The Ames Library OER Exploration Grants
The Ames Library will fund five, two-hundred dollar grants for faculty to explore Open Educational resources (OER) for their class(es). OER are defined as learning resources, teaching practices, and education policies that use the flexibility of OER to provide learners with high quality educational experiences. OER are either in the public domain or licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities – retaining, remixing, revising, reusing and redistributing the resources. There is increasing OER interest for higher education because they help to reduce educational inequality by removing (or reducing) student costs to access course materials. Large scale studies of OER show lower course drop rates, improved student grades, and better retention. For this grant, materials that are not strictly OER, but are “free” to students, such as library-owned articles, videos, digital archives, and open access materials are also acceptable.
OER can include any of the following:
- Open textbooks
- Public domain materials
- Videos
- Tutorials / modules / simulations
- Quizzes / ancillary materials
Our goal with the OER grant is for faculty to explore OER resources, selecting and critically assessing specific materials for inclusion in their courses, and ultimately, to encourage faculty to adopt OERs. We also hope faculty will be able to use the results of these exploration grants to later propose CD grants focused on revising courses or assignments to incorporate OERs.
Requirements
Faculty will be asked to select and review several OERs and/or materials that are free to students that have the potential for integration into a current or future course. OER repositories and search engines can be found on the Ames Library OER LibGuide and the CARLI Open Illinois Initiative site. Your liaison librarian is happy to assist as well.
At the conclusion of the project, grant recipients agree to participate in a campus panel discussion about materials you discovered and how you plan to incorporate them into an assignment/course. In addition, the faculty member will submit a 2-3 page (single spaced) written report which will include the following:
- Summary and evaluation of specific OER or free-to-students resources that you discovered
- How these materials support your pedagogical goals
- The class or classes these materials could be incorporated into
- Reflection on the evolving role of OER in higher education and/or your discipline
Grants are awarded on a first-come, first-served, basis and the grant disbursements will occur after the receipt of your written report. Reports are due within five months from initial approval.
If you would like to secure one of these grants, or have any questions, please contact Chris Sweet in the Ames Library (csweet@iwu.edu, x3984).