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Scholarly Communication

Course Material Fellowship Program Accepting Applications through September 15

The IU Libraries’ Course Material Fellowship Program is now accepting applications from faculty at the IU Bloomington, IUPUI, IUPUC, and IUFW campuses for the 2021-2022 academic year. These applications are due September 15. The CMFP successfully launched in 2020 with the goal of promoting Open Educational Resources (OER) as a means of mitigating the high costs of a college education. The CMFP provides instructors with the support of librarians, OER experts, and instructional technologists as they implement OER. Starting in October 2021, new fellows will learn about OER through a workshop series and individual consultations. They will then develop and implement OER for use in courses in the 2022-2023 academic year. Faculty can find more information about the CMFP at our FAQ page.

Our 2020 pilot group of CMFP fellows have developed OER and other affordable course materials, which will enrich the IU campuses’ teaching and learning. We have learned from the pilot group how to strengthen our support for faculty. As a result of the feedback gained and lessons learned from our pilot group of CMFP fellows, the CMFP is implementing several important changes, detailed below, for the 2021-2022 year.

OER are transformational because they can dramatically cut students’ costs and ensure that all students have access to course texts from the first day of class. Moreover, OER are shared under intellectual licenses which allow others to reuse, revise, remix, retain, and redistribute them. This means that faculty can, in many cases, find existing OER, adapt and modify them to the specific goals and needs of their course, and then share this work with others. OER creators and scholars aim to make educational materials accessible and collaborative and to advance the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

The CMFP application asks applicants to review currently available OER to identify if they will adopt, adapt, or create an OER during their time in the program. In order to assess the impact of each fellow’s participation, the CMFP application asks about the number of students in their course’s section(s) and the cost of currently required textbook(s). This information allows the CMFP Implementation Group to select fellows based on the biggest impact on students. 

The CMFP application includes questions which align with these goals of increasing cost savings, enabling adaptability, and advancing diversity and equity. Based on whether or not OER relevant to their course goals currently exist, faculty will do one of the following three tiers of implementation:

  • Adopt an existing OER for use in their class.
  • Adapt OER, or in other words, modify and/or customize an existing OER to fit their instructional goals.
  • Create an OER if no relevant OER textbook currently exists. 

 As a result of the feedback gained and lessons learned from our pilot group of CMFP fellows, the CMFP is implementing several important changes for the 2021-2022 year. These changes are as follows:

  • Timeline: We have pushed up the deadline for accepting applications, notifying fellows of their acceptance, and beginning workshops. This means that fellows will gain 2-3 extra months for developing and implementing materials for fall 2022. 
  • Stipends and Tiers: Each stipend will be awarded based on the tier of OER implementation and the associated work involved. Adopt fellows will gain a maximum $1,000 stipend; adapt fellows a maximum $3,000 stipend; and create fellows a maximum $5,000 stipend.
  • Emphasis: Although we welcome faculty from all teaching areas to apply, we are especially interested in fellows teaching general education courses. Many OER already exist for general education courses, so instructors of these courses would be ideal fellows for adoption or adaptation.

CMFP participation is valuable for faculty not only because it encourages the use of OER and their associated benefits, but also because it enhances this use through support. Faculty gain support and guidance from the CMFP Implementation Group in the form of consultations, technological support, workshops, and Canvas materials. The feedback from our pilot faculty fellows has been overwhelmingly positive. As one fellow put it:

“I think this has been great and I’m thrilled to be a part of it!”

CMFP fellow finalists will be notified in mid-October and workshops will begin in late October 2021. Fellows will begin to develop and implement their OER materials in January 2022. 

Faculty can find more information about the Course Materials Fellowship Program, including a link to the Qualtrics application, here. You can also preview this application as a PDF. Please feel free to email Sarah Hare (iusw@iu.edu) if you have any questions!

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