Are you a faculty member at Plymouth State who is interested in lowering the overall cost of college for your students? Are you willing to consider Open Educational Resources in place of commercial learning materials? If so, read on!
What is OER?
Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning materials that are licensed openly. That means that in addition to their regular copyright, these materials have Creative Commons licenses that give users permissions to freely access, share, revise, and remix the texts. OER is available digitally, but users can also print them for free or order print versions of them for just the cost of the print services. OER is helpful for a few reasons. First, it assures faculty that all students will have access to the learning materials on Day One of the course. Second, it reduces the amount of money students will have to spend on textbooks, and research shows that high textbook costs are a significant barrier to student academic success. Third, it allows maximum academic freedom to faculty, who don’t get roped into bundled deals with big publishers and don’t have to stick with just one textbook’s content because it’s too expensive to mix and match resources.
What is NOT OER?
OER refers to materials that are produced for students to help them learn. So novels and scholarly monographs, for example, are NOT the kinds of things you can replace with OER. It’s ok to ask students to buy books, especially if you are paying attention to costs and providing work-arounds (like library reserves) when books are on the required reading list. WE LOVE BOOKS! But for textbooks and other materials that are created for students– and which are usually created by scholars who are faculty members– it seems problematic to charge students on top of their tuition fees, especially when most of the money is going our to massive publishing houses in the form of astronomical profits. For textbooks and educational texts, we suggest switching to OER when you can!
OER and PSU
Did you know that Open Education is one of the three pillars of Cluster Learning? And did you know that PSU faculty unanimously adopted an OER resolution? Here it is:
Plymouth State University faculty formally acknowledge the use of open educational resources (OERs) as an innovative, learner-centered solution to the escalating cost of higher education. PSU faculty recognize the well-established correlation between the cost of learning materials and student success, and encourage the use of OERs, thereby affording students reputable and sustainable alternatives, especially to commercial textbooks and access codes. As an integral part of the PSU learning and teaching mission, faculty resolve to identify, develop, adapt, and/or adopt pedagogically-appropriate OERs whenever deemed appropriate by the instructor of record, and focus sustained effort on increasing the accessibility of these materials to all of our community’s learners.
Why OER
There is lots of outcomes data that shows that the high cost of textbooks contributes to: students dropping, failing, and withdrawing from courses; delaying time to graduation; and failing to complete college. There is also data that shows that OER contributes to: a reduction in drops, failures, and withdrawals; students electing to register for more credits per semester; and better grades. Data shows that ALL students benefit from OER, but that these benefits are more pronounced for traditionally underserved students (particularly students of color and Pell-eligible students). Virtually all studies on perception have shown that students and faculty rate OER as the same-or-better quality as commercial textbooks.
How Can I Find and Use OER?
It can take real time to covert a course from commercial resources to OER. Sometimes it’s simple. You teach a stats class, and realize you could have been using a free OpenStax textbook all along! Or you pop onto OASIS and search and find just what you need! But lots of time it takes more poking around and talking with colleagues and working with librarians to find the good stuff that really fits your needs. We know you don’t have a lot of extra time, so we are here to provide you some funding support so you can do the extra work it takes to make changes.
How You Can Get Paid Through This Grant
Lamson Learning Commons– in particular the library and the CoLab– are proud to announce a $20,000 grant from the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) to support OER course-marking. This means that in Spring 2026, PSU will begin marking courses that have no additional cost for books, so students can search for courses that way and more easily make informed decisions about their courses and how much they will cost. Most of this funding is here for faculty who want to learn about OER and explore how OER could be helpful in their courses.
Who is eligible?
Any faculty member (tenure-track; professor of practice; teaching lecturer) who is contracted to teach during the semester in which they receive the grant (including full-time faculty who would like to participate over a summer).
When can I apply?
You can apply anytime between now and May 1, 2026. Funds will be distributed first-come, first-served on a rolling basis. When you apply, you will choose one of the following periods in which to start and complete the work of your proposed project:
- Summer 2025
- Fall 2025
- January 2026
- Spring 2026
- Summer 2026
So what would I be doing?
When you apply, you will choose one of the following project categories below, each of which comes with it’s own level of funding. If you complete your project and submit your one-page report by your deadline, your payment will be disbursed.
- Replace a commercial text with OER: For a course that you will be teaching in the next year, replace one commercial text with OER. Funding level: $300
- Create a no-cost course: For a new course or current course that has costs for books, move the entire course to no-cost using a mix of OER, library resources, and free materials. Funding level: $750
- Create a Z-Degree: For an existing major at PSU, move the entire program (all courses required in the major) to no-cost using a mix of OER, library resources, and free materials. Funding level: $1500 for team lead, $750 for other participating faculty.
- Host a Design Sprint: Invite a few of your colleagues to hang out for a few hours to create a new OER or remix existing OER or work on an OER adoption project. Funding level: We will provide librarian support, meals for all, and $100 to each participant.
- Upload an OER: If you currently use an OER that is not in our NH Open repository, upload it! Take 15 minutes to learn how to use the repository, and then share the OER you use with other New Hampshire faculty. Funding level: $50 per uploaded item.
- Become a CoLab Affiliate: Want to spend a semester working on this and other OER initiatives? The CoLab would love you to help us lead this effort. We will meet with you to help you develop a workplan that moves PSU forward on OER. We have room for faculty developers, data geeks, student outreach leaders, and more. Funding level: $1500 per semester.
- Propose something else: What are we missing? You have something else around OER you want to do? Let us know what and how much funding you need, and we will consider it!
How do I apply?
Fill out this form!
But I have questions!
Seriously, just apply! We can talk after you are signed in! You know us, we will support you and we will HAPPILY JETTISON ALL EXPECTATIONS to help you do what is best for you and your students. But if you want to chat first, just email Robin DeRosa with your questions or we can set up a meeting if you want to talk about the possibilities!
