MSU Denver

About OER Grants

In spring 2018, House Bill 18-1331 created a grant program to fund open educational resource (OER) initiatives at public universities and colleges in Colorado. MSU Denver has been fortunate to receive three years of grant funding, totaling $196,000.

These funds have been used to increase faculty awareness of OER and increase their use at MSU Denver.

Our Progress

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2015-2016

MSU Denver had fewer than 100 students in OER courses.

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2020-2021

In less than two years, OER grants allowed us to serve 11,200 students.

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Present

In 2020-21, students saved up to $1,000,000 through OER adoption across a wide range of courses.

State of Colorado Continues OER Support

In spring 2021, Senate Bill 21-215 continued the state support of OER for another five years. We look forward to sharing additional grant funded OER work in the future.

OER Grants

Additional detail about outcomes from each of the years of funding are available below.

Read the featured Early Bird article

MSU Denver received a $60,000 grant in Spring 2019 to start our Open Roadrunners program

The 19/20 OER grant funding supported faculty incentives in three categories related to OER awareness and adoption.

  • A total of 70 faculty attended open textbook review workshops and earned $200 after writing a review of an open textbook.
  • We held four semester-long faculty learning communities (FLCs) with a total of 31 faculty participants who received $500 stipends.
  • We offered three rounds of OER adoption stipends. Three faculty earned $500 in our Summer 2019 pilot phase, 27 faculty received $750 OER adoption awards in Fall 2019, and another 21 received $750 awards in Spring 2020.

These efforts resulted in 2,335 students taking grant-supported OER courses in Summer 2019-Spring 2020, saving up to $284,500 dollars.

MSU Denver received a $76,000 OER grant in Spring 2020

OER use in summer 2020-spring 2021 at MSU Denver, directly supported by the two years of grant support from the state, allowed up to $819,000 in student savings with an additional $182,000 in savings from OER implemented without grant support. While in some cases students wouldn’t have purchased an expensive text, with OER they now had continuous access to the resource during the course and beyond with no cost barrier.

  • From summer 2020-spring 2021 we awarded 48 $750 OER adoption grants spanning courses from aerospace to Spanish
  • Thirty six faculty attended one of five open textbook review workshops and 27 wrote a public review for a book in the Open Education Network library ($200 stipend).
  • OER-themed faculty learning communities (FLCs) were attended by 19 faculty members.

MSU Denver received a $60,000 OER grant in Spring 2021

This grant funds projects currently ongoing. A more complete description will be available at the end of the funding period. Some highlights include:

  • Funded three separate OER faculty learning communities with 28 faculty participants
  • Supported a team of English faculty to adapt OER for use across all sections of ENG 1010 starting in Spring 2022
  • Supported a team of Psychology faculty to adopt OER for use in online sections of PSY 1001 starting in Fall 2022

Interested in implementing OER in your courses?

Email Us

Email the OER Coordinator, Emily Ragan, to learn more about OER opportunities and to see how you can save your students money.

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