Open Educational Resources (OER) are low- or no-cost instructional materials that instructors can adopt in lieu of, or in addition to, traditional textbooks. OER offer many benefits to users, such as immediate access to materials and customizable course content.

Faculty can use OER in various ways, such as a supplement to a traditional textbook, as the main textbook for a class, modify or alter content to make it specific to a class, combine content to make a completely new OER or create OER from original material with a Creative Commons license. Please fill out this short survey about how you use OER.

The University has been awarded a grant from the Sid W. Richardson Foundations, a portion of which will be used for approximately 18 “mini-grants” for faculty wanting to adopt, adapt or create OER:

• 10 x $1000 for adopting existing OER or Low/Zero cost resources for use in course(es)
• 6 x $2500 for adapting existing OER for use in course(es)
• 2 x $5000 for creating OER and publishing with a Creative Commons license

Be on the lookout for an invitation to attend an OER workshop on March 24 at 11 a.m. from CETL in collaboration with the Library, and instructions for submitting an OER grant application. For questions, please contact Elizabeth Howard at ehoward@txwes.edu or Marquel Anteola at manteola@txwes.edu.