Who's who on campus

I'm happy to report that Mines is catching the OER bug. Here is an overview of who on campus is doing OER work:

The OER Steering Committee is a campus-wide committee that administers mini-grants to incentive faculty to adopt, adapt, or creates OER.
The OER grant awardees are the first cohort of faculty to receive funds to adopt, adapt, and create OER.
The OER @ Mines Champions are the first cohort of OER champions on campus. They participated in a 4-week long course on OER.
The For OER At Mines (FOAM) student group is a group of undergraduate students that has sparked OER conversation on campus. They have conducted several interviews with faculty asking about their knowledge and interest in OER.
There are many instructors on campus who are using free resources without calling them OER. I'd love to connect with these faculty and give them some recognition - please direct anyone you know to me.

OER grant at Mines

In 2019, Mines was awarded a Colorado Department of Higher Education grant to build OER initiatives on campus. The OER Steering Committee launched a mini-grant program to incentive faculty to adopt (up to $500), adapt (up to $2,000), or create OER (up to $5,000). This mini-grant was very successful and the Committee was able to secure an additional $15,500 from Academic Affairs, Dr. Kevin Moore's portfolio, and Graduate Student Government to fund 11 projects.

OER around Colorado

The Colorado Department of Higher Education's OER Council is promoting OER adoption across the state in a number of ways. Most notably, they are funding institutions (like us!) to develop OER programs.

From the OER Council's most report.

"Since 2018, CDHE has been working to assist public higher education institutions in lowering learning material costs by developing and expanding the use of OER in tandem with the Colorado OER Council, pursuant to H.B. 18-1331. In the first year of the OER Grant Program, institutional grantees are projecting savings of more than $3.4 million to the students of Colorado at their respective institutions. This figure represents more than six times the return on the State’s initial investment into this initiative.

Open educational resources, practices and philosophy have inspired educators to innovate by reinvigorating curricula, starting free textbook campaigns and more. This is a direct result of two key factors for institutional capacity: 1) State-supported OER grant funding and training opportunities and 2) the willingness of expert educators from all disciplines to continue to innovate their educational practices for the learning and financial benefit of the students. The current state of the open education movement in Colorado is radiant, and the potential is just as bright."