UHCC OER Incentive Program

The University of Hawai‘i Community Colleges (UHCC) are a part of the global Open Educational Resources (OER) movement to reduce textbook and learning material costs for students and to provide quality education. Research shows that students do better when taught with OER. Information about UHCC's work is found at the UHCC OER website.

With the support of the UH Office of the Vice President for Community Colleges and our colleges' administrators, the community colleges contribute funding and personnel time to support a UHCC Open Textbook Incentive Program. This program provides OER training and support for eligible UHCC faculty, lecturers, and APTs who wish to modify or create a textbook, or convert a course to Textbook Cost: $0 (TXT0). OER professional development will be offered in fall and spring and we encourage you to sign up. For those who complete a fall training and are ready to start an OER project, we hope you will also apply for a modification or creation award.

This professional development gives you the basics for understanding what OER are and how to use them as teaching materials. It will give you basic copyright, fair use, and licensing information and open your world to the more than one billion open educational resources online. You will receive the foundation you need to add OER to your class, to adopt and modify OER, or create new OER. This knowledge is essential if you want to move your course to Textbook Cost: $0 (TXT0). Estimated time for work: 15-20 hours.

You can sign up for an asynchronous, 6-module course in Lamakū at any time, up to March 31, 2025. Faculty can take until April 30, 2025 to complete* if they wish to receive compensation.

Lecturers must complete the course the semester they enroll. If you are a lecturer and enroll in fall, you must complete the course by December 15, 2024 if you wish to get compensation. If you enroll in spring, you must complete the course by April 30, 2025 to receive compensation.

UHCC participants will be compensated $360** for completing the requirements of the course and will receive an official UHCC OER 101 certificate or badge. Forty seats have been set aside for OER 101.

If you plan to apply for the Modification Award (OERMA) or Creation Award (OERCA) (see below), you will need to complete OER 101 by December 31. The OERMA is for modifying a textbook or course and the OERCA is for creating a textbook or course to OER or Textbook Cost: $0.

* If you plan to apply for the Modification (OERMA) or Creation (OERCA) Awards (see below), you will need to complete the Async OER 101 by December 31.

** All incentive payments will be processed as overload, subject to participant eligibility.

If you are committed to converting an AY 2025-26 course to Textbook Cost: $0 and are ready to modify existing open materials or create your own, we can support you. In order for your proposal to be accepted, you will need to show that you have completed OER 101 professional development. This could be prior completion of an introduction to OER training offered through UH, current registration in UHCC OER 101, or prior OER work (requires prior approval from your UHCC OER Grant Program lead). Past Open Textbook Library Reviewer Training workshops do not apply as sufficient prior professional development. Deadline to apply for OER Modification and Creation awards is Thursday, October 31, 2024, 11:59 PM.

We are looking for subject matter experts who are committed to using an open textbook and want to either modify the textbook with customized, updated, and/or localized content OR subject matter experts who wish to create ancillary support materials for an existing open textbook or course. Projects can be proposed by a single author or by teams of up to four. Ancillary materials could include:

• Test banks of questions based on an existing open textbook

• Presentations (PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc) to accompany an open textbook

• Multimedia such as audio or video content that could further enhance the open textbook

• Instructor and/or student manuals accompanying an open textbook

• Assignments and other additional learning activities including open pedagogical practices

The award amounts are as follows:

• $600-$1,800* for one UHCC author (amount based on project proposal)

• $1,200-$3,600* total for a team (maximum of four UHCC authors)

If approved, a project timeline will be created and agreed upon with checkpoints and deliverables. All checkpoints and deliverables must be submitted no later than April 30, 2025.

The goal of this award is to support you in creating and sharing your open educational materials, making them available for other instructors who are adopting, modifying, and creating materials for their students. Authors are expected to publish their textbooks on an approved public platform, for example, UH Pressbooks or LibreTexts and share ancillaries in the UH OER repository. We will help with training and support.

Deliverables:

• By April 30, 2025, authors are expected to have, in draft, eight weeks of coursework or eight textbook chapters modified. They should be ready to teach with the final material in fall 2025 or spring 2026, depending on when the course is offered.

• Depending on the scope of the project, final course deliverables are due in AY 2025-2026.

• The course must be marked TXT0 for the AY 2025-2026 semesters and summer sessions that it is offered.

• The textbook or course must be published on an approved public platform for sharing.

• Authors must license their textbooks and courses with a Creative Commons license. The textbook must not be for-profit or created with the purpose of selling to a publisher. The OER textbook must be openly licensed and freely shareable according to one of the following licenses: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA.

Award payments will be disbursed by the end of Summer 2025.

Deadline to apply is Thursday, October 31, 2024, 11:59 PM.

We welcome subject matter experts who would like to convert a 2025-2026 course requiring a single (for-cost) textbook to a Textbook-cost: $0 course through the creation or authorship of new, openly-licensed educational resources. Projects can be proposed by a single author or by teams of up to four.

The award amounts are as follows:

• Up to $2,400* for one author (amount based on project proposal)

• Up to $4,800* total for a team (maximum of four UHCC authors)

If approved, a project timeline will be created and agreed upon with checkpoints and deliverables. All checkpoints and deliverables must be submitted no later than April 30, 2025.

The goal of this award is to support you in creating and sharing your open educational materials, making them available for other instructors who are adopting, modifying, and creating materials for their students. Authors are expected to publish their textbooks on an approved public platform, for example, UH Pressbooks or LibreTexts. We will help with training and support.

Deliverables:

• By April 30, 2025, authors are expected to have, in draft, eight weeks of coursework or eight textbook chapters and be ready to teach with the final material in fall 2024 or spring 2025, depending on when the course is offered.

• Depending on the scope of the project, final course deliverables are due in AY 2024-2025.

• The course must be marked TXT0 for the AY 2024-2025 semesters and summer sessions that it is offered.

• The textbook or course must be published on an approved public platform for sharing.

• Authors must license their textbooks and courses with a Creative Commons license. The textbook must not be for-profit or created with the purpose of selling to a publisher. The OER textbook must be openly licensed and freely shareable according to one of the following licenses: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA.
  

Award payments will be disbursed by the end of Summer 2025.

Deadline to apply is Thursday, October 31, 2024, 11:59 PM.

Who will own the copyright for resources I produce?

As an open educational resource, copyright will remain with the content author(s). However, to be eligible for funding, the new resources must be openly licensed and freely shareable according to one of the following Creative Commons licenses:

• CC BY
  
• CC BY-SA
• CC BY-NC
• CC BY-NC-SA

Can work be done collaboratively?

Yes, for OER modification or creation projects. There needs to be a project lead, but teams up to 4 people can submit a proposal. At minimum, the project lead must be a subject matter expert who is committed to implementing the created resource(s). A staff (APT) member might be eligible for a team if they will play a major role in the development of the resources.

Is this for faculty only or can lecturers and APT apply?

• Lecturers can apply for an OER modification or creation project individually or as part of a team, but compensation eligibility may not be approved until employment in spring 2025 is verified.
  
• A staff (APT) member might be eligible for an OER modification or creation project team if they will play a major role in the development of the resources and obtain supervisor approval.

If you have any questions, please contact your campus UHCC OER Grant Program lead or email uhccoer@hawaii.edu.

The University of Hawai‘i does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, color, national origin, or disability. For inquiries regarding our nondiscrimination policies, please contact your campus designee noted on the UHCC Nondiscrimination Policy.