Affordable Course

Applications for the Affordable Course Pilot Program are now closed. 

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences Office of Digital Education is running a pilot program in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 modeled on the Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation Grant initiative. This pilot program is an incentivized opportunity for faculty to eliminate expensive textbooks through the use of more affordable learning materials (less than $30) with the ultimate goal of lowering the educational costs for our students while improving student success, classroom morale, and RPG rates.

Read more about the benefits of using open educational resources and affordable course materials.

The CHSS ODE is now accepting applications for $1,000 (summer stipend or professional development) to revise a course currently costing students more than $30 in textbooks and materials. The final revised version of the course must meet the requirements of low cost ($30 or less) or no cost ($0) course classification. In the pilot of this program, the CHSS ODE will accept five applications with priority given to college needs and courses with higher costs in course materials (including textbooks and other expenses such as hardware or software).

For consideration, faculty must meet the following requirements:

  • The faculty member must not be delinquent from previous funding programs in RCHSS including but not limited to professional development funding modules and funded online course development.
  • The department chair must support the effort and agree to schedule the faculty member to teach the course in its revised form at least once by Spring 2021.
  • The faculty member must submit the most recent syllabus from the course with associated course costs (including textbooks, hardware, and software) to Tamara Powell (tpowel25@kennesaw.edu). 

Faculty with accepted proposals will be required to do the following:

  • Complete the Introduction to Open Educational Resources online training offered by the CHSS ODE before beginning the project
  • Attend a one-on-one planning meeting with the college instructional designer before beginning the project.
  • Revise the required course materials by adopting low or no cost materials/textbook as allowed by copyright and revising the course to work with those materials/textbook OR by creating his or her own no-cost materials and revising the course to work with those materials. An example of a course that has be designed for use with an open online textbook is TCOM 2010: Technical Writing. View a tour of TCOM 2010. Review more examples of how open educational resources and affordable course materials have been used at KSU.
  • Publish the resources or a list of the resources as allowed by copyright online with a CC BY license with the help of the college instructional designer, regardless of whether the faculty member is adopting and/or creating the materials.
  • Ensure that all course materials adopted/created during this project are accessible.
  • Submit the revised course syllabus and reading schedule with links to the RCHSS ODE for review and approval by the deadline for the selected payment option.
  • Deliver the revised course at least once by Spring 2021.

If awarded, faculty will receive $1,000 in either summer stipend (June 2020) OR professional development in the form of travel/workshops (to be used before June 1, 2020; earlier deadlines may apply). If taken as summer stipend, the faculty member is responsible for ensuring that it will not cause him or her to exceed the 33% summer cap.

The selection of summer stipend or professional development must be made at the time of application submission and cannot be changed later. No exceptions.

  • Timeline for Professional Development Funding
    Timeline for Summer 2020 Stipend
  • September 16, 2019: Application deadline.
    September 16, 2019: Application deadline
  • September 23, 2019: Acceptance and rejection emails sent
    September 23, 2019: Acceptance and rejection emails sent
  • October 7, 2019: Completion of Introduction to OER training due
    February 7, 2020: Completion of Introduction to OER training due
  • October 21, 2019: Completion of mandatory meeting with college instructional designer due
    March 6, 2020: Completion of mandatory meeting with college instructional designer due
  • November 25, 2019: Completion of project due
    May 25, 2020: Completion of project due
  • December 9, 2019: Notification of approval for spring professional development
    June 30, 2020: Stipend payments made
  • June 1, 2020: Expense reports submitted; earlier deadlines may apply
    May 31, 2021: Delivery of revised course due
  • May 31, 2021: Revised course must be delivered by Spring 2021
     

Due to summer stipend restrictions, this pilot is restricted to permanent 9-month faculty.

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