UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries has opened the application for the 2024–25 OER Leads Faculty Adoption Grants. OER Adoption Grants give faculty the opportunity to customize their courses to adopt open educational resources (OER), thus ensuring their students have free and ongoing access to their course materials.
Individual grants of $1,000 each will compensate up to 20 faculty recipients to work with a Penn State librarian during summer 2024 to review, adopt and implement OER for an academic year 2024–25 course.
The OER can be adopted as is, or remixed (rearranged, edited or combined with other materials) to better fit class topics and presentation order. The OER must be the required textbook (or no textbook if none is required). Awardees agree to use free resources for at least two semesters, distribute a survey to students and present briefly on their experiences with the program.
Application deadline is April 20, and awardees will be notified the week of April 29. Initial consultation (virtual or in person, at participants’ discretion) will take place in early May. Ongoing support will be provided throughout summer 2024.
OER Leads Adoption Grant Guidelines
- Open to any full-time faculty or instructor of record at any Penn State campus.
- Funds the development of a revised syllabus that reflects a transition from commercial materials to open materials. Courses that currently make use of free materials are not eligible.
- All materials for the resulting courses must be available at no cost to students. Library-licensed resources are acceptable. Awardees agree to use free resources for at least two semesters.
- Faculty chosen will be required to submit feedback and allow for the distribution of a survey to the selected course’s students at the end of the first semester in which the new materials were adopted.
- Faculty will be selected based on impact (enrollment, savings, multicampus courses), availability of OER and available librarian expertise
The OER Leads grant program is made possible by the University Libraries Sally W. Kalin Librarianship for Learning Innovations and the 2022 Giving Tuesday Open and Affordable Educational Resources Campaign.