Campus Entities Most Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

• Assistive Technology or Disability Services Office
• Campus Store
• Faculty Champions(s)
• Library
• Senior Administration
• Student Government
• Teaching and Learning Center

Library Departments Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

• Administration
• Scholarly Communication
• University Press

Academic Subjects With Greatest OER Traction:

• Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary
• Chemistry
• Earth sciences
• Education
• Engineering and engineering trades
• Environment
• Literature and linguistics
• Mathematics and statistics
• Physics

Mechanisms to Support OER Included in the Following:

• Library Services
• New Faculty Orientation
• New Student Orientation
• Professional Development
• University Press/Publishing

OER Staff Location:

• Library

The Miller Open Education Mini-Grants are co-sponsored by Iowa State University's Library, Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching, and the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost. They have been created to provide funding to instructors who are interested in adopting, updating, or creating an Open Educational Resource (OER) for use in one of their courses. The funding is being provided to offset the time and effort required of instructors to integrate OER into their courses effectively.

Program Type:

• Grant Program

Duration: 02/2018 - Present

Program Webpage: https://www.oer.iastate.edu/apply-mini-grant

Scope: OER (open course content)

Primary OER Strategy: OER Adoption

Secondary OER Strategies: OER Adaptation, OER Curation, OER Pedagogy, OER Publication

Unit Housing the Program:

Library

Program Partners:

• Library
• Senior Administration
• Teaching and Learning Center

Source of Program Funding:

• Library’s general operating budget
• President, Chancellor, or Provost’s budget

Total Program Funding to Date: $ 80,000

Total Student Savings to Date: $ 152,700

Incentives Offered by the Program:

• Financial incentives (grants, stipends)
• Instructional design assistance
• Professional development
• Award or public recognition

Conditions: Recipients are required to openly license and freely share resources created or adapted

Total amount of incentive grants awarded to date: $ 80,000

Total number of incentive grants awarded to date: 23

Typical amount of each grant: $ 3,300

Links:
Assessment Instrument

This charge is based on the Colorado Boulder's OER Committee Charge, 2018.
To affirm, enable, and expand its work in support of OER at ISU, the Senior Vice President and Provost charges the Open and Affordable Education Committee as follows:
• Examine national trends regarding OER and make recommendations regarding best practices of their use
• Examine the current use of OER across ISU and make recommendations to increase their use while respecting faculty rights and responsibilities
• Identify any impediments to OER and other affordable course materials adoption at ISU
• Explore additional affordable course material initiatives that could be developed in the future
• Continue to lead and administer the committee’s existing OER initiatives

Duration: 01/2019 - Present

Policy Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

Links:
Policy Text

The Iowa State University Student Government recommends that professors and instructors utilize Open Education Resources, thus making it more feasible for students to obtain full access to course materials.

Duration: 10/2017 - Present

Policy Type: Resolution/Declaration

Policy Scope: OER (open course content)

Governance Level: Student Government

Links:
Policy Text

Open educational resources are used across the world by instructors who want to save their students money and gain more control over how they teach. This hands-on workshop will introduce major OER repositories and strategies for locating and evaluating resources in various disciplines.

Date: Feb. 6, 2019 - Feb. 6, 2019

Event Type:

• Workshop/Professional Development

Event themes:

• Other

Scope: OER (open course content)

Approximate Attendees: 4

Links:
Event Summary

Join us for a panel discussion on the impact of OER in the classroom. Miller Open Education Mini-Grant recipients will share the benefits and challenges of making the switch to OER and why they chose to apply for the grant. Participants will leave the workshop with plans for incorporating OER into their courses and a pathway to making their classes more affordable.

Date: March 7, 2019 - March 7, 2019

Event Type:

• Panel/Roundtable

Event themes:

• Open Education Week

Scope: OER (open course content)

Approximate Attendees: 12

Links:
Event Summary

At this pop-up event in the Library lobby, students can come by our booth to share their experience with textbooks. Submit an anonymous note or sign up to participate in a video showcasing the different perspectives of students at ISU! Have you used an immediate access text in your class or a free open textbook? Want to learn more about these and other affordable options? Talk to us!

Date: March 5, 2019 - March 5, 2019

Event themes:

• Open Education Week

Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

Approximate Attendees: 28

Links:
Event Summary
Promotional Material

This workshop explores how faculty can effectively utilize Open Educational Resources (OER) in their Canvas course by applying the Quality Matters (QM) rubric. Under the mediation of the workshop facilitators, participants will use the QM rubric to evaluate two online courses and discuss ways in which the QM rubric's guidelines have or have not been met.
Since OER are free to access and reuse by design, all the materials in the example OER course will be navigable for participants, allowing a more in-depth review of the course. In addition to learning about the QM rubric and the course review process, participants will learn how they can apply the QM rubric when linking or sharing online content with students.

Date: Oct. 14, 2020 - Oct. 14, 2020

Event Type:

• Event Series
• Webcast
• Workshop/Professional Development

Event themes:

• Other

Scope: OER (open course content)

Approximate Attendees: 6

Links:
Event Summary

Are you interested in open educational resources (OER)? Learn more from ISU's OER Trailblazers at this casual networking event over free coffee. This will be a great opportunity to hear from Miller Open Education Mini-Grant recipients about their experiences with OER and to ask them questions about their processes.
(This event was cancelled due to COVID-19)

Date: March 6, 2019 - March 6, 2019

Event Type:

• Workshop/Professional Development
• Other

Event themes:

• Open Education Week

Scope: OER (open course content)

Links:
Event Summary

A panel discussion on the impact of OER in the classroom. Faculty using Open Educational Resources (OER) in their courses share the benefits and challenges of making the switch to OER and students share their opinion on how OER could affect their learning. Faculty representatives include instructors from Astronomy, Biology, Mathematics, History, Information Literacy, and Music.

Date: Oct. 24, 2017 - Oct. 24, 2017

Event Type:

• Panel/Roundtable

Scope: Cost-free course content, including OER

Approximate Attendees: 25

Links:
Event Summary

This seminar introduced the problem of textbook costs for students and the alternatives available to faculty, from utilizing online materials and websites to adopting and creating Open Educational Materials. The seminar was presented by Emma Molls and Kelly Thompson, two past Iowa State University librarians, and hosted by ISU's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT).

Date: March 23, 2016 - March 23, 2016

Event Type:

• Talk/Presentation

Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

Approximate Attendees: 25

Links:
Event Summary
Slides

In this workshop, two librarians explained what OER are and how they can be used by faculty to help their students, a representative of the university bookstore shared how the bookstore supports OER adoption and other affordable alternatives to textbooks, and a representative from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching discussed best practices for integrating OER into faculty members' online courses and lms.

Date: Sept. 19, 2017 - Sept. 19, 2017

Event Type:

• Talk/Presentation

Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

Approximate Attendees: 11

Links:
Event Summary

This hands-on workshop introduced major OER repositories and strategies for locating and evaluating resources in various disciplines. Participants left the workshop with the skills necessary to effectively locate, evaluate, edit, and integrate an Open Educational Resource into their course.

Date: Feb. 9, 2018 - Feb. 9, 2018

Event Type:

• Workshop/Professional Development

Scope: OER (open course content)

Approximate Attendees: 6

Links:
Promotional Material

This event introduced participants to the Miller Open Education Mini-Grants available at ISU and the most important aspects of the application process. Participants were encouraged to ask questions about the grants, the application process, and OER in general.

Date: March 5, 2018 - March 5, 2018

Event Type:

• Talk/Presentation

Scope: OER (open course content)

Approximate Attendees: 8

Links:
Event Summary

Go To Resource

This brochure is a short introduction to the topic of OER. It includes a definition of OER, how faculty and students can assign/access materials, and an FAQ.

Resource Permissions:
CC BY

Resource Citation:
"Open Educational Resources brochure" by Abbey Elder is available under a Creative Commons 4.0 license. Its FAQ was adapted from "FAQ: Open Educational Resources" by Nicole Allen of SPARC.

Go To Resource

This brochure provides a short overview of the affordable course content initiatives in place at Iowa State University, including OER, course reserves, Immediate Access programs, and other affordable solutions (book rentals, course packets, etc).

Go To Resource

Iowa State University is poised to build a more systematic approach to reducing the cost of course content for our students by utilizing affordable materials, such as Open Educational Resources (OER), library licensed materials, and Immediate Access content. This infographic pulls together data from each of the major initiatives headed by the Open & Affordable Education Committee in a snappy graphical format for ease of browsing.