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 an appropriate existing OER and replacing current course materials with that.
- 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
The Open Education Initiative is a collaboration with DCAL.