Hear brief highlights from an interview with several past grant recipients about their projects, tips, and the benefits of teaching with Open Educational Resources.
OER Seed Grants have funded pedagogical innovations and course redesigns resulting from the adoption, adaptation, or authoring of open educational resources (OER). In addition to eliminating textbook costs, grant projects reflected a wide range of goals: addressed textbook and course material deficits; rethought and reorganized course subject matter to incorporate a greater diversity and variety of source materials; increased student engagement, and redesigned entire program curricula. In many cases, the funding helped support graduate student assistance, which resulted in a unique collaborative and co-creative learning opportunity for GA’s. Grant recipients were supported by a team from Information Technology Services, the Center for Transformative Teaching, and University Libraries.
Past OER Seed Grant Recipients
2021-2022
Aryeh Dager
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences METR 100: Weather and Climate
Enrollment: 200
Project: Create a unified, open-access set of exercises for the laboratory component of the course.
Savings: $55/student
Congrui (Grace) Jin
Civil and Environmental Engineering CIVE 491/891: Materials for Energy and Sustainability
Enrollment: 30
Project: Develop 20 OER learning modules to replace the textbooks for the course.
Savings: $96/student
Madeline Wiseman
Journalism and Mass Communication JGEN 120: Basic Business Communication
Enrollment: 320
Project: Eliminate the textbook by adopting, adapting, and authoring OER materials in order to enhance course content and decrease student costs.
Savings: $120/student
Nicholas Husbye
Education and Human Sciences TEAC 311/313: Teaching Reading in the Elementary School/Language Arts in the Elementary School
Enrollment: 90
Project: Replace textbooks with learning objects for both online and in-person contexts. Digital learning objects will include a series of videos, guided notes for the videos, and content knowledge assessments.
Savings: $105/student
Brian Moore
Music MUSC 198: Special Topics of Music, “Digital Music Production via Music Notation: An Introduction”
Enrollment: 30
Project: Replace the textbook and resources with materials that are digital in nature and/or open source software.
Savings: $75/student
Madeline Wiseman
Journalism and Mass Communication JGEN 300: Technical Communication II
Enrollment: 192
Project: Eliminate the textbook by adopting, adapting, and authoring OER materials in order to enhance course content and decrease student costs.
Savings: $110/student
Anna Hiatt
Biological Sciences LIFE 120 & 120L: Fundamentals of Biology
Enrollment: 600
Project: Replace e-text through creation of an open access textbook and online homework and study resource
Savings: $42.50/student
Emmeline Watson
Construction Management CNST 252: Construction Materials and Testing
Enrollment: 64
Project: Create an open textbook to replace lecture slides with a textbook and laboratory workbook to support student learning without requiring cost-prohibitive materials.
Savings: $344.98/student
Jiangang Xia
Educational Administration EDAD 982: Advanced Quantitative Research Methods
Enrollment: 10
Project: Develop OER materials to replace the two textbooks for the course and design a course to share across multiple social science disciplines.
Savings: $128.09 - $380.58/student
2020-2021
Congrui (Grace) Jin
Civil and Environmental Engineering CIVE 378: Materials of Construction; CIVE:498/898: Materials of Energy and Sustainability
Enrollment: 120; 35
Project: Replace textbooks with OER learning modules.
Savings: $159.99/student; $76.46/student
Taylor Livingston
School of Global Integrative Studies ANTH 110: Introduction to Anthropology
Enrollment: 1075
Project: Replace textbook with an OER textbook created by faculty in the department.
Savings: $200/student
Jill Martin
College of Journalism and Mass Communication JGEN 200: Technical Communication I
Enrollment: 290
Project: Provide more materials that are flexible and comprehensive, and identify communication materials that are OER.
Savings: $120/student
Gina Matkin
Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication ALEC 102: Interpersonal Skills for Leadership
Enrollment: 770
Project: Replace the dated textbook with a new OER-based textbook written by department faculty.
Savings: $143/student
Brian Moore
Glenn Korff School of Music MUSC 189H: Digital Music Creation; MUSC 283: Foundations of Audio Recording and Production; MUED 343: Music Composition Methods; EMAR 160: Computation and Media Studio; THEA 450: Sounds Design I; MUSC 282: Introduction to Music Composition and Digital Audio Production; MUSC 291Q: Special Topics in Digital Arts (Coding and Composition); EMAR 251: Sounds Lab; THEA 454: Sound for Film.
Enrollment: 200
Project: Compose interactive resources in digital music/sound, integrate these resources into existing courses, and collect and analyze data as to estimated student savings across multiple departments/semesters.
Savings: $70/student
Sabine Zempleni
Nutrition and Health Services NUTR 251: Nutrition through Life Cycles
Enrollment: 150
Project: Develop a modular OER to replace the textbook.
Savings: $195/student
2019-2020
Greg Bashford
Biological System Engineering BSEN 311: Biomedical Signal and System Analysis
Enrollment: 25-30
Project: Write an electronic textbook that is free and accessible to students in pdf and on the web and create interactive electronic examples of the course concepts.
Savings: $250-$300/student
Kelsy Burke
Sociology SOCI 101: Introduction of Sociology
Enrollment: 1400
Project: Adapt and implement an OER product for the face-to-face, hybrid and online courses.
Savings: $84-$124/student
Getachew Demisse
School of Natural Resources NRES 312: Introduction to Geographic Information Science
Enrollment: 200
Project: Replace traditional textbook with an OER textbook.
Savings: $59.79/student
Allan Donsig
Mathematics MATH 106: Calculus and MATH 107: Calculus II
Enrollment: 1400 and 900-1000
Project: Work with graduate students to adapt to OER textbooks to the course platform, create additional topics not covered in the OER, and create connections between the OER textbook and the online homework system.
Savings: $120/student
Michelle Homp
Mathematics MATH 203: Contemporary Math
Enrollment: 500
Project: Work with graduate students to develop course packets to go with the OER textbook and implement an online system for homework.
Savings: $35/student
Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen
Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design TMFD 412/812: Trend Analysis and Product Conceptualization
Enrollment: 38
Project: Develop 36 videos for the professional development module of the course
Savings: $149.99/student
Libby Jones
Civil Engineering CIVE 361: Highway Engineering
Enrollment: 150
Project: Replace textbook with manuals and government reports.
Savings: $125/student
2018-2019
Courtney Hillebrecht
Political Science POLI 160 (WH Thompson): Introduction to International Relations.
Enrollment: 25
Project: Convert to more up-to-date and flexible OER material. Make course more interactive and engaging and reduce costs for students. Trial OER for use in several other sections and courses.
Savings: $55-160/student
David Mabie
Biological Systems Engineering MSYM 109: Physical Principles in Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Enrollment: 350
Project: Convert textbook to OpenStax book and create supplemental materials as OER.
Savings: $100/student
Carolyn Brown Kramer
Psychology PSYC 288: Psychology of Social Behavior.
Enrollment: 469
Project: Adopt an OER textbook to replace the current publisher book with no negative impact on learning. Reduce student cost and expand knowledge of OER to promote its use in other sections of this course.
Savings: $66-243/student
Patrice McMahon
Political Science POLI/GLST160H Introduction to International Relations.
Enrollment: 200
Project: Convert to more up-to-date and flexible OER material, make the course more interactive and engaging, and reduce costs for students.
Savings: $60-100/student
Allan Donsig & Nathan Wakefield
Mathematics MATH 101: College Algebra. Enrollment: 960
MATH 101A: Intermediate Algebra. Enrollment: 560
MATH 102: Trigonometry. Enrollment: 350
Project: Identify OER to replace current course packet and edit and remix existing content to match new OER material. This will replace the current publisher textbook. Materials used in these courses are also used in MATH103 resulting in a total enrollment of about 1,900 students and a total savings of a minimum of $130,000.
Savings: MATH101A: $94-162/student, MATH101: $101-170/student, MATH102: $92-161/student
Guy Trainin
Teaching, Learning & Teacher Education Elementary Education Program (TEAC 297A, 297B, 297E, 397A, 302, 311 313, 317, 305, 307, 308, 315.
Enrollment: 75
Project: Transform Elementary Education program to OER-based materials in 13 courses. Model OER as a way for education to move beyond publishing companies.
Savings: $593/student