UMFK OER Grant Program

Eligibility

All full-time, UMFK instructors are eligible to apply for a UMFK OER Grant. Those who are not considered full-time faculty status will provide a letter of support (draft provided for your convenience) from their Department Chair, Dean, or equivalent to accompany their application.

All projects implemented as a result of a UMFK OER Grant awarded during the current spring fiscal year, should be put into practice during the following fiscal year.

For example, if the award is awarded in spring of FY2025 then the implementation of the OER course would be one of the following semesters:

• Fall 2025
• Spring 2026
• Summer 2026

Other Stipulations 

• Grants are awarded to instructors who plan to completely replace at minimum the course textbook/access key with free resources to the student. The idea is to significantly reduce the cost of materials to students. If there is a resource need that cannot be filled by OER or other no-cost (open access) option, the committee will take that into consideration. An example would be a streaming video that can only be seen through a commercial service (Netflix, Amazon, HULU, etc.) and cannot be purchased by the library.
• Only one grant per category is awarded to an individual at a time (it is conceivable that an instructor could apply again in a different semester for a different grant category once the purpose for the first grant award is completed, e.g. moving from an adopted textbook to a full and more extensive adaptation).
• Consideration for grants are for
  • moving from traditional cost-related materials to OER
  • moving from OER adopted material to OER Adapted material (significant changes expected)
• Moves from OER to OER in the same category without significant change (e.g. adoption to adaptation), traditional to traditional, and OER to traditional do not meet the criteria and will not be considered.

Understandings

• Completion of the project is when the course chosen for this grant has been taught for at least one semester.
• Adopting, adapting, and creating new OER material for a course is considered "Scholarship," and each division may consider including such endeavors when reviewing Promotion and Tenure. 
• UMFK OER Grant funding is determined from year to year based on budgetary restrictions and/or alternative grant options.

Timeline

Note about "Textbook Adoptions Due": If you plan to offer an adopted text, the title and/or text needs to be submitted to the campus store just as you would a standard commercial title. Typically, titles are due prior to the first day of registration.

And, Good News!

You can now select OER as an option when you submit your text to the bookstore portal. In addition, if the adopted content has an ISBN, you can insert that to bring up the text information. You can also add the text pdf for students to download if you like. I recommend saving other materials for Brightspace.

Permission was granted by Jen Waller of the University Libraries at The University of Oklahoma to reuse and modify their guide originally called "Alternative Textbook Grant."