Skip to Main Content

Open Educational Resources FAQ

This guide is designed to answer some frequently asked questions about Open Educational Resources.

OER Award Program

Standard Project: Convert to OER Materials

Participants commit to:

  • Use Open Educational Resources to improve equity in at least one course.
  • Attend a kick-off meeting.
  • Complete the self-paced Canvas course.
  • Utilize available training, resources, and mentorship throughout the project.
  • At mid-point check-in, submit draft course/OER outline and report progress.
  • Submit final course/OER outline before the deadline.

Convert your course: If you currently use a commercial textbook in the course, you can be paid $4000 to find OER that fit your course SLOs, revise the resources if necessary, and adopt them into your course for Spring 2024.

Convert all sections: If you want to help your department transition all the sections of a course to use OER, and your department agrees to this goal, you can be paid $5000 to find, revise, and adopt OER for all sections of the course. We will need a letter from your department chair that commits the department to switching all course sections to OER based on your recommendations.

Pilot Project: Revise the OER

We are piloting a new type of project, for faculty who have been using OER for at least a few years.

Commercial textbook publishers release new editions on a regular basis to ensure the content is current. With OER, there is no single organization responsible for keeping the content updated. That’s what this project is for: Your OER needs a new edition, and you’d like to be the one to update it. Note that this also means you will be publishing the updated version (ideally to LibreTexts) so that all faculty who use the OER can benefit from the new edition.

No two revision projects are alike, so before applying, be prepared to answer the following questions:

  • What is the OER that needs revising? Please include all relevant information, like title, URL, and the class it is used for.
  • What is the scope of your project? What will you be doing?
  • Do you plan to do this project solo, or as a team? If applicable, please list your team members.
  • What training, support, or other non-monetary resources do you need for this project?
  • What is your estimated budget for this project? (To help determine this, you might consider how many hours per week you expect to work on it.)
  • What is your estimated timeline for this project? (Single-semester projects are best, but we will consider other timelines depending on specific project circumstances.)
  • We may not be able to fund all eligible projects. What makes your project impactful?

Frequently asked questions

"Open Educational Resources 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." (From the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)

All FLC faculty, regardless of status, are eligible to participate. Note that the stipends count toward FTE for full time faculty, so if you have maxed out overload this semester you may not be eligible.

Applications will be accepted through August 25th. (We will accept as many valid applications as we can support with the funding available.) All project work must be completed by December 1, 2023.

Note that faculty can start project work during the summer if they choose, but there will be very limited summer support. If you are interested in starting over the summer, please apply before May 8th so we can set you up before the end of spring semester.

Not in a single semester. We want to include as many participants as we can, so we’re limiting to one course per participant. (You will have access to the self-paced Canvas course after the project period has ended, and are welcome to use those resources to help you transform additional courses on your own.) If we continue to have funding, you may apply again in the future, but faculty who have never applied before will be prioritized.

No. While decreasing course costs is generally a good goal, this funding is meant specifically for work related to OER. OER has better potential for long-term sustainability, and its open nature provides opportunities for equity-minded revisions of courses and course materials.

No. This project is focused on OER, so your goal should be to increase your use of OER. That being said, there are a variety of ways you might provide course materials at no cost to students, and those are also valid for your project.

Please contact Megan Ozeran at ozeranm@flc.losrios.edu.