University of Houston Libraries

The OER Creation Program aims to make higher education more affordable and accessible for UH students by supporting faculty in developing high-quality course materials that are free to access, share, and customize.

The OER Creation Program provides professional development and financial support for faculty to create OER that will be used as required course material in a UH course or program and that fills a gap in existing OER content. Selected teams will receive a stipend, participate in the Textbook Success Program (TSP), a year-long professional development program facilitated by the Rebus Community, and publish their completed OER on Pressbooks and in the UH Cougar ROAR repository.

The Textbook Success Program is a professional development program that equips faculty, librarians, administrators, and managers with the tools they need to make great OER. The program is one year long and comprises two phases:

• Phase 1: 12 weekly themed sessions with your cohort to give you an overview of the open publishing process, and help you scope your work.
• Phase 2: Hands-on stage where you and your team work on your OER projects, with a mix of group check-ins with your cohort and 1:1 support sessions with your facilitator. We will alternate between a monthly cohort meeting and an individual support check-in with your team and your facilitator.

Participants will join a group made up of project teams from UH and potentially teams from other institutions. The TSP is facilitated by OER publishing professionals and program alumni, and is built with community, collaboration, and engagement in mind. At the end of the TSP, you will:

1. Get to know Rebus’ collaborative open publishing approach with open education peers in a supportive learning environment
2. Connect and contribute to the OER community (eg.: process of being in TSP, learning and OER that comes out of it, relationships)
3. Reflect on your current pedagogical practices with the goal of creating your OER with learning experiences that are accessible, equitable, and inclusive
4. Create an efficient workflow and apply best practices that help your project progress in due time, with guidance from your Rebus facilitator and other cohort members
5. Gain confidence using open approaches and tools to advance your project and grow its user community
6. Build and strengthen institutional capacity for current and future open publishing projects
7. Recognize and grow your open education leadership skills

Project teams can include UH faculty, instructors, and instructional designers. We encourage teams to include a mix of these roles to adequately support the OER production process.

Applications must consist of two to four project team members.

Proposals must be for the creation of an open educational resource(s) (OER) that:

• Will be used as required course materials for a UH course or program
• Fills a gap within existing OER content in the subject area
• Primarily consists of newly-authored content and/or significant adaptation of existing OER content

Awards range from $5,000 to $10,000 for each project team and are taxable income. Half will be distributed upon acceptance and half will be distributed when all requirements are met.

Individuals must be on active payroll for awards to be distributed. Project teams will be able to decide how the award will be distributed among individuals.

The following is the expected program timeline:

• Applications due April 8, 2022
• Awardees notified and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), April 2022
• Participate in the 1-year TSP course*:
  • Phase 1 (May-August 2022) - 12 weekly meetings
  • Phase 2 (September 2022-May 2023) - 9 monthly meetings
• Submit a revised project plan, September 2022
• Deposit published OER to Cougar ROAR and OERTX, June 2023**
• Submit final report, June 2023

* The TSP start date is to be determined and may be later than May 2022

** The completion date for published OER can be flexible, depending on the project needs and timeline

The following criteria will be used in selecting awardees and determining award amounts:

• Demonstrated need for newly-developed OER
• Contributions to the UH Strategic Plan Student Success Goal
• Degree of project difficulty and need for support of the Textbook Success Program
• Feasibility of successful OER creation
• Overall quality and clarity of application

The following may also be considered:

• Level of support from college or departmental leadership
• Size of project team

• Participate in the 1-year professional development course, the Textbook Success Program, facilitated by the Rebus Community
• Submit a revised project plan upon completion of Phase 1 of the TSP (August 2022)
• Author/create a new open educational resource (OER) for use in a UH course or program
• License completed work with an open license (Creative Commons)
• Make the work available on Pressbooks, UH’s platform for OER publishing
• Maximize the accessibility of resources created
• Archive in Cougar ROAR, UH’s open access institutional repository, and the OERTX repository
• Submit a final report

• Award of up to $10,000 for the project team. One half will be distributed upon acceptance, and one half will be distributed when all requirements are met.
• Cover the cost to participate in the Textbook Success Program from the Rebus Community
• Individual consultations to support project
• Assistance searching for open educational resources
• Copyright and Creative Commons licensing guidance
• Assistance archiving work in Cougar ROAR and OERTX
• Access to Pressbooks and assistance with using the publishing platform

Applications are not being accepted at this time. Information on future iterations of the OER Creation Program will be shared when available.  View the 2022 application form.

View an OER Creation Program Information Session recording and slides.

If you have questions about the program, please contact oer@uh.edu.