Have you been thinking about developing an Open Educational Resource (OER) for your course? The Illinois State Library is offering grants (up to $150,000) to academic libraries to coordinate the development of one or more OER projects within the institution. NIU Libraries is seeking faculty with an idea for an eligible OER to be included in our application.
Complete grant applications must be submitted to the Illinois State Library by April 1, 2024.
Categories of Eligible OER Projects
- Author – Create and adopt a substantially new open textbook or open course where it is possible to demonstrate that quality resources are not currently available to meet learning objectives.
- Revise/Remix – Update existing OER with major revisions or develop custom course content from multiple open educational resources and original open content to support learning objectives not met by existing open resources.
- Ancillaries – Adopt existing OER and create ancillaries such as quiz question banks, lecture slides, or lab manuals.
- Update – Update and adopt existing OER that requires minor editing for currency or relevance, without major changes to the content or structure.
All resources created with this grant will be given the license of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0International / CC-BY 4.0 International.
If awarded the grant, NIU Libraries will facilitate instructional design, accessibility, copyright, and copyediting/proofreading support, as well as funding to compensate you for your time and effort.
Project Schedule
ISL OER grant recipients will be announced by June 1, 2024. All grant projects and activities must be completed by June 30, 2026. Participating faculty commit to teaching a course with the OER created at least once by Spring 2026 and for 3 years after the end of the grant period.
Application Process
If you are interested in submitting an OER project to potentially be included in the NIU Libraries’ grant application, please complete the NIU Libraries’ Application for the ISL OER Grant: Faculty Interest Form by 5:00PM, Friday, February 16, 2024, and you will be contacted about next steps.
Important Note: Applications are due to the Illinois State Library by April 1, 2024. However, because NIU Libraries may be funding multiple OER projects, these will be submitted under a single grant application. Therefore, faculty selected to participate will need to complete their part of the application by early March.
Please consider applying and/or sharing this information with your colleagues. For additional information about the ISL OER grant, visit the CARLI website. For questions about NIU Libraries’ grant application, feel free to email Larissa Garcia.
