Contributed by Abbey K. Elder

Introduction

As a librarian working in scholarly communication, I’m well aware that sometimes trying new things can go wrong. However, none of us should feel bad about needing to make changes to something we’ve created. After all, adaptation is at the heart of open education (Wiley, 2014). Why not embrace the same ideas when reflecting on our own work? In this blog post, I’ll be sharing my experiences adapting the Miller Open Education Mini-Grant Program at Iowa State University, and providing tips for others who are unsure about how to adapt their own programs.

Pitching the program

To develop our OER mini-grant program, I first explored what other institutions were doing already. As I like to say, “never build what you can borrow.” I pulled together a list of existing OER grant programs, examined their commonalities, and structured these into a summary document to share with my supervisors and partners on the Open & Affordable Education Committee (OAEC) (Appendix 1). After getting a commitment of $5,000 from the University Library’s Dean, I enlisted the support of the OAEC and faculty champions at Iowa State University to review and comment on base documents such as a proposal form and review rubric (Appendix 2 & 3). 

After pulling these items together, the Library Dean and I took these documents to the university’s Senior Vice President & Provost (SVPP) to request additional funding. The SVPP agreed to fund our mini-grant program at $50,000 for its pilot year, including the $5,000 contribution from the University Library and $10,000 from our Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching (CELT). With funding secured, my team developed five award levels for the pilot round of mini-grants (Table 1). Thus, the Miller Open Education Mini-Grant Program was born (Elder, 2018). 

Table 1. Award levels

Award Level	Award Range	Expectations
Level 1	$500 – $1,000	Locate, Evaluate, and Adopt an existing Open Educational Resource for your course
Level 2	$750 – $2,000	Adapt, update, or combine existing Open Educational Resources into a new resource to enhance your course
Level 3	Up to $5,000	Create an original Open Educational Resource for your course
Level 4	Up to $5,000	Redesign a course around the use of Open Educational Resources
Level 5	Up to $10,000	Adopt Open Educational Resources for multiple sections of a single course

Recognizing issues

We knew there were going to be hiccups piloting the mini-grant program, but we weren’t sure where these issues would arise. The first concerns came from applicants immediately after our call for proposals ended. Our proposal form was a locked Word document that left very little room for editing and formatting, and there were no clear guidelines for sharing examples or supporting documentation with proposals. We also had strict word limits on each section, which made describing grant projects difficult for applicants. We would not be able to address these issues until the next round of mini-grants opened.

Next, we found that our oversight of grant projects was lacking. During our pilot, many of our grant recipients were new to OER and required training and contact with support across our campus. However, we had no official process for gauging recipients’ support needs. Even when recipients seemed to be doing well during check-ins, other issues would crop up, as when a grant recipient chose to publish their OER under a No Derivatives license, something we had not explicitly prohibited during our pilot. 

Finally, when it came time to renew the mini-grant program, we received a commitment for $10,000 from the University Library with equal contributions from CELT and the SVPP. This would leave us with just over half the funds we had during our pilot. Taking these issues into account, the OAEC identified five action items for improving the mini-grant program:

1. Develop a more open-ended application process. 
2. Prohibit the use of Creative Commons No Derivatives licenses for funded projects.
3. Adapt the award levels available for grant projects to account for lower funding.
4. Coordinate an event for grant recipients to meet with support staff across campus. 
5. Train grant recipients on the basics of OER and open content production. 

Adapting the program

The first three action items were easy enough to implement: all they required was updating the information for grant recipients on our website and adapting the application form we provided (Appendix 4). Because these changes were fairly small, we did not feel the need to communicate them out to the community. After all, the changes would be clear in the next year’s call for proposals. The changes to our award levels are displayed in Table 2.

Table 2. Adapted Award Levels

Award Level	Award Range	Expectations
Level 1: Course Conversion	$500 – $1,000	Locate, evaluate, and adopt an existing Open Educational Resource for your course.
Level 2: Adaptation	$750 – $2,500	Adapt, update, or combine existing Open Educational Resources into a new resource for your course.
Level 3: Content Creation	Up to $5,000	Create an original Open Educational Resource for your course.
Level 4: Multi-section Integration	Up to $5,000	Integrate Open Educational Resources into every section of a single, multi-section course.

To address needs for training and support, we implemented a required introductory workshop for grant recipients. During this workshop, recipients would meet with instructional designers and other support staff on campus to learn about the resources available to help them complete their projects. The main purpose of the workshop, apart from getting a brief introduction to the support staff available, was for grant recipients to complete a Project Roadmap Worksheet (Appendix 5). This worksheet helps recipients organize their grant project’s timeline and identify points where they may need additional support. For example, a grant recipient may feel that they have a solid plan for developing content for their project, but lack plans for assessing the outcomes of their OER project’s implementation in their classroom. 

The outcomes of the changes we made were apparent immediately. I had a clearer understanding from the start what each team would be creating and what support they might need later on in their project. The other members of the OAEC were able to answer questions about the grants application process by pointing people to our grants website, which now provided clear guidelines for grant projects and recipients. Lastly, we had a plan that was easy to replicate for future years. 

Advice for adapting an OER grant program

1. Don’t be afraid to pilot a program that is new and untried. Instead, be prepared to address issues as they arise, and pilot with purpose and an eye for future adaptation.
2. Provide opportunities for feedback and suggestions (both from your team and from applicants) throughout your program’s run. 
3. If changes are going to be made, get feedback from campus partners before changes go live. Leverage your partners’ experience to address areas where you may need help.
4. Once you have made changes to your program, communicate those changes to your community. It is not necessary to send out messages for every change; however, transparency is vital for larger changes, like adding new requirements for applicants. This is particularly true for system-wide or multi-campus grant programs, where changes like these need to be communicated through multiple channels. 

Conclusion

By adapting the OER mini-grant program at Iowa State University, we were able to develop a process that is familiar and baked into our routines, supported by partners whose responsibilities are clear, and sustainable for long-term implementation. I’m still open to further changes, though. If anything, this experience has shown that needs will reveal themselves so long as you’re open to change and able to respond to them.

References  

Elder, A. K. (2018, February 13). “New Miller Grants available for Iowa State instructors” Iowa State University Newsletter. https://www.lib.iastate.edu/news/new-miller-grants-available-iowa-state-instructors

Wiley, D. (2014). “Defining the ‘open’ in open content and open educational resources.” Retrieved from http://opencontent.org/definition/

Appendix 1: Review of OER grant programs

2018 OER Grants Research Summary

Appendix 2: Proposal Form 1.0

2018 OER Mini-Grant Proposal Form

Appendix 3: Grant Review Rubric

OER Mini-Grant Review Rubric

Appendix 4: Proposal Form 2.0

2021 OER Mini-Grant Proposal Form

Appendix 5: Project Roadmap Worksheet

OER Mini-Grant Project Roadmap Worksheet

Abbey K. Elder is the Open Access and Scholarly Communication Librarian at Iowa State University. In this position, she works to expand access to information by educating scholars about open access and open education. Abbey manages the open access publishing agreements at Iowa State, is a Pressbooks administrator for the Iowa State University Digital Press, and coordinates with faculty to help them find, adopt, and create OER for their courses. Her handbook for instructors, The OER Starter Kit, has been used in professional development programs around the United States.

This post is by Abbey K. Elder and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, except where otherwise indicated. Please reference OER and Beyond and use this URL when attributing this work; for more information on licensing, see our Open Access Policy.