AY 2025-26 Professional Learning and Incentive Program opens 9/8/25

OER Award Program

OER Modification and Creation Awards

2025-2026 application period opens September 8, 2025

If you are committed to converting a course to Textbook Cost: $0 and are ready to modify existing open materials or create your own, we would like to support you in this work. Proposers must have completed one of the following to qualify:

Completed OER 101 professional learning course;
Completed other non-UHCC OER training (subject to approval);
Complete OER 101 by December 1, 2025;

Deadline to apply is October 6, 2025.

See details and proposal forms below

The UHCC OER Incentive Program is supported by the chancellors of the University of Hawai‘i Community Colleges and the Office of the Vice President for Community Colleges.

Past Awardees: 2024-25, 2023-24, 2022-23, and 2021-22

OER Modification Award (OERMA)

We are looking for subject matter experts committed to using an open textbook and want to either modify the textbook with customized, updated, and localized content OR subject matter experts who wish to create ancillary support materials for an existing open textbook or course. Projects can be proposed by a single author or teams of no more than four. Ancillary materials could include:

Test banks of questions based on an existing open textbook
Presentations (PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.) to accompany an open textbook
Multimedia such as audio or video content that could further enhance the open textbook
Instructor and/or student manuals accompanying an open textbook
Assignments and other additional learning activities, including open pedagogical practices

The award amounts are as follows:

$600-$1,800* for one UHCC author (amount based on project proposal)
$1,200-$3,600* total for a team (maximum of four UHCC authors)

If approved, a project timeline will be created and agreed upon with checkpoints and deliverables. All checkpoints and deliverables must be submitted no later than May 1, 2026.

Click for more details and to apply

The goal of this award is to support you in creating and sharing your open educational materials, making them available for other instructors who are adopting, modifying, and creating materials for their students. Authors are expected to publish their textbooks on an approved public platform, for example UH Pressbooks, LibreTexts, or UH OER Commons, and share ancillaries in the UH OER repository or UH OER Commons. If in Laulima, a copy of the course must be provided to UHCC OER that will serve as a template available for others to copy and use. We will help with training and support.

Deliverables

By May 1, 2026, authors are expected to have, in draft, eight weeks of coursework or eight textbook chapters modified. They should be ready to teach with the final material in fall 2026 or spring 2027, depending on when the course is offered.
Depending on the scope of the project, final course deliverables are due in AY 2025-2026.
Courses must be marked TXT0 for the AY 2026-2027 semesters and summer sessions they are offered.
The textbook or course must be published on an approved public platform for sharing or, if in Lamakū, a copy of the course must be provided to UHCC OER that will serve as a template available for others to copy and use.
Authors must license their textbooks and courses with a Creative Commons license. The textbook must not be for-profit or created with the purpose of selling to a publisher. The OER textbook must be openly licensed and freely shareable according to one of the following licenses: CC BY, CC BY-SA,CC BY-NC,CC BY-NC-SA.

Awards will be disbursed as overload payments by the end of Summer 2026.

2025-2026 OER Modification Award (OERMA) Proposal form

Deadline to apply is October 6, 2025

OER Creation Award

We welcome subject matter experts who would like to convert a AY 2026-2027 course requiring a single (for-cost) textbook to a Textbook Cost: $0 (TXT0) course through the creation or authorship of new, openly-licensed educational resources. Projects can be proposed by a single author or teams of no more than four.

The award amounts are as follows:

Up to $2,400* for one author (amount based on project proposal)
Up to $4,800* total for a team (maximum of four UHCC authors)

If approved, a project timeline will be created and agreed upon with checkpoints and deliverables. All checkpoints and deliverables must be submitted no later than May 1, 2026.

Click for more details and to apply

The goal of this award is to support you in creating and sharing your open educational materials, making them available for other instructors who are adopting, modifying, and creating materials for their students. Authors are expected to publish their textbooks on an approved public platform, for example UH Pressbooks, LibreTexts, or UH OER Commons. If in Laulima, a copy of the course must be provided to UHCC OER that will serve as a template available for others to copy and use. We will help with training and support.

Deliverables:

By May 1, 2026, authors are expected to have, in draft, eight weeks of coursework or eight textbook chapters and be ready to teach with the final material in fall 2026 or spring 2027, depending on when the course is offered.
Depending on the scope of the project, final course deliverables are due in AY 2025-2026.
Courses must be marked TXT0 for the AY 2026-2027 semesters and summer sessions they are offered.
The textbook or course must be published on an approved public platform for sharing or, if in Lamakū, a copy of the course must be provided to UHCC OER that will serve as a template available for others to copy and use.
Authors must license their textbooks and courses with a Creative Commons license. The textbook must not be for-profit or created with the purpose of selling to a publisher. The OER textbook must be openly licensed and freely shareable according to one of the following licenses: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA.

Awards will be disbursed as overload payments by the end of Summer 2026.

2025-2026 OER Creation Award (OERCA) Proposal form

Deadline to apply is October 6, 2025

Frequently Asked Questions

Who will own the copyright for resources I produce?

As an open educational resource, copyright will remain with the content author(s). However, to be eligible for funding, the new resources must be openly licensed and freely shareable according to one of the following Creative Commons licenses:

Can work be done collaboratively?

Yes, for OER modification or creation projects. There needs to be a project lead, but teams up to 4 people can submit a proposal. At minimum, the project lead must be a subject matter expert that is committed to implement the created resource(s). A staff (APT) member might be eligible for a team if they will play a major role in the development of the resources.

Is this for faculty only or can lecturers and APT apply?

Lecturers and staff (APT) members can apply for the Open Textbook Reviewer Training.
Lecturers can apply individually or as part of a team, but compensation eligibility may not be approved until employment in the spring semester is verified.
A staff (APT) member might be eligible for a OER modification or creation project team if they will play a major role in the development of the resources and obtain supervisor approval.

Can I review any Open Textbook?

No. At this time, we are only providing funding for reviews of open textbooks from the Open Textbook Library. The review will be posted on the Open Textbook Library under an open license, where it can also help other faculty to decide if adopting open educational resources is right for their course.

Attributions and Licenses

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Unless otherwise noted, the content in this site is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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