CARLI Member OER Initiative: Funded Projects

CARLI is proud to announce the funded projects of the CARLI Member OER Initiative. With $300,000 set aside by the CARLI Governing Board, twelve member libraries across Illinois will receive awards ranging from $7,000 to $30,000 to increase the awareness and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) at their institutions. These projects represent a significant investment in student success, academic equity, and the future of open educational practice in Illinois.

The funded projects span community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities, and specialized graduate institutions. Together, they will save students money on course materials, expand faculty capacity to find and create open resources, and build lasting OER infrastructure that will benefit students and educators well beyond the grant period. Of the twelve funded projects, six represent institutions building their first formal OER program, a significant step toward broader OER adoption across Illinois higher education. Materials produced through this initiative will be shared with the full CARLI membership as they become available.

CARLI congratulates all twelve funded institutions and looks forward to the impact this cohort will make across Illinois higher education.

Funded Projects

Adler University
OER Textbook Faculty Incentive Program 2026-28

Adler University Library is launching a faculty incentive program targeting four high-enrollment, required core courses that currently rely on costly commercial textbooks. Faculty will receive stipends to adapt and remix existing OER materials to meet their course learning outcomes, with adopted materials replacing current commercial texts. The project runs June 2026 through June 2028 and is designed to address the direct financial burden on Adler's approximately 1,400 graduate students in psychology programs.

Aurora University
Elevating OER at AU

Aurora University, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, will implement a tiered faculty awards program that supports OER adoption, review, adaptation, and peer leadership. The initiative includes faculty workshops, individualized consultations, and the development of discipline-specific OER resource pages. The project aims to engage more than 100 instructors over two years and build lasting institutional capacity for open educational practices, with a particular focus on reducing cost barriers for students with the least financial flexibility.

DePaul University
Make Knowledge Free: Student-centered Community Psychology Textbook and Growing OER at DePaul University

DePaul University's project works on two fronts: producing a second edition of Introduction to Community Psychology: Becoming an Agent of Change, an award-winning open textbook first published in 2019, and launching a faculty workshop series to expand OER awareness and adoption across campus. The updated textbook will incorporate current social issues, global perspectives, and Universal Design for Learning strategies to support diverse learners. The workshop series will equip faculty to find, evaluate, adapt, and integrate OER into their courses, building toward a sustainable campus OER program.

Erikson Institute
OER: Open Erikson Roadmap

Erikson Institute is launching its first OER program through a two-year initiative that pairs librarians with faculty to pilot open educational resources in a select number of graduate courses. The project is organized around four goals: raising awareness of OER, promoting adoption, increasing access and accessibility, and improving affordability for students. Data gathered during the pilot will inform a broader OER strategy across all of Erikson's graduate programs.

Eureka College
Creating an Open Community: Encouraging Faculty OER Use through Education, Engagement and Incentivization at Eureka College

Eureka College will establish a Course Materials Affordability Committee to lead a two-year initiative designed to move faculty from OER awareness to adoption. The first year focuses on education through surveys, librarian-led workshops, and Open Textbook Network reviews; the second year supports faculty in bringing OER into their classrooms through stipends for adoption, adaptation, or creation. The project addresses longstanding faculty and student concern about textbook costs and builds OER capacity at an institution launching its first formal program.

Illinois State University
Encouraging OER Adoption at Illinois State University

Illinois State University Libraries will collaborate with the Center for Integrated Professional Development to deliver faculty workshops on finding, evaluating, and adopting OER, with classroom implementation targeted for Fall 2027. An incentive program will support faculty in adapting or adopting OER for their courses, and the project will collect assessment data on outcomes including course grades, Drop/Fail/Withdraw rates, and equity in student access to materials. This is ISU's first formal OER program.

Loyola University Chicago
Open Loyola Initiative

Loyola University Chicago's two-year initiative begins with an investment in librarian expertise: a certificate program in open education followed by an internal workshop series to prepare the full library staff to support OER adoption. In the second year, outreach will focus on two high-priority populations: faculty and students at Arrupe College, which serves a largely first-generation student body, and Loyola's rapidly growing STEM departments. The initiative culminates in an Open Education Week celebration in March 2028 designed to sustain momentum beyond the grant period.

Moraine Valley Community College
MVCC Departmental OER Option Project

Moraine Valley Community College will run a competitive proposal process through which eight faculty teams will identify a high-enrollment course and adopt an OER, supported by workshops on OER fundamentals, instructional design, and copyright. The project places particular emphasis on adjunct faculty, who teach a substantial share of high-enrollment courses but typically must select from materials already chosen by full-time colleagues. By having full-time faculty adopt OER and develop supporting implementation materials, the project lowers adoption barriers for adjuncts and expands access to affordable course materials for a large portion of the student population.

Northern Illinois University
HuskiesUnbound 2.0: Expanding Open Educational Practice for Student Success

NIU's Course Materials Affordability Task Force has saved students more than $5.2 million since 2021 through coordinated OER adoption, course marking, and departmental recognition programs. HuskiesUnbound 2.0 extends this work to three additional high-enrollment undergraduate courses: MATH 101, PSYC 102, and ACCY 375. Faculty authors will receive training on OER development, instructional design, and accessibility before adapting and creating resources through a structured process that includes peer review and assessment data collection. Completed materials are projected to save NIU students $172,000 per year and will be shared in repositories available to institutions across Illinois and beyond.

Oakton College
Open Oakton Authors

Oakton College faculty authors will develop OER in geology, humanities, and political science, filling identified content gaps in courses that serve approximately 220 students annually. Materials may include adapted textbooks, original modules, and open lab manuals, with adoption beginning as early as summer 2027. The project is designed to be compatible with the Illinois Articulation Initiative, making the resulting resources available for use across the state, and will build institutional infrastructure at Oakton to support future open publishing efforts.

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Our Common Ground OER Initiative

SIUE's library will partner with the Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) program to develop a textbook for the 16 sections of CODES 120/122 offered each year, a course that introduces first-year students to community-based research, systems thinking, and transdisciplinary problem solving. The textbook will be built on Manifold, a platform that integrates text and digital media, and will include research modules adaptable for other introductory courses. SIU Press will take the completed work through peer review and promotion, and the project is designed to model how university presses can partner with libraries in OER development.

University of Illinois Springfield
OER Fellows at University of Illinois Springfield, 2026-2028

UIS Library will establish an OER Fellows program offering faculty stipends for OER adoption and remixing, with instruction in summer 2027 and implementation in spring 2028 courses. The program, to be accompanied by Open Education Week programming in March 2027 and a faculty panel in spring 2028, is expected to result in six to ten classes transitioning away from commercial textbooks. This is UIS's first formal OER initiative.

About the CARLI Member OER Initiative

The CARLI Member OER Initiative supports member libraries as they work toward equitable access to course materials, lower costs for students, and improved conditions for student retention, progression, and graduation. Projects may include one or more of the following activities, based on campus priorities and needs:

• Raising awareness of OER among faculty, staff, and students through campaigns, workshops, and library personnel training
• Increasing engagement through activities that expand OER usage in the classroom through adoption, adaptation, and creation
• Saving students the cost of commercial textbooks beginning in the 2027-2028 academic year
• Advancing student learning through improved collaboration, engagement, responsiveness, and curricular relevance

Proposals were evaluated by CARLI staff and member reviewers with OER expertise, using criteria that assessed budget justification, project plan quality, clarity and alignment of proposal elements, and potential for impact. Institutions without an existing OER program received special consideration.