Creating a Fellowship Program Pilot: Helping Instructors Transform their Course Materials

Abstract

As course reserves became unavailable and students were unable to share textbooks, the COVID-19 pandemic made the need for accessible, digital course materials more important than ever. IU Bloomington and IUPUI Libraries partnered to create a Course Material Fellowship Program (CMFP) in 2020. The goals of the Course Material Fellowship Program are to help all students afford college regardless of their economic status, to facilitate and inspire the development of alternatives to high-cost textbooks, and to centralize support for instructors working with affordable course material solutions. In order to compensate them for their time and ensure success, fellows are provided with a stipend, the expertise of librarians and instructional technologists, and the opportunity to learn alongside their peers. The pilot year of the Course Material Transformation Fellowship Program is estimated to impact over 5,000 students and save them over $185,000 across the two campuses. Fellows from the initial cohort utilized a variety of solutions, including existing Open Educational Resources, library resources, and their own content, to build new and more effective course materials which will be used throughout the 2021-2022 academic year.

This session will provide an overview of the CMFP pilot, discuss the obstacles inherent creating and implementing the pilot program virtually, and showcase one or two example projects from the 2020 pilot cohort. Additional CMFP details can be found on the IU Libraries website. A previous brown bag on OER may also serve as useful background.