Open Educational Resources Initiative at UNF

UNF OER Initiative Options

• REVIEW - EDUCATIONAL MEDIA KIT ($200 VALUE)
  The Open Textbook Review is a great starting place for someone new to the world of OER. This simply involves participation in a single workshop where you will learn how to find OE resources in your field. At the conclusion of the workshop, you will be provided instructions for writing a review of an open textbook. If you choose to write and submit this review, you will receive an educational media kit worth $200 for your participation. These reviews will be compiled and used to benefit other faculty considering the adoption of open textbooks. This workshop is open to anyone at UNF, to participate. However, the Educational Media Kit is only available for UNF faculty members who write a review of an open textbook after attending this event. Please contact Jann Sutton at j.sutton@unf.edu for enrollment information.
  
  Note: Participants in this workshop are not required to write a review; it is only required if they would like to receive the media kit.
• RETAIN & REUSE - $500-$1000
  Proposals in this category will replace their course materials using existing OERs or library materials. This would include faculty who find a comprehensive textbook or resource in the library or an existing open access ebook (OpenStax, OTN, Lumen, etc.). This would also include instances where faculty curate their own collection of OER and OA materials for use in the course when a comprehensive OER textbook is not available.
  
  Note: If 10 or fewer resources are used in the course redesign, this would fall into the Retain & Reuse Tier 1 category and participants would receive a $500 stipend. If more than 10 resources are used in the course redesign, this would fall into the Retain & Reuse Tier 2 category and participants would receive a $1000 stipend.
• REVISE & REMIX - $1000
  Proposals in this category will redesign their course materials using OERs that require faculty to revise and/or remix content to fit their needs. This could include using Pressbooks to remix an existing Openstax book but revising chapters and adding knowledge check questions, videos, and/or interactive elements. Another example might include using Pressbooks to compile a textbook for advanced biology by revising or remixing openly available chapters from various resources.
• AUTHOR - $2000
  Proposals in this category will redesign their course materials by creating a new open educational resource where there is currently no sufficient OER available to meet the learning objectives. An example might include authoring a new openly licensed textbook or collaborating with students on the creation of a new textbook.
  
  For additional information on the types of projects that fall into each category, see this Additional Examples document.
  
  If you are interested in participating in the Retain & Reuse, Revise & Remix, or Author categories of the OER Initiative, complete all areas of the online application.
  
  Note: If you are interested in using Pressbooks to author and create your own content, but you are looking at a smaller scale project than a comprehensive textbook, CIRT can still assist you with that project. In order to qualify for receiving the $2000 stipend, the project you author must be associated with at least 50% of the content in your course.
  
  To explore the creation of a smaller scale project using Pressbooks, reach out to Sarah Moukhliss, Online Learning Librarian, sarah.moukhliss@unf.edu or Jann Sutton, Senior Instructional Designer, at j.sutton@unf.edu.

Guidelines and Support

• GUIDELINES +
  • Open to professors, associate professors, assistant professors, instructors, and lecturers.
  • Special consideration given to faculty proposals with the potential for broad impact, including large enrollment and Gen Ed courses.
  • Proposals must include a letter of support from the department chair.
  • Proposals must include a description of the impact of financial savings for students.
  • Courses already using open access materials exclusively or courses where the instructional materials are already under $25 are not eligible.
• SUPPORT FOR SELECTED PROPOSALS +

  Before starting the process of transforming their courses to use OER, awardees will complete the following training workshop:

  • Kick-off Meeting/Introduction to Open Educational Resources (synchronous )

  An additional synchronous session will be held for participants mid-way through the project in order to debrief their experiences and address challenges that have arisen along the way.

  Faculty can expect to meet with an instructional designer and online learning librarian to:

  • Discuss the needs of their content and explore open access repositories and authoring platforms
  • Review library search strategies and available databases
  • Access course templates to structure OER content in Canvas
  • Review accessibility best practices

Reporting and Incentives

• REPORTING +

  Awardees will be required to:

  • Meet with instructional designers and online learning librarians to discuss open licensing, and outline technological, pedagogical, and research support.
  • Redesign the selected course, so that all required textbooks are available at no cost to students and the cost of any other supplementary instructional materials does not exceed $25.
  • Submit a final project report that includes a narrative summarizing the challenges and accomplishments of the experience of finding/using OER materials, impact on teaching, impact on students, and lessons learned.
  • Provide a copy of the revised syllabus or course outline used for the class.
  • Deposit any openly licensed materials created into an appropriate open repository (e.g. UNF Pressbooks Directory, Canvas Commons).
• INCENTIVES +
  • A stipend will be awarded for the successful completion of the OER Initiative. See stipend categories listed above. Funds will be distributed in a single payment at the completion of reporting requirements.
  • Completed reports will be highlighted on the OER Initiative Faculty Recognition webpage and CIRT Facebook page.
  • Course qualifies for the statewide Affordability Counts Initiative. Learn more about how UNF has partnered with Affordability Counts to recognize faculty who adopt low-cost materials.
  • Consider documenting your OER efforts in your promotion and tenure portfolio.

• Important Dates +
  
  

  OER Important Dates

  Important Dates	Summer 2025
  Applications Due	Use OER in a class or classes Wednesday, April 30
  Kickoff Meeting	Use Open Access research article Friday, June 13

   

• ADOPT +

  Table of OER Efforts - Adopt

  Contribution	Evidence	Research	Teaching	Service
  Use OER in a class or classes	Use OER in a class or classes For participants in the OER Initiative here at UNF, the evidence used in the P/T dossier might include the narrative summarizing the challenges and accomplishments of their experiences finding and using OER materials, its impact on teaching, impact on students, and lessons learned. Survey and gather data on how the use of an OER in class affected student learning. A similar study was conducted in British Columbia as well as in the United States via the Open Education Research Group.		Use OER in a class or classes Yes
  Use Open Access research article	Use Open Access research article Provide evidence of the Open Access Journal Articles that were used in course outline.		Use Open Access research article Yes

  To view an example of a dossier integrating the adoption and use of existing OER, see example 1.

• ADAPT +

  Table of OER Efforts - Adapt

  Contribution	Evidence	Research	Teaching	Service
  Revise others’ OER to be more relevant to student needs	Revise others’ OER to be more relevant to student needs Survey students in class to learn more about the impact the revised materials have had on their learning. A similar study was conducted in British Columbia.		Revise others’ OER to be more relevant to student needs Yes	Revise others’ OER to be more relevant to student needs Yes
  Revise or remix OER to be in alignment with course learning outcomes	Revise or remix OER to be in alignment with course learning outcomes Provide evidence on what was revised or remixed to best suit the course learning outcomes. Survey students in class to learn about the impact the revised materials had on their learning.		Revise or remix OER to be in alignment with course learning outcomes Yes

• CREATE +

  Table of OER Efforts - Create

  Contribution	Evidence	Research	Teaching	Service
  Make new OER	Make new OER When creating OER, make it available to peers for their review. Document their reviews and include those reviews in your dossier. The following is a common rubric used to review Open Textbooks.	Yes	Yes

  To view an example of a dossier integrating the adoption and use of existing OER, see example 2.

• IMPROVE LEARNING +

  Table of OER Efforts - Improve Learning

  Contribution	Evidence	Research	Teaching	Service
  Improve student outcomes	Make new OER To best understand the improvement of student outcomes, increased student engagement, innovation, and reduction in cost- survey students in your course. Review the survey and questions conducted in “A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary students”.		Make new OER Yes
  Innovation			Innovation Yes
  Increasing student engagement			Increasing student engagement Yes
  Reduce material costs to students			Reduce material costs to students Yes

• COMMUNITY +

  Table of OER Efforts - Community

  Contribution	Evidence	Research	Teaching	Service
  Mentoring others in OER	Mentoring others in OER Provide recommendation letters from mentorships and via the mentee.			Mentoring others in OER Yes
  OER leadership (change culture, policy change, lead an initiative)	OER leadership (change culture, policy change, lead an initiative) Provide a list of committees and specific actions you took related to OER and committee work. For tasks led, describe the initiative, provide evidence of change, and seek references and recommendation on the work completed.			OER leadership (change culture, policy change, lead an initiative) Yes
  Disseminate knowledge about OER	Disseminate knowledge about OER Provide list of workshops, webinars, presentations related to OER and OE advocacy.			Disseminate knowledge about OER Yes
  Peer review existing OER	Peer review existing OER Provide citations of the reviews conducted.		Peer review existing OER Yes	Peer review existing OER Yes

• RESEARCH +

  Table of OER Efforts - Research

  Contribution	Evidence	Research	Teaching	Service
  Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) about OER	Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) about OER Provide citations and links to work completed related to SOTL and OER.	Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) about OER Yes	Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) about OER Yes
  Conference Presentations	Conference Presentations Provide citations, links, recordings, and slides of the work done to disseminate OER knowledge.	Conference Presentations Yes		Conference Presentations Yes
  Grant writing	Grant writing Provide excerpts from grant proposals, including budgetary asks and narrative as to how the grant will benefit the department and/or institution.	Grant writing Yes		Grant writing Yes