Open Western OER Fellowship Program

General Questions

What is the OER Fellowship program and where did the money come from to fund these projects?

In 2023, thanks in large part to student advocacy at the state level, the Wisconsin Technical College System received $3 million for the 2023-2025 biennial budget to create, scale, and advocate for open educational resources (OER). Western was subsequently awarded approximately $100,000 of that to incentivize and support our faculty in the work of adapting and creating new OER. Through the Open Western OER Fellowship program run through the library, we are funding and working with faculty to develop OER for 30 courses across the college including Intro to Human Services, Business Concepts, Construction Industry Basics, Diesel Electricity Fundamentals, Basic Lab Skills, Creative Nonfiction Writing, and a wide variety of others. Through this work, faculty are adapting or creating new materials that are customized for Western students and courses, openly licensed, and available for free. We estimate that these projects will save Western students more than $250,000 per year in course material costs. Further, these OER will also be available for use at other schools across our system and around the world. We look forward to the opportunity to share more about this exciting and rewarding work and are hopeful that we will be able to continue to fund similar projects in the coming years.

Grant Eligibility Questions

Are adjunct instructors eligible for this opportunity?

Yes. We'll need work out some scheduling specifics with your dean though. 

Do I have to make a textbook? I'd like to create [videos, activities, ancillaries, etc.]. Is that okay?

You do not have to make a textbook. You should create content in the format that is best for your students and course. This grant is for creation of open course materials, not just textbooks.

I ditched my textbook last year so my course is zero cost, but I'm not using OER. I'd like to use this opportunity to create something that's just right for my course and my students and is also OER. Am I still eligible?

Maybe. Please contact us with the specifics and we'll check with our grant contact. 

What's the deadline to apply?

Update March 2024: All our funds are allocated so the application is now closed. If you have a project in mind, you can still fill out the interest form and we'll contact you if we have additional funds available in the future.

Fall 2023: It's a rolling deadline, so you can submit at any time. However, projects submitted early have a better chance of being funded. We will accept applications as long as we have funds available. If you are planning to apply, please apply now so that we know what projects are being planned. The application asks for you to explain your project development plan and anticipated timeline for the project, so we don't assume that you will begin work immediately upon application.

What's the deadline to complete the project?

Projects can be completed at any time during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years. You can plan to implement the materials for Summer 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Summer 2025, or Fall 2025. However, the projects must be completed by June 1, 2025 to be eligible for stipends.

Content Creation Questions

What recommendations or best practices do you have for using AI-generated content in my OER?

Good question. This issue continues to grow and evolve as cases work their way through the courts and as new issues arise. However, after doing some research and consulting with our WTCS OER contact, here are a couple of guiding principles:

• At least for the time being, the U.S. Copyright Office has determined that the outputs of generative Artificial Intelligence are public domain and therefore not eligible for copyright since machines cannot own copyrights and the Copyright Office has determined that genAI outputs do not include sufficient human effort to warrant human copyright ownership over them. So, this doesn’t mean you can’t use it in your work, but it does mean that you cannot claim copyright ownership over content created using genAI and therefore cannot assign a license other than CC0 / “in the public domain” for that portion of material.
• Best practice in all attribution of source material is to be transparent and to communicate as openly as possible about what was used and what was done to the material. The OpenRN project has been using several AI tools for some of their case studies (which they discussed in this OpenOregon webinar) and uses attributions similar to these examples that were shared in the webinar:
  
  Image credit: "Some more examples of reasonable attributions" slide is from a webinar presentation by Rachel Bridgewater, Kim Ernstmeyer, Dominic Slauson, and David Wiley for Open Oregon Educational Resources, licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 international license.

So, in summary, a few recommendations for our instructors developing OER:

• Please keep good notes about when you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools to develop content. Consider even keeping and providing a list of the text prompts you used as a supplementary resource (similar to a reference list or list of images), if you think that would be helpful to other instructors who may be future users of the material.
• Include an attribution statement and clear description of what was done in each situation as a caption appearing with the content.
• Then, the work's overall license statement for the work will be something like “[Title] by [Author], Western Technical College, is licensed [CC license of choice], except where otherwise noted.”

Please reach out to library@westerntc.edu with additional questions, comments, or to discuss your specific situation.

What recommendations or best practices do you have for incorporating student work in my OER?

You are welcome to incorporate student work into your OER, but you'll need to get permission from them to do so. Please use the form attached and send a copy of all completed forms to your project manager and/or library@westerntc.edu. Feel free to reach out with any additional questions you have about the process.