Application and requirements

All K-State faculty and instructors are eligible to apply for a grant. The award may be used at the discretion of faculty to create or implement their open or alternate textbook. Faculty creating an open access textbook are encouraged to contact the Center for Scholarly Publishing about publishing with New Prairie Press.

2024 application deadlines

Monday, April 29, 2024
Friday, Dec. 6, 2024

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Acceptable resources

The development or adoption of open/alternative resources might include any of the following or a combination:

an existing open access textbook
an existing open educational resource (OER)
faculty-authored materials
any Creative Commons or other publicly licensed material (TedTalks, YouTube videos, Wikimedia Commons, etc.)

Find resources for creating or adopting open or alternative materials

The below materials are not eligible for funding:

Commercial e-text versions of an existing print textbook
Textbook rentals
Existing textbook alternatives already in use by faculty. Retroactive funding is not available.
Modifications of existing textbook alternatives already in use by the applicant will have low priority but may be funded in special circumstances. OATI is no longer able to support revisions or new editions of previous grant-funded projects with its 10% of course fee returns. Faculty interested in compensation for versioning should reach out to their departments.

Application and award information

Selection criteria

Applications will be reviewed by a panel consisting of teaching faculty, representatives from K-State Libraries, student representatives, representatives from the Student Access Center and past textbook initiative awardees.

Winning proposals will be based on:

Viability

The quality of the application and proposed resource.
The ability for the resource to be implemented within a reasonable timeframe.

Utility

Whether the quality of the intended product is reflected in its ability to actively engage students in the learning process.
Offers a potential for savings for K-State students.

Sustainability

Resources are openly licensed with the creator’s choice of public license.
Resources are created with Pressbooks or Libretext. Limited case-by-case exceptions for equally robust and stable resources on platforms with equal creation and dissemination abilities will be made. Learn more about platforms below.
Resources are editable and able to adapt to changes in course material/needs and are built with tools that facilitate this.

Accessibility

The material meets accessibility standards that ensure all students are able to use the resource. Visit the Student Access Center website or the digital accessibility information in Canvas to learn more.

Platforms

Grant-eligible resources need to be built in either Pressbooks or LibreTexts, two platforms built for OER creation. Independently built or alternatively robust platforms may be used on a case-by-case basis and are held to the same accessibility, discoverability and quality standards as the existing platforms.

Pressbooks
Pressbooks is a simple book production resource based on Wordpress and HTML. Highlights include:

Easily ingest an existing Pressbook to adopt and adapt to fit your class and add your own content.
Use your existing materials and content with Microsoft Word document ingest.
Allows users to read it in the platform or export as a PDF, MOBI, EPUB, XML or other format.

More information is available through the Pressbooks user guide, Pressbooks Community and Pressbooks YouTube channel. Contact cads@k-state.edu for questions about Pressbooks or to create an account.

LibreTexts
LibreTexts can produce resources that look like books and include interactive features. Highlights include:

Frequent virtual LibreFests to assist those starting or wanting to learn more about the platform.
Active harvesting of OER into the platform supports revising and remixing.
Support for harvesting and setting up resources and assessments not already in the platform through a LibreNet membership.
ADAPT platform supports adaptive learning technology (learning trees) H5P, WebWork and MyOpenMath problems.
Includes gradebook and LTI-to-Canvas is being piloted.
Allow users to read on the platform or export as PDF, PeBL or ePub files.

More information is available through the LibreTexts construction guide and the LibreTexts YouTube channel. Contact oati@k-state.edu for questions about LibreTexts.

Proposal content

In your proposal, please provide the required information for the following questions:

Instructor information: Name(s), title(s), department, email(s) and phone number.
Course information: Course name and number, section(s), annual course enrollment and semester(s) offered.
Current textbook information: Title(s), cost and estimate on how much students will save by using your open/alternative textbook.
Amount of funding requested
Resource plan: Two pages maximum to address the questions listed below
- How do you plan to replace the textbook in this course (e.g., use an existing open textbook, adopt an open textbook, gather resources or develop materials)?
- Have you obtained proper permission, if needed, for your resource(s)?
- What format(s) will be used (e.g., PDFs, e-book, video, etc.)?
- How can students access the open/alternative resource(s)?
- How will students be engaged in the learning process?
- What are your anticipated outcomes?

Awardee requirements and timeline

Award recipients will be notified of the acceptance and added to an OATI Canvas course.
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) will be signed and submitted through Canvas, providing administration with account information, intended completion date and public license selected.
Upon all parties signing the MOU, the first half of the award will be transferred.
The resource is first implemented.
If the course fee is sought during the implementation period, recipients will fill out the course fee reporting survey.
Award recipients will submit brief reports (one-to-two pages) reflecting on their experience with their open/alternative textbook and the outcomes after the first semester of implementation.
The final report and final resource are submitted through Canvas.
The OATI panel approves the resource and transfers the final half of the award.