7 Memorandum of Understanding
OER creators partnering with Mavs Open Press are required to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The purpose of the MOU is to clearly identify the roles and responsibilities of each party as they relate to the open education project supported by the UTA CARES Grant Program and/or Mavs Open Press.
Author/Grantee Responsibilities
- Attend the UTA CARES OER Training Program.
- Complete planned activities and deliverables according to the timeline presented in the application and MOU.
- Agree to spend funding in accordance with university policy and maintain appropriate records of these expenditures.
- Submit monthly project updates for the duration of the project to report on progress.
- Share with the Libraries usage statistics for any resources housed outside of the ResearchCommons. This information will be requested annually and should be returned by the deadline included with the request.
- Circulate surveys to all students in courses impacted by the project. Surveys will be provided by the OER Department via QuestionPro and shall be distributed electronically near the end of the semester of implementation and each subsequent semester the OER is used. Grantees who choose to distribute hard copies of the surveys agree to provide UTA Libraries with a spreadsheet of the data and submit the original hard copies of the surveys to the Libraries.
- Submit a final project report summarizing the challenges and accomplishments of the project and its impact on student performance. The report shall include any data that assist in measuring the impact of the project. This report is due within three months following the implementation semester.
- Share additional experiences working on the project with the Libraries and allow the dissemination of those observations through a variety of communication channels.
- Continue to use the OER (or another free equivalent) for a minimum of two years (for adoption stipends), three years (for scale grants), or four years (for innovation grants).
- Acknowledge that full or partial support came from the UTA CARES grant program administered by the UTA Libraries in any publication or presentation about the project.
- Report use of the OER each semester it is used prior to the beginning of registration (approximately April 1 for fall and summer courses and October 1 for spring courses). OER adoptions must be reported using the adoption reporting forms located on the UTA CARES guide.
- If new or modified OER are created for use in the course, the grantee will:
- Use UTA’s Pressbooks instance to the extent possible for the creation and dissemination of the OER and consult with the OER Department on any resources that are not housed in Pressbooks.
- Ensure the OER are of high quality and meet accessibility standards. Any remediation required to bring resources up to standards is the responsibility of the grant recipient.
- Consult with the Libraries on the use of any intellectual property that is not owned by the grant recipient, shared under a Creative Commons license that allows for reuse, or in the public domain. Determining ownership of third-party content is the responsibility of the grant recipient. Documentation demonstrating fair use and/or permissions for third-party content included in the OER shall be submitted with the deliverables. All openly licensed content must be properly attributed.
- Provide or contract peer review, copy editing, and proofreading of OER created during the project to ensure grammatical and spelling accuracy, clarity, and consistency.
- Allow the Libraries to deposit OER resulting from the grant in the UTA ResearchCommons. All deliverables must be received by the Libraries prior to the distribution of the second funding transfer. Deliverables must include the original, editable files for re-distribution.
- Ensure that OER are delivered in enduring/sustainable formats. Questions regarding file types should be addressed to the OER Department.
- Acknowledge contributions of students and other project team members in any OER produced during the course of this project and in any publication or presentation about the project.
UTA Libraries’ Responsibilities
- Provide formal training for new grantees.
- Process funding transfers as established in this MOU.
- Provide surveys to be distributed to students each semester in every course in which the OER is used. Share survey results with instructor.
- Offer consultations regarding intellectual property and reuse of third-party content.
- Publicize the progress of grant recipients and maintain a public record of funded projects.
- Promptly respond to questions and concerns submitted by the grant recipient. (Submit to oer@uta.edu.)
- Direct grant recipients to additional resources that may assist in resolving challenges encountered during the project period.
- If new OER are created for use in the course, the Libraries will:
- Upload materials resulting from the grant to the Research Commons.
- Provide access to UTA’s Pressbooks site for OER (Request Access).
- Provide technical assistance and troubleshooting for UTA’s Pressbooks site.
- Provide an accessibility evaluation of OER prior to the close of the project with explicit recommendations for any elements requiring remediation.