Faculty Help: OER Grants at SFCC: Call for OER Proposals

OER are freely and publicly available teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. For example, instructors may download the material, tailor it to one’s course, save a copy locally to share with one’s students and share it back out with attribution. OER can include textbooks, course materials and full courses, modules, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.  An open source (or open) textbook is a textbook which is OER.

SFCC is proud to be a subgrantee in collaboration with UNM and CNM under the federal Open Textbook Grant. This funding of  $2.125 million helped established the New Mexico Open Educational Resources (NMOER) Consortium. This initiative aims to empower faculty across New Mexico, including those at SFCC, to adopt open access materials, significantly reducing the cost of educational resources for students. SFCC is committed to leveraging these resources to enhance educational accessibility and affordability for our community. 

Priorities for the grant funds at SFCC are:

• Courses that currently require students to purchase textbooks
• Material used in general education courses
• Material used in high enrollment courses
• Projects that will impact multiple sections of the same course or multiple courses
• Projects that include collaborative work with colleagues at SFCC
• Material in courses that are required for students seeking degrees or certificates
• Material that can be shared and used by other institutions of higher education in New Mexico

1. Course Redesign or Course Enhancement OER Grants

Overview:
The Course Redesign or Course Enhancement OER Grants provide funding for significant course modifications or content enhancements using OER. These grants support efforts to increase course affordability, enhance material relevance, and ensure accessibility.  These grants are available to SFCC Faculty and SFCC Adjunct Faculty.  These grants are for work that has not been previously completed.

Types of Proposals Accepted:

• Significant Course Modification Project: Involves adapting or creating new OER content that constitutes more than 50% of the course content, such as replacing textbooks or major course materials.
• Course Content Enhancement Project: Involves adapting or creating new OER content that is less than 50% of the course content, focusing on new assignments, readings, and lecture enhancements.

Funding:

Project payments are based on faculty adjunct pay for designing a course or the faculty hourly payrate.

Applications and all the info you need is in the documents below:

Application:  For full details and to apply, view the Course Redesign or Course Enhancement Proposal.  

Rubric:  Rubric use by the OER Committee for evaluating Course Redesign and Enhancement Grant Proposals

2. Special Projects Open Educational Resources Grants

Overview:
The Special Projects OER Grants support the adoption, adaptation, or creation of OER materials for SFCC courses. This funding is intended to increase course affordability, improve representation and relevance in course materials, and provide accessible resources for all learners. These grants are available to SFCC Faculty and SFCC Adjunct Faculty.  Budgets may include payments to additional partners.  These grants are for work that has not been previously completed.

Types of Proposals Accepted:  

These projects are beyond the work required for a course redesign.  Funding can be used for activities such as writing textbooks, creating new course materials, and developing instructional videos or images. The committee encourages innovative proposals beyond the outlined scope.

Funding:

Grants up to $10,000 are available. 

Applications and all the info you need is in the documents below:

Application: For full details and to apply, view the Special Projects OER Grants Proposal. 

Rubric: Rubric used by OER Committee for evaluating Special Project Grant Proposals.

Questions? Contact Valerie Nye (valerie.nye@sfcc.edu) or 505-428-1506. Or watch the OER Training Video.