Think Open Fellowship

Librarians work across campus with faculty to integrate and implement open educational resources in classrooms, supporting better teaching and saving students money. Through the Think Open Fellowship, faculty and graduate students with teaching appointments are eligible for awards to support the transition of University of Idaho courses to open materials, or otherwise very low cost materials (defined by the state of Idaho as those materials with a total cost of less than $30).

The Think Open Fellowship program has saved students over $500,000 in textbook costs since its inception in 2017!

Contact Open Education Librarian Marco Seiferle-Valencia for help implementing OER materials in your classroom!

About the Think Open Fellowship
Think Open Fellows
Open Educational Resources
portrait of Marco Seiferle-Valencia
Open Education Librarian Marco Seiferle-Valencia

About the Think Open Fellowship

The University of Idaho Library’s Think Open Fellowship is an opportunity to equalize access to educational materials in your classroom and save your students money by supporting the use of low or no-cost course materials in place of traditional costly course materials.

Think Open Fellowship Awards are intended to achieve any combination of the following goals:

  1. Lower the cost of college attendance for students and contribute to their retention, progression, and graduation.

  2. Support faculty and graduate students who are interested in contributing new disciplinary content or knowledge in the form of an Open textbook or resource.

  3. Pilot unique approaches in University of Idaho courses for textbook transformation including adopting and adapting existing resources, co-creating Open Educational Resources (OER) with students, and identifying materials available from the U of I Library.

  4. Provide support to faculty to implement these and other approaches.

This fellowship awards $1,200 to selected faculty and graduate students. Fellows are expected to:

  • Commit to using an Openly textbook or, in select cases, affordable alternative (total cost less than $30) for an upcoming course. Faculty teaching high enrollment 100-200 level courses, dual-enrollment courses, and Idaho Gem courses are especially encouraged to apply.

  • Meet regularly with the Open Education Librarian as supports their work.

  • Agree to share the resources and content they create on the Think Open OER Commons group.

  • Deliver a final syllabus for their course that uses Open or other low-cost materials (less than $30).

Faculty can apply to transform any course in this fellowship program. Faculty teaching Idaho GEM courses, high enrollment courses, and dual-enrollment courses are especially encouraged to apply. The Think Open Program also welcomes applications from faculty hoping to increase quality representation of marginalized identities in their course materials.