The Affordable Textbook Adoption Grant program supports UT Tyler Strategic Plan Initiative 42: Increase utilization of Open Educational Resources (OER) and low-cost textbooks by 2027, under the strategic goal to establish efficiencies to make college education more affordable.

Grant Overview

 *awards are calculated on a sliding scale, based on student cost-savings.
**at least three applicants are required for group grants.
***all instructors for all sections must use no-cost for department grants.

All instructors, including full- and part-time faculty, are encouraged and eligible to apply for the Affordable Textbook Adoption Grant, which supports instructors who redesign their course from using traditional textbooks to open or library licensed materials for Fall 2025. This helps make course materials more affordable and accessible for students. Grants support the revision of syllabi, assignments, and other course materials necessary for the transition to OER or Library-provided course materials.

Grant applicants must design their course around newly selected open or affordable course materials and teach with only those materials for at least the following three academic years. To be eligible, the course in question must become fully cost-free in terms of materials. For example, a redesigned course that features an OER textbook plus a commercial homework set is not eligible for this grant.

UT Tyler Librarians (https://www.uttyler.edu/library/support/your-librarian/) can help provide support in finding materials and adopting them into the selected course.

A committee will use a rubric to score and select awards based on course enrollment and cost of former materials. If selected for an Affordable Textbook Adoption Grant, you will be sent an agreement via DocuSign for both you, your co-awardees (if group or department award), and your Chair to sign. Your course section(s) must also list OER or no materials in the textbook adoption portal before funds are fully distributed.

To Apply

• Include current syllabus (if available)
• Current textbook(s) or other course materials, and their price(s)
• Proposed no-cost course materials
• Agree to use chosen no-cost course materials from Fall 2025 through Fall 2027, or (at least) three consecutive academic years of the course being offered
• Approval from Department Chair (if awarded)

Please fill out this survey: https://uttyler.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9npnTV0Dsqr4Twq. 

Application deadline is Wednesday, June 4, 2025.

FAQ:

What are the benefits of adopting an OER or no-cost resources for my course?

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission. Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights.

In some cases, that means you can download a resource and share it with colleagues and students. In other cases, you may be able to download a resource, edit it in some way, and then re-post it as a remixed work. How do you know your options? OER often have a Creative Commons license or other permission to let you know how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared." (OER Commons)

To learn more about OER, see the Muntz Library’s guide: https://libguides.uttyler.edu/oer

What are no-cost materials?

No-cost materials (to students) are materials that are accessible via the Muntz Library like library purchased e-books, journal articles, or other scholarly materials found online that require no cost to access – such as open access resources.

What is the difference between OER and no-cost materials?

OER have specific licenses (usually Creative Commons license) that allow for retaining, reuse, revising, remixing, and redistributing materials AND are no cost to users. No-cost materials may have licenses that require purchasing to access, but students do not incur that cost.

I’m already using affordable course material in my course – do you award retrospectively?

                No, currently we do not award grants to faculty who already use affordable materials.

I want to create/author an Open Educational Resource – does this grant fund OER creation?

Though this grant does not explicitly fund OER authoring, please contact Terra Gullings, Scholarly Communication Librarian at tgullings@uttyler.edu for OER authoring grant opportunities.