ED Accepting Proposals for Consortium OER Pilots

By Dian Schaffhauser 08/02/18

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/08/02/ed-accepting-proposals-for-consortium-oer-pilots.aspx?

The U.S. Department of Education has finally made a move on its efforts to fund development of open educational resources. The agency issued a notice this week inviting proposals for an “open textbooks pilot program” with an Aug. 29, 2018 deadline. The program was mandated in an omnibus spending law, H.R. 1625, approved by Congress earlier this year. ED expected to issue between one and three awards.

The winning proposals will be eligible for between $1.5 million and $4.95 million. The latter amount is nearly the entire fund of $5 million stipulated for the pilot in an explanatory document that accompanied the spending bill.

The application has three “absolute priorities” and one “competitive preference” priority. The absolutes are these:

• The project must involve consortium with at least three institutions participating, along with representation from industry or workforce groups and nonprofit or community organizations;
• The proposal needs to fill current gaps in the OER “marketplace” and be able to scale beyond the consortium members; and
• The plan needs to address how the OER will promote degree completion.

For more information, visit the application on the Federal Register.

+++++++++++++++
more on OER in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=oer