Open Educational Resources

• OER Defined: Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions (UNESCO).
• No cost course materials: When the cost of  course materials is prohibitive, the classroom is no longer equitable. In addition to being completely free to use and access, OER are available in digital format and can be printed and bound at low cost.
• Available on the first day of classes: Since OER don’t need to be purchased or ordered, they can be embedded into your courses and made available to students on day one.
• Completely adaptable and customizable to your course: Unlike commercial textbooks, OER can be adapted to suit your teaching context. You can remove, reorder, or rewrite chapters as needed. Librarians are available to assist with adaptation projects both large and small. Contact us for a consultation!
• Promotes diversity and inclusion: The open licensing aspect of OER enables students to become contributors of knowledge rather than just consumers. Incorporating student voices into course material promotes diversity and inclusion, and provides opportunities for instructors to transform their teaching with open pedagogy.
• Provides opportunities to contribute to globally shared scholarship: OER Published by UMass Amherst faculty and instructors will raise the quality of OER in all fields, and will give underrepresented areas such as the languages, humanities, and social sciences new content to be shared globally. If you’re considering incorporating OER into your courses, consider applying for an Open Education Initiative grant!

In collaboration with The Office of the Provost, the University Libraries are launching the 2022 Open Education Initiative (OEI) Grant Award Cycle. The grants provide funding for instructors to  adopt, adapt, or create Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are teaching materials released with an open license, which allows for their free revision and redistribution with attribution to the creator of the original work.

The initiative aims to:

• Encourage the development of alternatives to high-cost textbooks by supporting the adoption, adaptation, or creation of OER.
• Provide support to faculty to implement these approaches.
• Lower the cost of college for students in order to contribute to their retention, progression, and graduation.
• Encourage faculty to engage in new pedagogical models for classroom instruction.

Priority Categories

Priority funding will be given to projects that impact large numbers of students in a General Education course.

Expectations

• Write a final grant report that includes a narrative summarizing the challenges and accomplishments of your experience creating/finding/using the materials, the impact on your teaching, the impact on students and their performance, and lessons learned.
• Agree to share the results of your project with other faculty in your Department and the campus via meetings, workshops, or promotional materials.
• Circulate a qualitative and quantitative survey to all of your students at the end of the first semester you utilize the materials.
• Provide a copy of the revised syllabus or course outline used for the class.
• Participate in long-range assessments of the Open Education Initiative.
• Materials developed for a course will be licensed with an appropriate Creative Commons license of the grantee’s choice.
• Agree to potentially participate on the review committee for future applications.

Selection Criteria

Proposals will be reviewed by representatives from the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), the Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support (IDEAS) group, the Libraries, and one or more faculty members who have previously received the grant. Proposals will be reviewed on the following rubrics:

• Transformative impact on student savings.
• Organization, planning, feasibility.
• Qualitative and quantitative measures.
• Accessibility
• Clarity and alignment.

Detailed view of the OEI Proposal Evaluation Rubric

Support

Please submit any questions or requests for pre-submission consultant to scholarlypublishing@umass.edu. We are able to answer questions, discuss open licensing and copyright, and outline technological, pedagogical, and research support.

For more information on OER, including a list of previous award winners, visit our OER LibGuide.

OER Accessibility Evaluation rubric from Affordable Learning Georgia.

Application

 Please apply through the OEI Proposal Submission Form.

Find information about the eCampus FAST Adoption tool’s OER types on our research guide or contact us with questions.