Funding, Services and Consultations

OER FundingOER, Open Educational Resources logo

University of Oregon Libraries is excited to offer funding for faculty interested in adopting Open Educational Resources to save their students money. Faculty who convert their course from high cost ($50+) to no cost are eligible to apply for a $1,000 award. Preference will be given to courses that are high enrollment, in the Core Ed, and/or have high DFNW rates. Apply here or get in touch with the OER Team (oer@uoregon.edu) with any questions.

Library eBooks for Courses

Last year UO libraries started a program to proactively purchase eBooks to support courses with 25 students or more. Eeach term when instructors report required course materials to the Duck Store, the library will attempt to purchase those books where publishers allow us to. Major academic publishers often block textbook sales to libraries, so not every book can be purchased. If you have questions or if you want help finding a book the Library can purchase, reach out to the OER team oer@uoregon.edu. You can learn more about this program on our affordable materials libguide.

Pressbooks OER Publishing

UO Pressbooks catalog, four book covers.

Pressbooks is a WordPress-based OER publishing platform that makes it simple to adapt or create OER, and allows authors to generate multiple book formats including a web book, PDFs, EPUBs, and more. Whether you want to make a few simple edits to a published OER, or create something from scratch, Pressbooks is a good option. Check out OER published at UO through Pressbooks or see the Pressbooks training options below to learn more about getting started with Pressbooks, and contact the OER team to request access to the platform.

Pilot: Manifold Publishing Platform

Manifold is a digital publishing platform used for OER, open access books, journals and other digital projects. UO Libraries has one year pilot access to Manifold through the Open Education Network through March 2025. Any UO faculty or staff member can request access to Manifold by emailing oer@uoregon.edu. 

OER Services & Consultation

In addition to grant funding, the OER team offers direct support to faculty adopting, adapting or creating OER. To access any of these services you can contact the OER team or request a consultation. You'll be directed to a short form where you can sign up for a consultation and answer a few questions about what you need help with. 

  • Consultation
    • Assistance finding existing OER.
    • Licensing and Copyright consultation: answer questions about how to publish and work under Creative Commons licenses. 
    • One on one Pressbooks consultations and Workshops (see below).
  • OER development support
    • Project management: assistance planning the OER development process and regular meetings with the OER team.
    • Basic editorial review.
    • Cover design and assistance using and finding openly licensed images.
    • Access to the OER publishing platform Pressbooks and Pressbooks support
    • Assistance incorporating interactive elements like Hypothes.is and H5P into Pressbooks projects.
    • Accessibility review.

Workshops & Trainings

  • Attend an OER Workshop
    UO Libraries offers regular workshops on Copyright and Open Licensing, OER, and Pressbooks. The Library's event calendar is kept up to date with upcoming trainings.
  • Book an OER consult
    To learn more about an OER topic, open publishing, copyright, etc. you can book a consult with the OER team.
  • Attend a Pressbooks Workshop:
     If there aren't any UO hosted Pressbooks workshops that work for you, Pressbooks hosts at least two workshops per month, after the workshop contact the OER team to get a Pressbooks account.
  • One on one Pressbooks training
    Sign up for a one on one Pressbooks training with the OER team. This link will take you to a page where you can book a 1 hour training at a time that works for you.
  • Watch Pressbook training videos
    If none of the workshops or trainings work for you, this recording of a getting started with Pressbooks video on the Pressbooks YouTube channel is a good place to start. Please note that Pressbooks has changed certain elements of their interface since this video was published, so your interface may look slightly different.