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Reed Library

OER - Open Educational Resources

Open Education Librarian

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Tyler Dunn
Contact:
Reed Library 105
Fort Lewis College
1000 Rim Drive
Durango, CO
970-247-7038

2024-2025 Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) OER Grants

Reed Library is proud to announce our 6th year of receiving funding from the state of Colorado to continue our OER work at FLC. Our faculty members are making a difference by replacing expensive textbooks and other course materials with Open Educational Resources. This reduces the cost burden of college for students so they can focus more on what matters!

This year we received two OER grants

  • Pre-Nursing OER - contact Tyler Dunn directly if you are teaching a pre-nursing course and interested in using OER.
  • General OER - this is for all other courses, read on for more info!

The application period is April 30 – May 19, 2023. Applicants will be notified of selections the week of June 3. Selected applicants will work on their OER beginning in June with an expected launch in Fall 2024 or Spring 2025.

 Amounts available for each project type are detailed below.

Project Type Table

Project Type

Stipend Amount

Tier I: Adoption of open textbook or other course material(s)

  • Incorporating existing OER into a course with minimal modification of the OER
  • Replacing all textbook costs with OER

 

EXAMPLE

A faculty member in the Psychology department replaces their introductory psychology textbook with the peer-reviewed open textbook Psychology 2e from OpenStax.

 $800

Tier II: Adaption of open textbook or other course material(s)

  • Incorporating existing OER into a course with substantial modification of the OER
  • Replacing all textbook costs with OER
  • Making the adapted OER available for public use with an appropriate Creative Commons license.

 

EXAMPLE

A faculty member in the Physics and Engineering department replaces their textbook with the open textbook University Physics I: Classical Mechanics from the University of Arkansas; but rearranges, revises, and adds to some of the content to better fit their curriculum.

 $1600

Tier II: Curation or Collection of course materials

  • Curating a collection of OER and incorporating that collection into a course
  • Replacing all textbook costs with OER
  • Making the curated OER available for public use with an appropriate Creative Commons license.

 

EXAMPLE

A Political Science faculty member replaces the textbook with a curated reading list composed of the following:

 $1600

Tier III: Creation of textbook or other course material(s)

  • Creating original OER and incorporating that OER into a course
  • Replacing all of the textbook costs with the OER; and
  • Making the OER available for public use with an appropriate Creative Commons license.

EXAMPLE

An Art History faculty member creates an open textbook.		 $3200

Update of an existing Tier II or III OER

  • Updating the format of an existing OER
  • OR updating the content
  • Making the updated OER available for public use with an appropriate Creative Commons license.

 

EXAMPLE

A Biology faculty member who previously created an open textbook using Canvas as a platform (a) updates the content because it is a few years old and/or (b) converts the content to another platform such as Pressbooks (FLC subscription).		 $500-1000

Ancillary Materials for existing OER

  • Creating ancillary materials for an existing OER and incorporating them into a course
  • This can include (but is not limited to) Quizzes, Test banks, Discussion Questions, Bibliographies, Lecture slides, Lesson Plans, Labs, Homework problems/solutions
  • Making the ancillary materials available for public use with an appropriate Creative Commons license.

 

EXAMPLE

A faculty member from the Mathematics department is already using an open textbook, but the homework problems don’t include solutions. The faculty member creates and publishes the solutions manual.

$500-

1000

Departmental Peer Review

  • Review an FLC colleague’s Tier II project, Tier III project, or ancillary materials made for the OER grant. 
  • These can be from a previous year or the current grant year (2024-2025).
  • Publishing a version of the review on an OER platform (MERLOT or Pressbooks) if applicable
 up to $1000

Application Process

  1. Review the FLC OER Grant Handbook (PDF below). The handbook includes a scoring rubric for applications.
  2. [Optional] Contact Tyler Dunn, Library Director, with any questions about your application or project ideas.
  3. Fill out the 2024-2025 OER Stipend Application (online).