UNC Open Educational Resources (OER) Committee

2022-2023 OER Grants
2022 OER Summer Stipends

Important Dates

• Applications open: March 9, 2022
• Application due date: April 18, 2022 Extended to Monday, May 2, 2022
• Letter(s) of support due: April 18, 2022 Extended to Monday, May 2, 2022
• Applicants notified of committee decisions: by May 13, 2022

Grants for Converting Courses to OER and Affordable Course Materials

The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) recently awarded the UNC OER Committee grant monies to incentivize UNC instructors to convert courses from using traditional and often expensive commercial textbooks to materials that are free to students. This aligns with the Colorado's Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) initiative for all universities and colleges. Instructors can use a combination of various resources to convert a course - including

• open educational resources, 
• library resources,
• materials that fall under fair use, and
• materials that are public domain. 

Additionally, all awardees will have assistance from the UNC OER Committee, the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning (CETL), and Instructional Design and Development (IDD) throughout the process.

Who Should Apply

There are three basic options for grant funding:

1. converting a single course with multiple sections that are likely taught by multiple instructors (e.g., LAC courses and intro-level courses),
2. converting more than one course in a sequence within a program that are likely taught by multiple instructors (e.g., within a major or courses with prerequisites), and
3. converting a single course with one section taught by one instructor.

The first two are weighed heavier in the decision criteria due to potential impact on student savings and ability to move more aggressively towards Colorado's ZTC initiative, but do not hesitate to apply if you're only proposing to convert one course!  

Course Release or Stipend 

If you apply for types #1 or #2, you will need to identify a Principal Investigator(s) (PI), who can be awarded a course release or a $1,000 stipend, and an optional Co-Investigator(s) (Co-I), who can be awarded a $1,000 stipend. PIs will have significant involvement in all parts of the process of converting and teaching the course(s) while Co-Is may participate in the conversion process or may only be teaching the course after conversion. Course releases are offered during Fall 2022 for converted courses being taught in Spring 2023, but other arrangements are possible and can be expressed in the application. All full-time faculty instructors are eligible for course releases and all faculty and graduate students are eligible for stipends. All applications require letters of support from unit leaders for all PIs and Co-Is in support of their time commitment to the project and willingness to grant course releases to PIs. 

Expectations of Awardees

Awardees are expected to provide the UNC OER Committee with a progress report midway through Fall 2022, at the end of Fall 2022, and a final assessment that includes: 

1. Instructor(s) of record, course name, course number, course enrollment, format (online, ftf, hybrid), syllabus, specific OER/affordable course materials utilized (title, platform) and how they were adopted/adapted.   
2. How they perceived the quality of the OER materials incorporated into the class.   
3. A self‐reflection that addresses the impacts of OER/affordable course materials implementation on their pedagogical approaches and their teaching practices and support needed during the process. 
4. Student savings after adoption of OER/affordable course materials compared to costs incurred if they were required to use commercial texts and ancillary materials.     
5. Observations about whether students’ final grades and completion rates differ when assigned OER/affordable course materials in the course instead of commercial textbooks or other resources assigned in a comparable class. 
6. A write‐up of survey results of student attitudes toward the implemented OER/affordable course materials. For example, how does their use of OER/affordable course materials differ from traditional (commercial) learning materials? How did students perceive the quality of OER/affordable course materials?   
7. Assessment of student learning outcomes for the course. 

Awardees will present the outcomes of their OER/affordable course materials assessment at UNC's annual Teaching and Assessment Symposium and share created content through Digital UNC, on Canvas Commons via #UNCO_LE@RN, and/or apply for a Creative Commons license, which permits the creation of derivative works to any copyrightable materials other than software, while licensing software with any open source license approved by the Open Source Initiative. 

We Are Here to Help and Look forward to Working with You!

Thank you for your interest in this important students-first initiative to make the educational experience more affordable for our students.  Don’t hesitate to reach out to any member of the OER Committee if you have questions, including Co-Chairs Ryan Darling (ryan.darling@unco.edu) and Stephanie Wiegand (stephanie.wiegand@unco.edu). 

Summer stipend faculty funding opportunity for institutional level textbook and course materials affordability project summer 2022

Call for Proposals  

In recognition of Open Education Week 2022, and through a grant from the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE), UNC faculty are invited to submit a proposal to develop an institutional level initiative related to textbook affordability. Below are a few sample projects, but faculty are invited to think creatively about projects that would have broad and sustained impact on student success. There is an opportunity to fund two faculty members. 

The compensation is $4,500 and the work will be completed in summer 2022. A final report with recommendations for project implementation will be required.  

Sample project proposals may include, but are not limited to: 

• Develop a methodology to track courses that use Open Education Resources (OER) and affordable course materials at UNC  
• Create tools and templates on how to use open pedagogy in a course, for inclusion in UNC’s Canvas Commons and Digital UNC  
• Write a guide for including the use of Open Educational Resources and textbook affordability in program review and accreditation 
• Develop strategies, including sample language, for integrating the use of OER and textbook affordability in department faculty evaluation criteria.   

Deadline: Apply here by April 11th, 2022 Deadline Extended to April 25, 2022

The following information will be required: 

• Name, department, job title, contact information 
• Title of project 
• 1-3 Project Outcomes 
• One-page narrative description of project and how it supports student success  
• Project Deliverables (ex. Whitepaper) 
• Timeline of summer work 

Applicants will receive notification May 1, 2022 

For more information, contact CDHE OER grant Round 3 administrators Oscar Levin (oscar.levin@unco.edu) or Jen Mayer (jen.mayer@unco.edu).