THECB-Digital Learning News and Events

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s (THECB) Division of Digital Learning is pleased to announce the Request for Applications (RFA) for a third cycle of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant Program. Established in 2018, the OER Grant Program provides support for Texas public institutions of higher education to adopt, modify, redesign, or develop courses that use only open educational resources. Successful applicants implement OER in place of traditional textbooks and other instructional course materials. Texas students have saved over $1,300,000 as a direct result of the first two cycles of this grant program.

To best support the OER Grant Program, new rules were approved by THECB in October 2022, notably naming institutions as eligible applicants rather than individual faculty members. This competitive grant will be awarded to public institutions of higher education, with faculty leading the work. OER efforts in Texas have been most successful where multiple campus offices and roles are engaged in course development, so we encourage institution-wide conversations during the application process.

THECB expects two categories of grant awards under this RFA:

Development Grants:

• A maximum of $25,000 to develop new or substantially improve existing OER for one or more courses. Development Grants require institutional matching and collaboration with at least one other Texas public institution.

Implementation Grants:

• A maximum of $5,000 to support the substantial redesign of one or more courses to incorporate existing OER.

The number of development grants and implementation grants awarded will be contingent upon the amount of appropriation available and evaluation of applications by qualified reviewers.

The RFA and application forms for the grant competition are available online at the Open Educational Resources Grant Program website. Completed applications must be submitted electronically to OERGP@highered.texas.gov on or before February 10, 2023 11:59 P.M. CST.

Please refer to the RFA for information regarding applicant eligibility, maximum number of submissions per applicant, courses eligible for consideration, grant timeline, and other requirements. Questions about the grant competition should be emailed to Carrie Gits, Director, Digital Learning, at OERGP@highered.texas.gov.

Grant awards are anticipated to be announced in March 2023. The grant period will begin upon execution of a Notice of Grant Award and end August 31, 2025.