Explore OER Through Grants and Workshops

Faculty at WSU are invited to explore open educational resources (OER) and apply for funding to adapt or create them for their own courses.

March’s Faculty-Led Workshops will feature pertinent OER information and perspectives. Many WSU faculty members are employing OER and other textbook alternatives, with great success. They often report higher levels of engagement and positive feedback from students after switching to low-cost or no-cost digital learning materials. “Transitioning your course to use Open Educational Resources (OER)” will be held on March 5 and “Navigating the OER Environment” will be held on March 6. Registration and further details are available on the Learning Innovations website under Faculty Led Workshops.

The workshops will serve as a primer for the Affordable Learning Grant applications, which are due March 18, 2019. The grants range from $1,500 to $4,500 and are designed to offset the time and expense required to develop and/or implement high quality, freely available digital material in classes.

Proposal submission is open to all current faculty members and instructors. The grants were developed in response to student concerns about course material costs. Funding is provided by the Office of the President and grants are intended to support transitioning away from expensive commercial textbooks and instead explore new curricular strategies that employ the use of freely available digital course material of equivalent or higher quality.

Visit provost.wsu.edu/open-education-resources for more information on OER and the many resources available.

—Story by Todd Mordhorst