ACERT’s recent Lunchtime Seminar, titled, “Open Educational Resources and Zero Cost Courses: Principles and Practices,” discussed the creation of courses that have zero material costs for their students. The panel focused on some of the principals and practices of using OER, highlighted how faculty can get started on creating their own OER courses, and showcased examples of developing OER resources here at Hunter College.

In this regard, The CUNY Academic Commons (CAC), in collaboration with the Graduate Center’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) and the Graduate Center Library, seeks applications for up to ten CUNY Academic Commons Open Educational Resources (OER) Faculty Teaching Fellowships for the Spring 2018 semester. Full-time, adjunct, and Graduate Teaching Fellow faculty who will be teaching at a CUNY campus in Spring 2018 are all eligible for this fellowship.

CAC OER Fellows will have the opportunity to teach a course using the CUNY Academic Commons during the Spring 2018 semester, with dedicated technical and pedagogical support from the CAC and TLC teams, as well as librarians from the Graduate Center Library. To be considered for this fellowship, all courses must incorporate freely accessible, openly-licensed Open Educational Resources (original, reused, or remixed) via tools on the Commons.

Project staff will be available to meet with Faculty Fellows to discuss site and assignment design, OER selection, remixing, creation, and presentation, and to work through how to best harness the technical capabilities of the CUNY Academic Commons to meet specific teaching and learning goals and the challenges of OER. CAC community team members will meet with faculty fellows to introduce them to the features of the Commons, will maintain a dedicated support forum for the fellows group, and will be available for class visits to discuss the CAC with faculty and students.

CAC OER Faculty Fellows will receive a $2000 honorarium to support the deployment of and reflection upon their teaching with OER on the Commons. Fellows will be asked to document their experiences teaching with OER on the Commons, and will also be asked to write up and publicly share reflections on their experiences. This reflection and feedback will in turn help the CAC team make the Commons a more functional and robust teaching space for faculty using OER in their courses.

For more information, including examples of OER that could be integrated into course sites on the Commons, applicant qualifications, and criteria for evaluation, visit the official RFP on the Academic Commons here.