Open Education Initiative

Dartmouth Library's Open Education Initiative provides grants to support the adoption and creation of open educational resources (OER) for Dartmouth courses.

The application period for the 2023-2024 academic year has closed; proposals for 2024-2025 will be accepted in spring of 2024. To help you plan your proposal, there is a document with all of the application questions and a rubric that the selection committee will use when reviewing the applications. You can also view the accepted proposals from prior years.

If you would like support in learning about, adopting, or creating OER outside of this program, contact Scholarly Communication, Copyright, and Publishing.

 

Our goals

  • Reduce the cost of textbooks and other course materials for Dartmouth students
  • Produce materials that are more engaging and customizable, and better support course learning objectives
  • Share materials openly with the international teaching and learning community

Projects

Anything that involves the creation or adoption of open educational resources is eligible for the Open Education Initiative. Some common project types include the following:

  • OER adoption: locating appropriate existing OER and replacing current course materials with that.
    • Example: Find an open access textbook in the Open Textbook Library and replace a paid textbook with it.
  • OER adaptation: replacing current course materials with existing OER that you have revised, updated, and/or combined as needed.
    • Example: If there is not an open textbook currently available that meets your needs, look for content in OER Commons. Combine chapters, videos, or other materials to suit your course, revising the content and adding connecting material as needed.
  • OER creation: replacing current course materials with new OER that you have created from scratch.
    • Example: Write a new handbook for a lab or writing course.
  • Multi-section OER adoption: converting all instances of a course to use OER.
    • Example: Work with other members of your department to adopt or write an open textbook for all sections of an introductory course.
  • Other: something not listed here. If you're not sure your project qualifies, contact Scholarly Communication, Copyright, and Publishing and ask.
    • Examples: making annotated syllabi openly available for other instructors to use, adopting or creating OER as supplementary readings or videos, creating test banks to go with an existing open textbook, working with students to collaboratively create OER, and more.

Funding

Accepted proposals will be awarded between $1,000 and $5,000, depending on the type of project and number of other applicants.

Expectations of award recipients

  • Adopt, adapt, and/or create OER as described in their proposal.
  • Teach a course using this OER.
  • Survey students on their experiences with the new OER and share results with the program organizers.
  • Complete a survey on their own experiences with the program.
  • If creating an OER or revising an existing one, make the new/updated version freely available online (through Dartmouth Digital Commons or another open access platform). Share the new resource with the academic community in the relevant subject area.
  • Attend the annual transition meetings at the beginning and end of their program, as well as the December cohort lunch and other optional cohort meetings as interested.
  • Attend at least three meetings with members of the Open Education Initiative team (team member roles and a project timeline will be discussed during the first meeting; subsequent meetings will be used to check in on progress and project support needs).
  • Participate on the panel at the annual transition meeting at the end of their year.
  • If interested, stay involved (attend future transition meetings, act as a mentor for future grantees, encourage OER at Dartmouth and in their fields, participate in open education conferences and publications, etc.)

Further information

Learn more about open educational resources and read about funded projects.

Contact Stephen Krueger, the Scholarly Publishing Librarian, for more information about OER or the Open Education Initiative.

The Open Education Initiative is a collaboration with DCAL.