Help Lower Textbook Costs for Students
Are you an instructor who is concerned about the impact of high textbook costs on your students?
Students are already facing new hardships due to illness and unemployment. This is the right time to make changes to your course materials that enable students to manage their budgets.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Openly licensed course materials can help alleviate the burden of textbook costs for students and provide faculty with content that can be customized for their course. They are available online for free, or in print at low cost. The open license gives permission to revise and share without violating the author’s copyright.
Attend the Virtual OER Review Workshop and learn more about OER in your field. After the workshop, if you write a short review of an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library, you’ll receive a $200 stipend. You also have the option of reviewing OER not in the Open Textbook Library for a $300 stipend (you may need to use multiple resources or consult with a librarian to find a curriculum that adds up to a whole term of content coverage).
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
- You must register to attend the virtual workshop in advance and log into Zoom using a name that is recognizable from your registration (we are using the Zoom waiting room to prevent trolls).
- If you have already attended a past workshop and want to write another review, contact your local OER point person to request a new survey link.
- You can review more than one OER as long as the materials are applicable to courses that you are scheduled to teach (in other words, the purpose of this workshop is to encourage use of OER; generating reviews is secondary).
- The workshop slides and recording will be sent to participants after the session in case you are interrupted.
- The review deadline is 6 weeks after the workshop date.
Workshop Dates & Registration Links
May 5, 12-1: https://open.umn.edu/network/workshops/virtual-oer-review-workshop
May 13, 12-1: https://open.umn.edu/network/workshops/virtual-oer-review-workshop-05-13-20
May 19, 12-1: https://open.umn.edu/network/workshops/virtual-oer-review-workshop-05-19-20
May 20, 12-1: https://open.umn.edu/network/workshops/virtual-oer-review-workshop-05-20-20
May 22, 12-1: https://open.umn.edu/network/workshops/virtual-oer-review-workshop-05-22-20
