LibAnswers: OER Fellowship Questions

Our priorities for the faculty experience haven't changed. We still plan to provide a structured learning and support experience as you develop your new Open Educational Resource (OER). However, based on what we learned from participants in round 1, we've made a couple of adjustments. 

1. Fellows will now participate in a synchronous Learning Cohort during a 7 week session of their choice. 
   
   Last time, we put all of the learning content into asynchronous videos, text, and participant worksheets. We found that most participants preferred to learn this material via conversation with their project manager or via our monthly check-ins. We also wanted to provide more opportunity for peer-to-peer learning than we did last time around. We're excited about this new learning format, as we think it will provide a better and more consistent learning experience for participants, focus librarian energy on providing personalized support to Fellows, and allow for participants to share and encourage one another. 
   
   In your application, you will select which session would work best to participate in a learning cohort. Each cohort will meet 1 hour each week for 7 weeks. We're still finalizing the lesson plans for these cohort meetings, but we will cover topics such as writing for your students, prioritizing accessibility, drafting, and revising. The time will be focused on providing practical, relevant strategies for helping Fellows develop high-quality OER for their courses.
    
2. The stipend will be now issued in 2 parts. Given the change in the learning format, we've also split the stipend distribution. The first portion of the stipend ($500) will be distributed following completion of the Learning Cohort. The remainder of the stipend will be issued upon publication of the OER.

3. We aren't going to assign a Project Manager this time around, but the Library team will still provide support with locating existing OER, developing materials, using and attributing sources, and answering any questions that arise. We also plan to provide more support, as needed, with the proofreading and publishing aspects of each project so that faculty can focus their attention more on the content.