IUB OER Programs Save Students $2M+

A recent report shows that students at Indiana University- Bloomington have saved over $2 million dollars on course materials through Open Education Resources (OER).  

Each year, the Course Materials Fellowship Program (CMFP) and Summer Sprint for Zero Textbook Costs selects faculty from a pool of highly competitive applications to fund and develop their course materials into open, accessible, and publicly available materials online. The CMFP offers funding to faculty to develop a larger scale OER Project. Meanwhile, Summer Sprint offers support over the summer to develop on-going OER projects.  

Since 2020 there have been 23 CMFP Fellows and since 2023 there have been 20 Summer Sprint fellows. In total, the estimated student savings from these programs add up to just over $2.3 million dollars. 

Check out some previous fellow’s projects on IUScholarWorks or read this Blog on IU’s Open Education Showcase. 

Student savings are reflected in openly accessible course materials produced on IU Pressbooks. Typically, this involves fellows working with the OER Librarian, Subject Librarians, and other Librarians and staff to adapt or adopt course materials.  

The CMFP Program is temporarily paused, but the applications for Summer Sprint for Zero Textbook Costs are anticipated to open in Spring 2026. If you are interested in learning more about OER or incorporating OER in your course materials, please check out our OER LibGuide or reach out to our OER Librarian, Haley Norris (hjnorris@iu.edu) for a consultation today!