OER Conversion Grant

Faculty currently using commercial textbooks (either purchased by students or the college as class sets) can adopt existing OER materials that meet your course and learning outcomes. This work could include restructuring your course to fit the organizational structure of your new openly licensed textbook, updating lecture and ancillary materials, and creating new assessments.

Faculty who have already adopted OER, but want to make sizable changes to better meet the learning outcomes. This could include adding, changing, and/or remixing content, including text, videos, and images. This will result in a new version of the text, which must be shared under an open Creative Commons License. OER Specialists are available to assist in this work.

Faculty who are happy with an existing OER textbook can curate and/or create open ancillaries (e.g., lecture slides or videos), homework, and assessments linked to the textbook. These resources and assignments must be shared under an open Creative Commons License, must fulfill all learning outcomes, and must provide materials to support the entire semester of coursework. They must be published in an instructor-centered repository such as LibreTexts ADAPT, MyOpenMath, or Canvas Commons. OER Specialists are available to assist in this work.

Faculty who use materials that are free to students but are not published as OER (e.g. department-created lab manuals or materials within the Canvas shells) can convert those materials into OER and share under a Creative Commons License in an OER repository such as LibreTexts or Canvas Commons. By utilizing open licensing, these materials can be used more widely by colleagues at the college, district, or across the state/country/world. OER Specialists are available to assist in this work

All adjunct and full-time CRC faculty who currently teach or have taught one of the eligible courses may apply for the conversion grant. Los Rios Human Resources has confirmed this work is outside the regular scope of duties for faculty and therefore does not count against FTE load for adjunct faculty.

Those who qualify and are interested must submit the brief CRC OER Conversion Grant Application. The number of applications accepted for each degree pathway could be limited based on awarded funds and a desire to reduce duplication of efforts. Acceptance of an application could be based, in part, on the following criteria:

• Whether the course is a discipline-specific requirement of the major (note: these courses will have priority over GE courses, which will still be considered)
• The number of sections currently being offered as ZTC by using OER
• The number and category of other conversion grant applications submitted for the same course
• Previous experience in teaching the course and commitment to improving the course success rate

This application process could become competitive if faculty interest outpaces available funding. In those cases, a selection committee consisting of the faculty project lead and administrators will determine which applicants are accepted based on the above criteria.

If accepted, payment will be disbursed upon achievement of all milestones. The goal is to replace traditional learning materials from for-profit publishers with OER in as many course sections as possible to achieve CRC’s goal of becoming a fully Zero Textbook Costs campus.

Successful grant applicants will commit to the following milestones:

• Attendance at a required office hour session designed to help participants organize project plans, share best practices and address barriers to success. There will be several offerings of this to accommodate all schedules. Dates and times are listed on the ZTC at CRC PD Calendar Page.
• Enroll and participate in the self-paced Canvas course: Teaching with OER and Open Pedagogy. This class provides invaluable resources designed to help faculty understand the need for OER, open licensing and copyright, accessibility, anti-racist teaching, course design, open pedagogy, and connections to artificial intelligence. It provides a starting point to search for OER that can be adopted, revised, and remixed and tips on organizing your courses to increase student success.
• Successfully produce deliverables agreed upon during the application process (e.g., category 3 applicant publishes in LibreTexts ADAPT ancillaries and/or open homework tied to a specific OER textbook, which fulfills all course learning outcomes and provides content for the entire semester.) You will share link(s) to your deliverables in the final assignment of the Canvas Course: Teaching with OER and Open Pedagogy.
• After submitting your final assignment, attend a second check-in meeting with Andi Adkins Pogue (during her office hours) to formalize next steps.
• All OER work produced will be accessible and shared under an open Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0) and will be made open to the public. The OER project lead and team will assist in this requirement.
• Teach the course(s) using newly adopted/created/revised OER in all sections of the identified course for the next academic year, and commit to requiring only free course materials for at least the next five academic years through 2030. Example: Applicants who apply in fall 24 must complete the final deliverable by May 23, 2025, and be ready to use the newly adopted/created OER material in fall 25.
• Complete a faculty survey and assist in administering a student survey of the quality of OER material adopted.

The College will provide the approved applicants with the needed support to help develop and implement their projects through activities such as but not limited to:

• OER discovery and curation
• OER Conversion Grant Office Hour Sessions – Review of awardee requirements, awardee support services, program timeline, and next steps
• Workshops and/or trainings
• Accessibility training and assistance, including review and remediation of materials from an accessibility expert
• Publishing options

Faculty will receive one payment of $2500 upon completion of all milestones.

Milestones

• Fill out the OER Conversion Grant Application
• Enroll in the self-paced Canvas course: Teaching with OER and Open Pedagogy
• Attend a Q&A session or office hours: See the Faculty and Staff Calendar for upcoming events
• Turn in the final assignment in Module Six of the Teaching with OER and Open Pedagogy course by the last day of the semester in the academic year in which you applied. Example: You applied in January 2025. Your final assignment is due by 10:00 am Friday May 23, 2025.
• After the assignment has been reviewed by Andi Adkins Pogue, you need to do a second check-in with her. She has office hours every week (check the PD calendar for upcoming dates/times), and she will make herself available for extra meetings during the final weeks of school for anyone finishing up the final steps.

• Ongoing: Apply for the OER Conversion Grant. See a list of eligible courses.
• Ongoing: Attend initial office hours, enroll in the Canvas course, and complete the work to convert your course to zero textbook costs using OER.
• 2024/25 Applicants: By 10:00 am Friday, May 23, 2025: Turn in the Final Assignment in the Canvas course: Teaching with OER and Open Pedagogy. Note: This date will be adjusted for applicants applying after June 2025.
• 2024/25 Applicants By 4:00 pm Friday, May 30, 2025: Do your final check-in with Andi Adkins Pogue. She will be available the week of May 25 to 30 for this final step. Note: This date will be adjusted for applicants applying after June 2025.

Note: Dates and deadlines are subject to change based on available funding.