2025-2026 Affordable Course Materials Awards

The Tisch Library Affordable Course Materials awards program provides financial support for faculty & instructors in the Schools of Arts, Sciences & Engineering who would like to reduce costs for their students by identifying no-cost course materials to incorporate into their syllabus. 

Eligibility

The awards are open to all Tufts faculty and instructors who are the instructor of record in a Summer 2025, Fall 2025, or Spring 2026 course in the Schools of Arts, Sciences & Engineering.

Eligible no-cost course materials may include open textbooks, texts and media freely available online, instructor-created materials, or materials available through Tisch Library. Priority will be given to projects that use a high percentage of open educational resources (OER, i.e., those freely available to all audiences and licensed under a Creative Commons license). We do not provide funding for purchase of texts, materials, or other publications by students of faculty for use in courses.

Awards descriptions and requirements 

Awards are available at three different funding levels, based on the anticipated amount of time involved and the impact of the project.

In addition to the base amount of each award, there are opportunities to receive additional funding based on elements of your proposal that further advance goals of significant cost savings to students and/or wider adoption of fully open material. See more about opportunities for additional funding.

Award type Amount Description Opportunities for additional funding
Fully free $1000

Create a new course or replace existing course content with 100% freely available course materials to reduce cost to $0

 
  • $500 for classes of 50 students or more
  • $500 for using fully open materials (i.e. OER)
  • $250 for reviewing an open text
Low cost $500 Replace some existing course content with freely available course materials to reduce total cost to students to $50 or less.
  • $500 for classes of 50 students or more
  • $500 for using fully open materials (i.e. OER) as the replacement material
  • $250 for reviewing an open text
Design your own Up to $2000

Tell us about a project you'd like to work on to use or create free course materials, and what funding you'll need to accomplish it. Projects should demonstrate a cost savings for students.

Projects may involve, but are not limited to: authoring an open book chapter or textbook; creating open instructional materials; engaging in an open pedagogy project.

Applicants will submit an initial project proposal and consult with Tisch Library to define a project scope, deliverables, and award amount.
  • $500 for classes of 50 students or more
  • $250 for reviewing an open text

If you’re not sure if your project is eligible for the award, feel free to reach out to the Tisch Open Educational Resources Steering Committee via our contact form and we’ll provide feedback.

All awardees will receive the base amount of each award (in the “Amount” column in the table above). In addition to that amount, proposals that meet specific elements are eligible to receive additional funding for each possible element that applies to the project (listed in the “Opportunities for additional funding” column in the table above). You are not required to meet any of these elements to receive an award; these are opportunities to further advance goals of significant cost savings to students and/or wider adoption of fully open material.

OpportunityEligible awardsEligible projectsPurpose
$500 for classes of 50 students or moreFully free, Low cost, Design your ownYour project qualifies for this additional funding if it impacts 50 students or more in a single semester.Furthers our goal of student cost savings by impacting a larger student population.
$500 for using fully open material, or “true” open educational resources (OER)Fully free, Low cost

Your project qualifies for this additional funding if the material you are using is freely available to all users (i.e. doesn’t require a Tufts log-in) and is shared with a Creative Commons license to encourage reuse and adaptation.

This may include something like a textbook from OpenStax, or a monograph from the Directory of Open Access Books. See our guide to open educational resources for more sources of OER.

Furthers our goal of increasing use of openly-licensed material and shifting away from expensive, closed-access publishing models.
$250 for reviewing an open textFully free, Low cost, Design your own

Your project qualifies for this additional funding if you evaluate and publish a review for an open text as part of your process. Reviews should be posted either in the Open Textbook Library or LibreTexts.

If you'd like to review a text in another platform, please get in touch with us.

Furthers our goal of encouraging use of open materials by providing information about quality & relevance to the community.

All award recipients will have an initial consultation with a Tisch librarian to discuss your project and course materials and librarians will be available for further consultations and support in locating open materials as you work on your project. If your project involves revising curricular components, we will also facilitate a consultation with Center for the Enhancement of Learning & Teaching (CELT) staff.

Awarded funds may be used for hiring Tufts-affiliated individuals, including students, as project assistants. Please note that the full award amount will be transferred to the faculty applicant, who will then be responsible for disbursing funds to their hired assistants.

Any new digital materials that are created as part of funded projects must conform to the Tufts Digital Accessibility Policy.

Award recipients agree to participate in a brief (written) interview about their experience creating or revising a no-cost course that will be posted on the Tisch Library website.

Deliverables from the grant will be submitted to Tisch as they are available, no later than August 31, 2025 (for summer courses), December 31, 2025 (for fall courses), or May 31, 2026 (for spring courses).

Application process

Submit an application for the Affordable Course Materials Awards.

  • Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
  • We will respond to your application via email typically in about one to two weeks

In evaluating the applications, we will consider:

  • If applicants have clear objectives for incorporating no-cost course materials into their course and can demonstrate how the award will support this incorporation
  • The number of students impacted
  • The total reduction in costs for students
  • How replacing course content with free materials will improve access and equity for students

You can view a full list of application questions at the following links before filling out the application form:

Questions? 

If you have any questions about the awards or application process, reach out to the Tisch Open Educational Resources Steering Committee via our contact form.