OER Campus Kickstart: Award for Growing Illinois OER Programs

The Illinois Association of College & Research Libraries (IACRL) Awards Committee has developed the OER Campus Kickstart: Award for Growing Illinois OER Programs. This program offers a way of getting financial incentive to faculty to take on OER projects, this is an opportunity for librarians to partner with classroom faculty. 

This award provides funding for financial incentives to smaller college campuses and campuses with little or no support for OER programming to take some of their first steps. The intended outcome is collaboration between academic faculty and librarians to implement Open Educational Resources in their courses and help establish OER programs on their campus. The application deadline is Friday, August 1, 2025. 

Five awarded applications will receive $500 toward implementing OER in a course during the Winter 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters. Faculty and librarian collaborators are free to decide how the $500 award is used. For example, the funds may be used entirely as financial incentive for faculty, collaborators may split the funds how they see fit as a financial incentive, or use the funds to purchase necessary supplies. 

Faculty may adopt, adapt, remix or create OER for their chosen course. The final materials used in the course will be made broadly available using a Creative Commons license and hosted in the Open Illinois OER Commons Hub. Each pair of faculty and librarian collaborators will be required to make a presentation on their experiences and outcomes to the IACRL membership. This could take place at the 2026 Illinois Library Association Annual Conference or an IACRL webinar. Awardees will receive a 1-day registration waiver to present at the ILA Annual Conference. Presentations can be a collaborative panel discussion of multiple awardee projects or individual in nature.

The success of these projects will be assessed via a calculated estimation of cost savings to students, student success metrics (i.g. ABC pass rates, DWI rates), and student satisfaction surveys. These metrics should be included in the presentations given on the experience and outcomes of the projects. Additional metrics that help determine success unique to the awardees’ program are also encouraged. Awardees are free to determine how they collect this data.

Awardees are strongly encouraged to participate and view the professional development opportunities available below.

Webinars

  • Kickstart OER with Grant Funding, aka "So, I've Been Named Project Director/Manager...What Does That Mean?": The IACRL Conference and Continuing Education Committee hosted a one-hour discussion on initiating or advancing Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives with a focus on the Illinois State Library Grant for OER. Panelists Kim Hale at Columbia College, Chicago Library, and Lauren Kosrow from the College of DuPage Library shared their experiences with OER projects. Cathy Mayer from Elgin Community College offered a grant writer's perspective. And, Daniel Matthews, former President of IACRL and current chair of the IACRL Awards and Nomination Committees, shared information about the OER Campus Kickstart: Award for Growing Illinois OER Programs. This webinar was presented on March 7, 2024. 

  • OER Campus Kickstart: The OER Campus Kickstart: Award for Growing Illinois OER Programs is awarded to selected Illinois institutions to offer financial incentives towards the implementation of OER programs and encourage OER usage in classrooms. During this webinar, the 2023 OER Campus Kickstart awardees will discuss their institution’s programs. This webinar was presented on September 6, 2024. 

Applications demonstrating the following will be evaluated higher:

  • Small institution size based on FTE

  • Minority Serving Institution 

  • How a how a financial incentive may help set a precedent for more OER programming 

  • Campus with small, newly established, unsupported, or non-existant OER efforts

 Apply for this award

For any questions, please contact the IACRL Awards Committee Chair: Sarah McHone-Chase, IACRL Awards Committee Chair at (smchone-chase@aurora.edu ).

Eligibility

  • ​Must be a current employee, full-time or part-time, of an Illinois academic or research library (all staff eligible, regardless of level of education, including whether or not individual possess a master's degree in library science)

  • Must have identified a faculty collaboration partner that is able to implement the OER in their course

  • Membership in ILA and IACRL not required, as long as affiliated with an Illinois academic or research library or organization

Rules for Submissions

  • Only one submission per entrant/institution

  • Each submission must select a single course as the target for OER implementation

  • OER must be implemented in the Winter ‘25 and Spring ‘26 semesters in at least one section of the identified course

    • Adjunct faculty who are unsure of their class assignments for the indicated semesters can submit an alternative plan that may better reflect their typical class loads. 

  • OER implementation may be adoption, adaptation, remix, or new content creation

  • OER must be made available with a Creative Commons License

  • OER must be made available in the Open Illinois OER Commons Hub

Rubric

 Apply for this award

 

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