Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Open Education Initiative Mini-grants Will Be Available in the Spring

Are you interested in bringing down the cost of textbooks for your students?  A new program at UNCG encourages you to do so.

At the Faculty Senate Scholarly Communications Forum recently the Office of the Provost and the University Libraries announced that they are joining together to support faculty interested in providing their students with a less expensive yet educationally rewarding alternative to expensive commercial textbooks.

The high cost of commercial textbooks (print and electronic) is a major concern for both students and their parents.  UNCG’s Open Education Initiative stipend program encourages instructors to use low-cost or free alternatives to expensive course materials; these can include open-access scholarly resources, Library-licensed and owned resources, and learning objects and texts that faculty create themselves.

Ten $1000 mini-grants will be available in the spring of 2015. These modest yet significant mini-grants are meant to offer an incentive for the time it will take faculty to identify new resources, adjust syllabi, and modify assignments and can also be used to cover any actual expenses you incur.

Application announcements will be forthcoming in the spring of 2015.