The Affordable & Open Educational Resources (AOER) Committee continues its support of open education by announcing the recipients of the 2025–2026 OER Grants. Funded by the Colorado Department of Higher Education, these grants support faculty who are transforming their courses by adopting, adapting, or creating Open Educational Resources (OER).

This year’s grant cycle was especially competitive; the AOER Committee received requests totaling more than two and a half times the available funding. The awarded grants, valued between $1,900 and $4,400, will assist faculty as they author or remix OER to replace costly commercial materials. Once completed, these resources will not only benefit UNC students but will also reach a global audience through their inclusion in UNCOpen, the university’s open access repository.

With these awards, a total of 92 faculty and graduate students have now participated in the OER Grant Program since its inception, representing 31 departments and all five colleges. This year’s recipients represent the College of Natural and Health Sciences, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Colorado School of Public Health at UNC:

• Jonathan Alcántar, Chicano/a and Latinx Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Dannon Cox and Madison Gremillion, Community Health Education, Colorado School of Public Health at UNC
• Steph Fanelli, Kinesiology, Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Natural and Health Sciences
• Marian Hamilton, Anthropology, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Kim Murza, Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Natural and Health Sciences
• Chelsie Romulo, Geography, GIS and Sustainability, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Corinne Wieben, History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Open Educational Resources are free learning materials that carry legal permissions for revision, remixing, and adaptation. They promote educational equity by removing textbook costs and allowing instructors to tailor materials to their students’ needs.

During the 2024–25 academic year alone, OER use at UNC saved students more than $319,000, impacting over 5,900 course enrollments across 242 sections. Beyond cost savings, research at UNC and nationally shows that students in OER courses have higher passing and completion rates than those using traditional materials — evidence that open education enhances both access and success.