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The high-cost of textbooks is one of the factors that affects student learning outcomes and student success. Students avoid certain classes, drop a class, or do poorly when they cannot afford the text for a course. Students at UIC expressed their concern over the costs of textbooks and asked the Faculty Senate to consider a USG (Undergraduate Student Government) resolution to encourage faculty to choose alternative options for course materials. The UIC Faculty Senate endorsed the use of open education materials, when possible.
The Open Textbook Faculty Incentive Program supports undergraduate students by creating incentives for teaching faculty to use alternative lower-cost educational materials rather than high-cost textbooks. This may include the adoption or adaption of existing OER materials. If needed, it will support the creation of new Open Educational Resources (OER) to fill in gaps of your adopted / adapted OER materials.
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere.” (https://sparcopen.org/open-education)
Interested faculty will be required to submit a proposal.
Sponsored by the Provost's Office and the University Library, up to $40,000 will be available to faculty teaching undergraduates.
Proposals are due April 5, 2024.
Awards will be announced by the end of April.
OER Awards will be transferred from the Library to a department CFOP
Optional workshops on OER basics will be available for faculty who want to learn more about OER. The workshop will cover the benefits of open education resources, how to find open education textbooks, and how to evaluate them.
Proposal : The deadline for submission of proposals is April 5, 2024. Proposals will be reviewed by a committee of faculty, librarians and administrators. Selected projects will receive half of the awarded money at the point their project is approved. The remainder of the awarded money will be provided upon submission of a final report summarizing and evaluating the OER substitution. Textbook adoption/ modification must be in place for the Fall 2024 semester Spring 2024 semester. OER Awards will be transferred from the Library to a CFOP. Email proposals to: proposa.5dvpzorowce81uio@u.box.com
Final Report :
The final report should include:
Questions
If you have questions, please contact Sandy De Groote (sgroote@uic.edu, 312-413-9494 or email the library at digscholarship@uic.edu)
Further Information