In most cases, there are little to no costs associated with many of our SMART goals (i.e., the student survey, forming partnerships with contacts from model programs, developing digital storytelling content and marketing materials, forming an OER working group, and conducting a listening tour). As the primary contact for OER on campus, I have already completed the Creative Commons certificate program and am near completion of the Open Textbook Network’s OER Librarianship certificate program. I will receive additional professional development at no cost if our application for the OpenStax Institutional Partner Program is accepted.  

Since our information services division represents a merger between the library and information technology, we already have the systems and technologies needed to support OER adoptions, remixes/revisions, and creation (if there is interest in the latter). We also have 3D printers and other technologies which allow us to create marketing materials in-house. 

The primary cost associated with our OER initiative is a mini grant program that is funded by The Office of the Dean of Faculty. The mini grant is designed to foster faculty engagement and adoption of OER by awarding up to six faculty a $500 stipend to identify and review OER and an additional $1,000 if they choose to incorporate the OER into a course. The mini grant program is currently on hold as the college manages the changes brought on by the pandemic, but it is expected to resume in the Fall of 2021 with a call for proposals going out in early September and decisions being made about candidates in early November of that year. 

At present, we do not have a budget for OER that goes beyond the mini grant, but this is expected to change as the budgetary issues brought on by the pandemic improve. As our program develops, we will need additional funding for the proposed faculty workshops tentatively scheduled for the Spring and Fall of 2022. We may likely share the costs if we develop these workshops in collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the CTW library consortium. The proposed dates for the workshops coincide with our projected timeline for renewing our mini grant program. We will likely offer three workshops in the Spring of 2022 on locating and evaluating OER, using/remixing/revising/creating OER, and OER-enabled pedagogy, and three workshops in the Fall of 2022 on OER and accessibility, assessing the impact of OER on student learning outcomes, and integrating OER into Moodle. 

The chart below provides a breakdown of the costs associated with the mini grant and the workshops. The figures for the workshops are estimates and are likely to change as we finalize our plans. Additional budget items may be added as we progress through our program timeline.