Overview of the Program

Interest in and usage of OER is rapidly expanding at UK. The library’s current strategic plan includes expanding the offerings of open and affordable course materials. UK joined the Open Education Network as an institutional member in 2023. Also in 2023, the institution hired an Affordable Course Content Librarian, the first role there devoted full-time to OER and textbook affordability. But this work is by no means new; the OER Grant Program (previously named the Alternative Textbook Grant Program) started in 2016. Since then, it has awarded grants totalling over $110,000 to more than 60 faculty, resulting in an estimated savings for students of over $1.5 million. The grant program is managed by the library and an advisory group of faculty and staff from all over campus.

OER Grant Program

The OER Grant Program (formerly the Alternative Textbook Grant Program) supports the adoption and creation of open educational resources (OER) for use in University of Kentucky courses. Approved projects will be allotted funding depending on the scale of the work. This may be used to cover costs such as student assistants, editing, or graphic design; it may also be paid to the grantee(s). Note that the funding should be considered a stipend in recognition of the effort involved; it is not intended to cover the hourly labor of the applicants or all of the potential costs of a project. In addition to funding, grantees will receive support from the Affordable Course Content Librarian; this will be tailored to the project’s needs and may include any of the following:

• Planning and check-in meetings to ensure that the project stays on track
• Copyright consultations on using existing materials and licensing new ones
• Guidance on publishing platforms for sharing new or revised works
• Support making the finished works meet accessibility standards
• Help finding existing OER
• Connection with other library or campus support depending on the needs of the project

Eligibility

Applicants must be full-time UK instructors (including faculty, adjunct faculty, and lecturers) who will be teaching a course during the timeframe of the grant cycle applied for.

Awards

• $500 for small projects (examples: writing a test bank for existing OER, adopting a few chapters of an open textbook, converting lecture slides to open access)
• $1,500 for medium projects (examples: adopting an open textbook, creating homework assignments to supplement existing OER for a full course, writing a section of a textbook)
• $3,000 for large projects (examples: writing an open textbook, creating a series of open access video lectures with transcripts and slides)