Faculty Course Transformation Grant

The Open@WRLC Course Transformation Grant is a 2-year pilot program developed by the WRLC Textbook Affordability Working Group to fulfill the WRLC’s Sharing Expertise Initiative to “Identify and/or create faculty grant opportunities to support adoption of no-cost or low-cost materials for courses offered by the WRLC partners.”

Using no-cost or low-cost materials advances educational equity and directly impacts student retention and academic success. The grant program is designed to promote a community of Open Educational Resource (OER) advocates among partnering institutions, create incentive to add to the availability of open course materials, and provide monetary support to acknowledge the time and effort required for curriculum redesign when adopting OER.

To learn more, check out the other pages with more details, or attend a webinar (attendance recommended but required).

Goals

• Advance educational equity at WRLC institutions via providing centralized financial support for the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Build a sustainable infrastructure to support the Open@WRLC grant program, products, resources, and  training 
• Support the integration and creation of OER material to reduce the direct costs to students and contribute to their retention, progression, and graduation
• Establish a sustainable OER community of WRLC partners that promotes sharing of OER expertise, open pedagogy, and highlights the opportunities of OER to address diversity and inclusion in courseware material. 

Open@WRLC will offer $2,000 Course Transformation Grants to support and incentivize WRLC instructors who wish to replace their existing commercial textbook with no-cost or low-cost courseware material using Open Educational Resources (OER). Those who adopt a resource will be using existing resource(s) as-is or with minimal editorial changes.