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Open Educational Resources at RTC: OER Mini-Grant

Apply for an OER Mini-Grant: Background

Apply for the Winter 2025 OER Mini-Grant by November 18, 2024! *The OER Steering Committee may accept later applications if there is additional budget. Priority consideration will be given to applicants who apply by the deadline.

The OER Mini-Grant was created to accelerate the growing number of instructors using OER at Renton Technical College and lower textbook costs for students. This grant aims to support faculty development through the use of new and innovative resources in the classroom. The goal of the program is to encourage instructional innovation and enhance the scholarship of teaching and learning at Renton Technical College by providing instructors with the time and resources they need to redesign their courses around the use of OER.

OER are defined as “educational materials that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use.” This includes any course materials (textbooks, lab books, course notes, slide sets, videos, and more) released under an open license. Examples of OER currently in use at Renton Technical College can be see on our OER Heroes page.

Who is Eligible to Apply?

To be considered for this grant, proposals must meet the following criteria:

  • The proposal is submitted by one or more Renton Technical College employees with teaching responsibilities.
  • The proposal includes the intent to use an Open Educational Resource in a credit-bearing course.
  • Instructors may only submit one proposal per academic year. 

This grant may NOT be used for:

Award Levels

Award Level Award Range Expectations

Option A: Content Creation

 $2000 Create an original Open Educational Resource for your course. This project must produce an OER that would replace a commercial resource that's currently used or has been used in the past for the course.
Option B: Multi-Section Integration  $1000 Integrate Open Educational Resources into each module of a single, multi-section course. 
Option C: Partial Integration $500

Integrate Open Educational Resources into at least half of a single, multi-section course. 
Option D: Enhance Course Using H5P or Videos $500 Upgrading course to include videos that have an open license, for example our lightboard. H5P interactives are another option.  
*PRESSBOOKS BONUS $150 Grant recipients get an ADDITIONAL $150 for publishing their OER in a Pressbook, whether adapting the original OER into a Pressbook OR creating an OER directly in Pressbooks. 

How Will Proposals Be Reviewed?

The proposals will be reviewed by the OER Steering Committee. 

Evaluations will be based on the quality of applications as determined by the criteria of the Open Education Resources Grant Rubric.

*Rubric created by the Miller Open Education Mini-Grant Program at Iowa State University. 

 

What are the Expectations of Grant Recipients?

Before During After
  • Meet with Di Zhang and/or Nizar Ali to discuss your project and the support available to help you complete it.
  • Complete Open Washington OER Training (Modules 1-10) by January 10, 2025 if you haven't completed another approved OER training already. This self-paced training can take anywhere from 1-3 hours.
  • Attend a cohort meeting in January 2025 to meet other grantees and review expectations. Virtual and in-person options available. 
  • Complete OER materials by the end of Winter 2024 (March 24, 2025) to be used in the Spring 2025 quarter in a credit-bearing course. 
  • Publish OER created through a grant in an open, editable format and submit this OER to Di Zhang (dzhang@rtc.edu) and Nizar Ali (nali@rtc.edu) through email by June 2, 2025 11:59 pm. Let us know as soon as possible if you need an adjusted timeline. 
  • Submit a report on the grant's outcomes by June 2, 2025, 11:59 pm.
  • Publish OER created through the grant under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
  • Showcase outcomes of the project on the RTC OER Heroes page.
  • Join other grantees to share experiences by providing a brief presentation of your project in 2025, dates TBD.