Open Education Week
Open Education Week brings awareness to the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and to the how OER transforms teaching and learning for instructors and students alike.
What is OER?
OER refers to open access, openly licensed instructional materials that are used for teaching, learning or research.
Why is OER Important?
OER provides free resources to institutions, teachers, and students. When incorporated into the classroom, OER can:
- Lower the cost of education for students
- Reinforce open pedagogy
- Allow educators to update and adapt materials to fit their needs
- Encourages students’ interaction with, and creation of, educational materials
- Encourage open knowledge dissemination
OER Incentive Grant
The University is giving faculty an incentive to adopt, adapt, or create OER for their courses instead of using expensive materials. The OER Incentive Grants will fund faculty teaching undergraduate courses. Instructors can submit applications in three tiers:
- Tier 1: Adopt – incorporate an existing open textbook into a course
- Tier 2 Adapt – incorporate portions of multiple existing open textbooks, along with other freely available educational resources, modifications of existing open education materials/textbooks, or development of new open education materials
- Tier 3: Create – write new openly licensed textbooks
The preferred deadline to submit a proposal is March 11th. If you are interested in submitting a grant but cannot make this deadline, please reach out to Sara Benson at srbenson@illinois.edu. To learn more about this program see the webpage on the Faculty OER Incentive Program.
Upcoming OER Publication
In conjunction with Sara Benson, copyright librarian at UIUC, and the Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN), co-authors Christy Bazan, Brandi Barnes, Ryan Santens, and Emily Verone will publish an OER textbook, titled Drug Use and Misuse: A Community Health Perspective. This book explores drug use and abuse through the lens of community health and the impact of drug use and abuse on community health. Drug Use and Misuse is the third publication in IOPN’s Windsor & Downs Press OPN Textbook series. See the video below to learn more about the process of creating this textbook.