Open Educational Resources

Submit your 2025-2026 OER Grant proposal today! The deadline for submissions is Sunday, March 30, 2025.

OER projects must be completed and final reports submitted by the end of the spring 2026 semester.

Please see the updated grant information below.

The OER Faculty Advisory Group accepts applications for Berea College’s Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants. These grants are intended to encourage and support the replacement of commercial textbooks and other course materials with relevant, high-quality OER. 

Program Goals

• Produce course materials that are more engaging and better support course learning objectives
• Incorporate open pedagogy into courses to transform how students engage with course content 
• Increase equitable access to course materials for all students, especially in introductory courses, courses with multiple sections, and high enrollment courses
• Eliminate or reduce the cost of textbooks and other course materials (such as access codes for online course content) for students
• Share materials openly with the international teaching and learning community

Grant projects must be one of the following:

• Evaluate and Adopt OER - existing open resources meet the needs of your course with little or no modification
• Adapt, update, and/or combine OER - no single OER covers the content that you teach or supporting materials are not available for an existing OER
• Create OER - no OER exists for the topic of your course

Grant Tiers

Small Projects ($750) 

Examples: writing a test bank for an existing OER, adopting an open textbook, converting lecture slides to OER, creating and implementing an open pedagogy assignment

Medium Projects ($1500)

Examples: creating homework assignments or a workbook/lab manual to supplement existing OER for a full course, writing a section of an open textbook

Large Project ($3000)

Examples: writing an open textbook, creating a series of OER video lectures with transcripts and slides (This would be a great sabbatical project.)

Criteria for Proposals

• The proposal should be submitted by one or more Berea college employees with teaching responsibilities
• Successful proposals will require the use of an open textbook or other open educational resources (library licensed content/open access resources will be considered if no high-quality, relevant OER are available) in a credit-bearing course at Berea College
• One proposal may be submitted per academic year

Expectations of Grant Recipients

• Meet with the OER Librarian after grant is awarded to discuss the work plan and project timeline 
• Publish any new or adapted OER with a Creative Commons license that allows derivatives and include any content in appropriate open repositories (Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, Open Pedagogy Portal, etc.)
• Share your grant program experience with the Berea College community and provide feedback on this initiative and how we can improve
• Continue to use adopted resources (or other OER) in Berea College courses for a minimum of two years
• Awardees are strongly encouraged to assess and report a summary of findings in their final report

OER Support Available

• Consultations with the Open Educational Resources Librarian to find existing OER
• OER, copyright, and open licensing resources on the Hutchins Library website
• Copyright and open licensing support provided by Hutchins Library
• Workshops, Learning Circles, and other faculty development related to OER, open licensing, open pedagogy, and more

Where can I find OER and open textbooks? 

There is a list of recommended repositories of OER and open textbooks on the Open Berea website. 

How will the final product be made available to students?

You will be able to link to or upload your content into Moodle. If you have questions about having OER printed for students, please contact the Open Educational Resources Librarian.

Who do I contact with copyright and open licensing questions?

If you have questions related to OER, copyright, and/or open licensing, please contact the Open Educational Resources Librarian to schedule a consultation. You are responsible for following copyright laws.

When will the funding be dispersed?

Stipends will be dispersed in the semester the OER is adopted, once the final report has been submitted to the OER Faculty Advisory Group, and any OER have been uploaded to appropriate repositories.

Will this project count toward promotion and tenure?

Faculty regularly highlight innovative curricular work in pre-tenure, tenure, and promotion portfolios. Please refer to the Tenure and Promotion Review Criteria section of the Faculty Manual to see how this kind of work could be incorporated into a portfolio.  

What can the grant funding NOT be used for?

• The adoption of commercial textbooks
• The creation or adaptation of textbooks for commercial publication;
• The creation or adaptation of textbooks and other materials without the accompaniment of a Creative Commons license;
• Releasing a resource with a Creative Commons license with a “NoDerivitives” provision.