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Open Educational Resources FAQ

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

OER Continuous Improvement Grants

About the Program

Commercial publishers regularly update textbooks, ancillary materials, and other instructional materials. With Open Educational Resources, there is no single entity responsible for keeping materials up-to-date. The world of OER is dependent on discipline experts to help the ecosystem thrive.

This Continuous Improvement Grants program recognizes that there may be times when you see a need to update OER, and you are willing to be the person who does so. If your project is approved, you will be expected to post the new or revised material publicly, with a CC BY license, so the public may benefit from your work. For example:

  • You create a Canvas shell with modules and quizzes to go along with an OpenStax text, and upload the course to Canvas Commons.
  • You create test bank questions, and add them all to the LibreTexts ADAPT system.
  • You revise a couple chapters of an OER textbook, and publish the revised textbook to LibreTexts.
  • You create a series of short lecture videos to demonstrate important concepts, and upload them to YouTube.

All FLC faculty are eligible to apply. Full time faculty should note that this project will count toward overload.

Apply for a Continuous Improvement Grant here.

This grant program is meant to support revision projects that can be completed in one semester. If you would like to complete a larger project, consider:

  • Collaborating with other faculty so each team member only needs to complete a small portion.
  • Breaking up a large project into several smaller projects, and applying to work on one of the smaller projects.
  • Applying for a sabbatical to complete the larger project (this option is only available to full time faculty).

Rubric

This is the rubric the Affordable Learning Materials Committee uses to evaluate applications to this grant program.

  Complete Incomplete
Scope of project The project scope is well defined and aligns with the contribution level(s) chosen. The project scope is unclear or does not align with the contribution level(s) chosen.
Justification Applicant clearly states why the resource(s) needs to be updated, and the justification is compelling. The justification is not compelling, or the reason for updating is unclear.

In the case of an "incomplete," the committee will follow up with the applicant to obtain clarification, in the hopes of getting to a complete application.

Attribution

This program has drawn inspiration and some language from Affordable Learning Georgia's Continuous Improvement Grants program. ALG's materials are generally shared under a CC BY license.

Past Projects

These are the projects funded by the OER Continuous Improvement Grants.