Program Management & Publishing: Policy Development: Home

In governments and legislatures, policies for OER support and adoption are typically drafted by a combination of legislative staff, education committees, and policy advisors, often in consultation with external stakeholders like educational experts, advocacy organizations, and public institutions. There is always a procedure initiated and managed by a stage budget entity. See more on the MNOP Program Types & Funding page.

State Budget Processes

• Minnesota: The State Budget Process - prepared by the Minnesota House of Representatives House Research Department
• North Dakota's Budgeting Process - prepared by the North Dakota Legislative Council staff
• South Dakota Money & Appropriations - prepared by the South Dakota Legislative Research Council

Further Reading

• State Policy Playbook (SPARC) - policy recommendations, model language, and examples for U.S. state legislators considering affordability initiatives for education 
• State Budget Basics (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) - explainer on state budget processes

Establishing comprehensive policies and guidelines for OER grant programs aids in ensuring transparency, fairness, and effectiveness. Your program will run more smoothly if you are able to identify suitable applicants, ensure consistency in submissions, enforce licensing requirements, require proactive accessible design, promote accountability, and handle any disputes or less than ideal situations.

OER Grant Program Policies and Guidelines

• Eligibility Criteria: Define characteristics like which roles (e.g., faculty, departments, adjuncts), which type of courses (e.g., high-impact, upper-level undergraduate, newly offered), which category (e.g., course-redesign, newly authored, OER-enabled pedagogy integration), and outline any other specific qualifications or requirements (e.g., multi-department collaborations, student involvement). 
• Application Process: Establish a clear process for applying, including deadlines, required documentation, and submission guidelines. List any prerequisite training required.
• Open Licensing: Ensure that all materials created with grant funding adhere to open licensing standards, such as Creative Commons licenses.
• Accessibility: Require compliance with university or repository accessibility requirements. Also, consider using accessibility by design principles to make the deliverables forward compatible with ADA Title II requirements. 
• Evaluation Criteria: Share your rubric or document the criteria used to evaluate grant proposals (e.g., potential impact, alignment with institutional goals, feasibility).
• Awarding Procedures: Create rules for how grants are awarded, including the decision-making process and any required approvals.
• Funding Guidelines: Set guidelines on how the grant funds can be used (e.g., for course development, purchasing resources, faculty stipends, student employment) and restrictions on spending.
• Reporting Requirements: Require grant recipients to submit reports (often standardized via forms or downloadable templates) detailing expenditures and impact. Require deposit and link sharing to appropriate OER champion and repository on campus.
• Dispute Resolution: Define procedures for resolving any disputes or issues that arise during the administration of the grant program.
• Assessment: Implement procedures for an evaluation process to assess the overall effectiveness of the grant program.
• Intellectual Property and Copyright: Establish policies regarding the ownership of materials created through the grant program, ensuring compliance with copyright laws and institutional policies, and any permissions needed by the institution to distribute or publish.

Reading list management programs can be deployed in numerous configurations: strictly faculty self-service, strictly library-managed, and varieties of team-based or collaborative pursuits. Each configuration will need an extensive list of policies, guidelines, and procedures so the service is clear to faculty. Additionally, if the library doesn't approach managing fair use of course materials in good faith, library staff can be held liable for extensive damages. 

Reading List Management Program Policies and Guidelines

• Selection Criteria for Materials: Define criteria for selecting course materials, including guidelines on preferred types of resources (e.g., OER, library-owned content, licensed materials) and their relevance to course objectives.
• Copyright and Licensing Compliance: Establish guidelines, if possible in conjunction with general counsel, ensuring all materials used in reading lists comply with your institution’s interpretations of copyright laws and institutional licensing agreements, including fair use guidelines. Guidelines should be made available to faculty and others working on the reading list, but can be linked behind a university portal if so inclined.  
• Content Accessibility Standards: Create policies to ensure that all reading list materials meet accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG, ADA Title II).
• Review and Approval Process: Set up a process for the regular review and approval of reading lists by library staff or relevant committees to ensure compliance with policies and alignment with institutional goals. Reserve the right of your library staff to reject any reading requested or added to the list. On a systems level, faculty may have trouble understanding the workflow for notifying libraries when they add new items, and it should be clear that they must follow the workflow to be queued and receive timely service.
• Faculty Collaboration and Support: Develop guidelines for collaborating with faculty in creating and updating reading lists, including training and support services for utilizing the reading list management system.
• Technology and Platform Usage: Establish rules for using the reading list management platform, including user permissions, data security, and integration with the Learning Management System (LMS).
• Monitoring and Evaluation: Implement procedures for monitoring the use of the reading list management system, evaluating its effectiveness, and collecting feedback from faculty and students. 
• Data Privacy and Security: Ensure compliance with institutional data privacy policies and regulations, including secure handling of user data and access controls, especially when collaborating with departmental staff and student workers.
• Funding and Resource Allocation: Define policies for funding the acquisition of new materials or subscriptions required for the reading lists, and central or compulsory licensing or course material, including budgetary constraints, approval processes, chargebacks, and waiting periods.
• Sustainability and Content Maintenance: Establish guidelines for the ongoing maintenance of reading lists, including regular updates to replace outdated or unavailable materials with current, accessible alternatives. Add caution for anybody adding resources from subscriptions to database content aggregators, which may fall out of the subscription with little to no notice.
• Rollover: The process of reusing a reading list from a previous semester (aka “rollover”) is fraught with difficulty and communication problems. Be as proactive and upfront as possible, and hold true to a policy and procedure you can provide faculty when they initially create the list.
• Dispute Resolution: Create a clear process for resolving any disputes or challenges that arise between faculty, library staff, and other stakeholders regarding reading list content or policy compliance, including a path of escalation (e.g., library staff, then program manager, then general counsel).