Introduction
The IU Indianapolis Open Education Award recognizes instructors (faculty and staff) that contribute to student success by using free, open, digital materials in the classroom. Open educational resources (OERs) are any educational materials that are in the public domain or licensed for adaptation and reuse. OERs may include textbooks, chapters, online modules, assignments, audiovisual works, datasets and other digital products.
Nominations for the Award
Nominate an Open Education Advocate
Eligible resources must:
- Have an open license, such as Creative Commons, GNU, Public Domain, etc.
- Be used in a classroom environment at IU Indianapolis between 2020-2025
- Be publicly accessible
We would like to recognize the work of instructors (faculty and staff) from a variety of IU Indianapolis schools and departments. Self nominations are accepted. Duos or groups who have used an OER in a collaborative manner are eligible for the award as well.
Winners will receive a cash award, plaque, and will be featured on the University Library website.
Curious about if your work counts as OER, contact the OER Librarian (kamcmurr@iu.edu) for additional information.
Applications close March 27, 2026.
Past Winners
Meet our past award recipients and explore the impactful open education projects that have improved access, reduced barriers, and enhanced the student learning experience at IU Indianapolis. View posters of past nominees IU Indianapolis Scholarworks.
Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, Audrey Ricke, and Laura Holzman collaborated to develop Teaching Toxic Heritage, an OER exploring environmental harm, collective memory, and community activism through interdisciplinary readings, discussions, and activities designed to foster critical engagement. Piloted in Anthropology and Museum Studies courses and shared nationally, the openly licensed resource is available via Pressbooks.
Professor Genevieve G. Shaker and doctoral student Meng-Han Ho have received the 2024 Open Education Award for co-producing and publishing “Giving and Volunteering in America,” an OER used in 100-level Philanthropic Studies courses. The book contains 39 primary sources, exploring the unique giving and voluntary behavior of Americans. The text is used by over 125 students a year across 6 sections. Ease of online access, high quality, topical relevance and no cost to students make this OER an excellent replacement for a traditional textbook.
Jennifer Price Mahoney adopted two OER textbooks and used other freely available teaching materials for three separate writing courses. These OER materials are used in multiple courses in the writing curriculum, and these courses impact a significant number of students. The students have responded positively to these materials with 67% responding that the OER readings were more helpful than materials they had used in other online courses.
Powell has created and deployed a new Canvas course shell for use in First-Year Experience (FYE) courses. The shell is designed to be used by instructors everywhere and can support in-person, online, or hybrid instruction.
Dr. Wang used open resources when creating the new course Climate Change and Society (GEOL-G477), saving students from needing to purchase textbooks for the course.
Dr. Dixon used OERs in assignment for his online courses from government websites. In PBHL-E645, students utilize a portion of the Open Learning initiative’s “Health Information and Technology Foundations,” a completely free resource.
Dr. Janson used free, downloadable open source repositories of digital designs (Thingiverse) to create a proportional upper limb bone anatomical model that can be 3D printed and assembled for student use.
Start Your OER Journey
Have you considered going beyond adopting OERs? Creating your own open resource allows you to design materials that reflect your teaching philosophy, your students, and your discipline. Our OER Development Grant provides the support and funding needed to transform your expertise into a resource that benefits learners across and beyond IU Indianapolis.