Research Guides: Open and Affordable Educational Resources: Get Support

Request a Consultation

We look forward to supporting your OER and affordable course materials projects! Please email Sarah, our open education librarian, to schedule a consultation. We can help with:

Understanding your course materials options
Finding and using existing OER and affordable materials
Adapting existing OER, publishing content you've created as OER, or creating OER from scratch
Using our Pressbooks publishing platform for adapting, remixing, creating, or publishing an OER textbook. We can provide you with an account, intro training, troubleshooting, and a final accessibility audit.
Adding resources to Canvas
Copyright, fair use, and open licensing guidance
DEI and accessibility best practices
Sharing your work publicly
Identifying funding sources for your OER projects

We're not currently able to provide full production and publishing services, including editing and formatting, copyright or accessibility audits, securing copyright or licensing permissions, and coordinating peer review. However, we can connect you with resources and tools for these parts of your process, or refer you to external services.

Share Your OER

Have you created an OER that you'd like to promote publicly? Using an existing OER in your teaching that you want to tell your peers about? Fill out the form below to have your resource added or tagged in the OER Commons and UMD dashboard page!

Funding Opportunities

Maryland Open Source Textbook (M.O.S.T.) Initiative Mini-Grants
M.O.S.T.'s annual mini-grants program provides cohort-based support and stipends to help faculty adopt/adapt, create, and/or implement open educational resources. Open to instructors at any Maryland higher education institution.
Teaching Innovation Grants (TLTC)
The Teaching & Learning Transformation Center (TLTC) awards annual grants to UMD faculty (all ranks) and instructional staff. Projects involving the use or creation of OER align with the 2025 theme: applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to create engaging, accessible, and equitable learning experiences.
Other funding opportunities
Open licensing can be applied to many kinds of content. For this reason, OER can be integrated into funding applications and grants, even ones not targeted to OER specifically. When reviewing grant opportunities, consider how you might incorporate the creation or use of OER within a larger project. You can also search for previous proposals that have included OER. Be sure to double-check the terms and conditions of the funding to confirm that you can publish deliverables with an open license.

Events & Workshops

Maryland Events

Maryland Open Source Textbook Initiative (M.O.S.T.) events
M.O.S.T. and the Kirwan Center sponsor regular events for professional development in OER and pedagogy, including the annual Maryland OER Summit.
UMD Libraries events
The Libraries hosts occasional events and workshops related to open scholarship and OER, and we're working to develop more.

Open Education Conferences

Open Education Conference
Hybrid conference (U.S. city + virtual options) held every October
Open Education Global (OEGlobal) Conference
Annual open education conference with global focus
Open Education Week (OEWeek)
Held every March, this week-long celebration of open education features local and virtual events worldwide