Open Educational Resources (OERs) at Saint Mary's College

The SMC Library is excited to offer an Open Textbook Creation Grant in Summer 2022 for faculty to create or adapt an open textbook as a Saint Mary's College course textbook.

OERs (Open Educational Resources), which include open textbooks) are learning materials that are free, digital, and licensed for other instructors to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute.

Librarians will support faculty participants in creating or adapting open textbooks via a grant cohort workshop, meetings, and optional individual consultations. The Library is pleased to offer a $500 grant per faculty member, thanks to a generous donation to the Library.

Faculty will attend a 2-day workshop led by an OER expert trainer and librarians. In this workshop, faculty will learn where/how to find resources to adapt (modify or remix) or create an open textbook for a course they teach. At the completion of the workshop, faculty will submit a plan/outline for their OER textbook.

Eligibility

Saint Mary's College ranked faculty, visiting faculty, and salaried adjuncts are eligible to apply.

Requirements

Required meetings:

• Part 1, June 1, 2022 9:30-11:30 AM - Pedagogy workshop (Virtual meeting): Faculty attend a workshop led by OER trainer, Jasmine Roberts-Crews.
• Part 2, June 2, 2022 9:30-11:30 AM - Community of practice working session (In-person meeting): Faculty collaborate and conduct hands-on research for their OER textbook. Learn about using Pressbooks, an open book creation platform.

Required deliverables:

• A detailed plan/outline of OER textbook at the end of the workshop.

Timeline

March 7-11, 2022: Open Education Week & Workshop Registration opens

April 15, 2022: Registration deadline

June 1-2, 2022: Open Textbook Creation workshop. June 1: online; June 2: in-person

June 2022: $500 grants will be disbursed upon submission of deliverables (due one week after workshop)

Contact

Questions? Contact Swetta Abeyta, Systems and Digital Initiatives Librarian and Chair of the SMC Open Access/Open Educational Resources Committee.

About the Trainer

Jasmine Roberts-Crews will be leading Part 1 of the workshop, on June 1, 2022.

Jasmine Roberts-Crews is a lecturer in the School of Communication at the Ohio State University, where she teaches in the areas of public relations writing, digital activism and campaign strategy. Her advocacy work centers on the experiences of people of color and women. Along with her communication expertise, Jasmine is also a renowned open education leader. She has delivered numerous keynote presentations across the country on the topics of inclusion in open education. She is the author of the highly-rated, openly-licensed book Writing for Strategic Communication Industries. In her spare time, she loves to connect with her green babies (52 plants total), fur babies (2 dogs), and family.

The SMC Library is offering open textbook stipends to faculty in Spring 2022 to review an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library. 

The grant, in partnership with Loyola Marymount University (LMU), allows for 15 faculty from SMC and 15 faculty from LMU to publish a review of a textbook in the Open Textbook Library in exchange for a $250 stipend. 

Requirements: 

• Faculty must attend one online workshop that will be offered on two dates:
  • February 16th, 1-2:30pm
  • February 17th, 3-4:40pm
• Faculty must submit a review of an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library by March 21st, 2022. 
• Deadline to register for the grant is February 10th, 2022. 

Eligibility: 

Saint Mary's College ranked faculty, visiting faculty, and salaried adjuncts are eligible to apply.

Registration: 

To register before the February 10th deadline, click here: bit.ly/ExploreOpen 

To learn more about Open Educational Resources, we encourage you to read our OER guide.