Campus Entities Most Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

• Academic Department
• Academic Division
• Assistive Technology or Disability Services Office
• E-Learning/Distance Education
• Faculty Champions(s)
• Library
• Senior Administration
• Student Government
• Teaching and Learning Center

Library Departments Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

• Scholarly Communication

Academic Subjects With Greatest OER Traction:

• Biological and related sciences
• Chemistry
• Engineering and engineering trades
• Journalism and reporting
• Library, information and archival studies
• Literature and linguistics
• Mathematics and statistics
• Physics
• Political sciences and civics

Mechanisms to Support OER Included in the Following:

• Campus Store Policy
• Library Services
• New Faculty Orientation

OER Staff Location:

• Library

Under the leadership of the Open Educational Resources (OER) unit at the University of Oklahoma (OU) Libraries, the OER Action Committee is charged with promoting the awareness, reach, and uptake of OER at the University of Oklahoma. In carrying out this responsibility the committee 1) works to increase open access to educational resources and ensures continued student success and monetary savings at OU, 2) collectively devises strategies to increase the awareness of OER among OU faculty members, staff, and the student body, 3) strengthens partnership efforts and establishes effective feedback channels with the entities represented in the committee with the aim of advancing OER initiatives throughout the university, and 4) prepares a yearly report on the activities of the committee at the end of each academic year.

Program Type:

• Task Force/Committee

Duration: 05/2017 - Present

Program Webpage: https://guides.ou.edu/oer

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

Primary OER Strategy: OER Awareness

Secondary OER Strategies: OER Adoption, OER Pedagogy, OER Publication, OER Research

Unit Housing the Program:

Library

Program Partners:

• Assistive Technology or Disability Services Office
• E-Learning/Distance Education
• Faculty Champions(s)
• Library
• Senior Administration
• Student Government
• Teaching and Learning Center

Source of Program Funding:

• Library departmental budget

The Alternative Textbook Grant incentivizes instructors to abandon costly course materials in favor of those available to students for free. Since 2014, the grant has saved OU students nearly $3.8M in course material costs. OU Libraries awards up to $2,500 for successful applications, and some colleges award discretionary matching funds. Successful applications will be categorized in one of the following ways:

Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open Educational Resources are educational materials in the public domain or released under the terms of an open license. The nature of these materials is such that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OER range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assessment tools and multimedia.

Library Resources
The term "library resources" refers to any material that OU Libraries purchases or subscribes to. Applications that propose the use of these resources do save students money; however, they do not offer the same benefits of adopting truly open materials. These grants are awarded not to instructors directly but applied to the purchase of multiple concurrent use licenses for the desired resource or "in kind" work of getting licensed resources into the LMS.

OU Libraries is dedicated to assisting all grantees through each step of adopting these practices.

Program Type:

• Grant Program

Duration: 01/2014 - Present

Program Webpage: https://guides.ou.edu/atg

Scope: Cost-free course content, including OER

Primary OER Strategy: OER Adoption

Secondary OER Strategies: OER Adaptation, OER Awareness, OER Curation, OER Pedagogy, OER Publication, OER Review/Assessment, OER Research

Unit Housing the Program:

Library

Program Partners:

• Academic Department
• Academic Division
• Library

Source of Program Funding:

• Academic department budget
• Library’s general operating budget

Funding from Library Departments:

• Scholarly Communications

Total Program Funding to Date: $ 172,000

Total Student Savings to Date: $ 3,791,776

Incentives Offered by the Program:

• Financial incentives (grants, stipends)
• Instructional design assistance
• Technical assistance

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

Total amount of incentive grants awarded to date: $ 172,000

Total number of incentive grants awarded to date: 69