University of Montana and Missoula College faculty are invited to apply for OER grants to offset the time and expense required to adopt, adapt, or create high-quality OER for a course that will be taught Fall Semester 2019 or Spring Semester 2020. The intent of these grants is to incentivize instructors to replace one or more commercial textbooks with OER in order to help reduce the cost of course materials for students.

For more about OER, see the Mansfield Library’s OER guide. For questions or assistance with OER grant proposals, please contact oer@mso.umt.edu.

Deadline

Completed applications will be accepted on a rolling basis throughout the spring semester and will be reviewed as they are received, beginning on March 4, 2019.

Eligibility

Any instructor of record for a course at UM and Missoula College is eligible for funding.

Note that the grant funds cannot be used to cover the purchase of commercial electronic versions of textbooks for all students in a class, for rentals of textbooks for all students in a class, or for already adopted open texts.

How to Apply and the Review Process 

Complete the online application below. Complete submissions will be evaluated by members of UM’s OER Task Force Proposal Review Subcommittee.

Grant Awards and Disbursement

Grant awards will be structured as follows:

• Adopt existing OER: $500
• Adapt existing OER: $1,000
• Create OER: $2,500

Faculty can use the Find/Adopt OER tab in the OER guide to locate OER that they may wish to adopt and use in place of commercially-published textbooks or course materials. 

Faculty can find information about adapting and creating (authoring) OER in the OER: Adapt, Create, Make Accessible tab in the OER guide.

Grant funds will be distributed upon completion of the project deliverables.

Project Deliverables

Grant recipients are expected to comply with several provisions designed to ensure the openness and availability of the funded project, as well as provide feedback to inform assessment of the grant initiative. Grant recipients commit to:

• Communicate with OER Task Force Proposal Review Subcommittee members on a regular basis should they need help or to provide requested updates. Email us!
• Use the adopted, adapted, or created OER in a course in Fall 2019 or Spring 2020.
• Complete an evaluation/survey designed to gather information about pedagogical improvements (if any), student engagement, student outcomes, etc.
• Distribute an anonymous survey (that will be provided to you by the Subcommittee) to students to help assess their experience with the OER you used.
• Apply an OER-compatible Creative Commons license to the final product (if adapting or creating).
• Ensure that adapted or newly created OER is accessible.
• Make the most appropriate version of newly adapted or created OER available for deposit into UM ScholarWorks.

Application

  The Spring 2019 OER Adopt, Adapt, Create Grant applications have been closed.