Last updated June 1, 2022
Salem State is part of a consortium – the MA Open Textbook Coordinating Council (OTCC) – that has received a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund an exciting new OER initiative: Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens (ROTEL): Culturally Relevant Open Textbooks for High Enrollment General Education Courses and Career and Professional Courses at Six Public Massachusetts Colleges.
The OTCC project team is seeking grant applications from faculty at six Massachusetts public higher education institutions (including Salem State) to write, remix, edit and/or develop accessible, intentionally inclusive open textbooks (OER) that reflect students’ local and lived experiences to improve student learning outcomes, particularly from underserved communities. Administrative and tech support will be provided, plus a stipend up to $5,000.
The OER that you write, edit, or remix will be published as an open e-book using the platform Pressbooks. It will be peer reviewed, edited, and receive an ISBN number. The book you create will be discoverable online and available to be adopted by courses in your institution and beyond. Peer-reviewed OER may also be cited as examples of scholarship for tenure and promotion. For an example of an open textbook in Pressbooks, see a book on Radical Social Theory by Graciela Monteagudo, published by UMass Amherst.
See the ROTEL website for more about the program. Round 3 grants may be announced in Fall 2022. Stay tuned.