Latest OER Grant awardees announced
Northwestern Libraries and the Affordable Instructional Resources (AIR) are pleased to announce the 2025 awardees for the Open Educational Resources Faculty Grant.
Funded by the Office of the Provost and University Libraries, these grants are intended to fund the work involved in finding, creating, using, and sharing OER as replacements for required commercial textbooks.
The OER program is designed to support faculty who are interested in developing and using open resources in their undergraduate courses. Funded by the Office of the Provost and University Libraries, the grant program supports the work involved in finding, creating, using, and sharing OER as a replacement for commercial textbooks and courseware. In some instances, schools and departments have stepped forward to co-fund a grant.
The awardees for 2025 are:
| Course | Project | Faculty | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Information Design & Strategy (SPS): IDS 401, 462, 464, 466 UX/UI Specialization | Develop a workbook for all students enrolled in the Information Design & Strategy Program, which will augment or replace other existing course texts in the User Experience/User Interface concentration. | Lauren Liss, Matthew Grossman, Alicia Hossein | $5,000 |
| French (WCAS): FRENCH 201, 202, 203, 204 French Culture | Create new material to supplement an existing Grammar and Workbook that will be digital and interactive. | Dominique Licops | $5,000 |
| MENA Languages (WCAS): ARABIC 111 First-Year Arabic | Develop new Arabic language textbook for beginners that will also integrate effective game designs to enhance learning. | Rana Raddawi | $5,000 |
| Chemistry (WCAS): CHEM 215 Organic Chemistry and CHEM 217 Accelerated Organic Chemistry | Create an OER consisting of short videos to help students connect topics from general chemistry to organic chemistry. | Veronica Berns and Stephanie Knezz | $10,000 |
| Journalism (Medill): JOUR 320, 377, 390, 400-3 Data Journalism | Create an interactive textbook that will focus on basic data analysis and visualization, including interactive visualizations, video lectures, and hands-on exercises in embedded coding terminals. | Matthew Kiefer | $5,000 |
| Asian Languages & Cultures (WCAS): KOREAN 211 Korean III | Develop a reader for third-year Korean students including two versions of modified authentic texts to meet and then challenge students’ proficiency, as well as vocabulary lists, grammar, cultural notes, and learning activities. | Eun Hee Kim and Ihnhee Kim | $5,000 |
| Mechanical and Chemical Engineering (McCormick): MECH_ENG 367 Quantitative Methods in Life Cycle Analysis | Develop course materials using open literature and an open-source life-cycle assessment model, including written course content, videos, and problem sets. | Jennifer Dunn | $5,000 |
| Anthropology (WCAS): ANTHRO 328 The Maya | Design a syllabus using open access teaching materials and publish the course for any instructor or student to implement. | Kristin Landau and Cynthia Robin | $1,000 |
OER are free teaching materials that are licensed for unrestricted distribution and modification to fit the course-specific needs of instructors. Some examples of OER include textbooks, websites, videos, and open homework platforms. While most OER start in digital format, text files can be converted so faculty and students can print their materials at home or through a printing service.
In addition to saving students thousands of dollars, the completed OER texts have given faculty the opportunity to provide customized course materials that are available to students on the first day of class and in a variety of formats. A sampling of completed projects can be viewed on Northwestern’s OER website.
Grant funds can be taken as a stipend or used to pay for support, such as student assistants, or materials and equipment to aid in the development of the materials. In addition, each grant recipient will receive individualized support from librarians on finding, using, and publishing OER. Work is scheduled to begin over the summer with grant projects expected to launch before or during the 2025/26 academic year.