The Office of the Provost and the University Libraries join together to support faculty interested in providing their students with a less expensive yet educationally rewarding alternative to expensive commercial textbooks.

The high cost of commercial textbooks (print and electronic) is a major concern for both students and their parents. The UNCG Open Education “Mini-Grants” Initiative, encourages instructors to use open educational resources (OER) materials or low-cost or free alternatives to expensive course materials; these can include open-access scholarly resources, library-licensed and owned resources, and learning objects and texts that faculty create themselves.

Fifteen $1000 “mini-grants” will be available this spring. These grants are meant to offer an incentive for the time it will take you to identify new resources, adjust syllabi, and modify assignments and can also be used to cover any actual expenses you incur.

To kick off the grants, University Libraries will host a “week of OER.” If you are interested in applying for this UNCG OER initiative, please attend one of the Open Education Initiative information sessions to be held February 23rd 12pm, 25th 1pm, 26th at 11am, 2021, Zoom Meeting. Please RSVP prior to the workshop to receive a link and send any questions you have to Sam Harlow (slharlow@uncg.edu) or Melody Rood (mlrood@uncg.edu).

The deadline to apply for the “mini-grants” is Friday, March 12th, 2021. You can apply at https://go.uncg.edu/oergrants2021

Thank you for your interest in pursuing non-traditional educational resources as an alternative to the traditional high-cost textbook.