its own deadline.

I’ve uploaded videos to URJC TV but don’t see them available

This is normal, as videos are uploaded but not yet public. They will become public if your course is ultimately made open. Meanwhile, only your course students can view them through links in the virtual classroom.

I have lecture notes and slides, how do I deposit them?

Since these are two PDF documents (each corresponding to a different category), they would require two separate entries in BURJC Digital, one for each document.

When uploading my notes to BURJC Digital, do I upload them by topic or by material type?

For this call, documents must be uploaded as a single PDF per category. This doesn’t prevent you from using them topic-by-topic in your classes, having a PDF per topic (or per class session, or whatever works best). But when uploading to BURJC Digital, it must be a single document (book). Later, you’ll link to this document from a visible part of the course (for example, “complete notes collection”), so when the course is made open it’s clear where to find the complete document.

The complete document (book) can simply be a concatenation of the PDFs (if you need help composing this concatenation, let us know), preferably with a cover and index. Or, depending on the tool you use to create them, all notes in a single document from which you’ll produce one PDF. But then, if you prefer uploading materials topic-by-topic for your students because it’s more manageable (or to make small fixes to errors detected while preparing weekly sessions), there’s no problem with that. Just advise your students that it’s better to use the topic-by-topic versions.

Is the maximum personal financial incentive for the entire academic year?

The maximum specified in the call applies to the entire academic year.

An annual course - in which semester can it be submitted?

You may submit the course in either semester’s call, but only one of them. In any case, the entire course will be submitted.