Have you ever thought about converting your traditional course materials to a fully accessible, interactive, and engaging online format that students can access via their favorite electronic device?

Beginning May 17, 2021, The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) will award a limited number of $8,000 grants to University of Illinois faculty and instructors to develop locally-produced course materials as required reading for classes on the Urbana campus. Grant recipients will receive support in transforming assigned textbooks, workbooks, or readings for Fall 2021 courses to the award-winning eText@Illinois platform.

While all instructor-authors are eligible, those interested in creating required resources for large undergraduate enrollment classes (greater than 300 seats annually) are particularly encouraged to apply. 

Grants may be awarded as summer salary, service-in-excess appointments, or as stipends by arrangement with Department chair and business office. This grant is being offered in recognition of the amount of work involved in developing course content.

The deadline for proposal submissions is April 30, 2021. Please review the RFP for more details.

Why eText@Illinois?

• Created at and for the U of I, eText@Illinois is an interactive, browser-based, multimedia-capable platform for delivering original, instructor-developed course content in a cost-efficient manner. Students usually save between 50 to 75 percent over the cost of mainstream published textbooks (even over electronic rentals).
• Currently, eText@illinois hosts over 70 eTexts (required textbooks for courses) and has served more than 70,000 textbooks to Illinois students since 2010. Fall 2020 saw the largest use, topping more than 16,000 student eTexts.
• eText@Illinois enables students with myriad visual, mobility, language, and learning abilities to learn and interact with their course content, instructor, and peers in ways that best meet their learning strategies, putting them on an equal footing with other students.
• eText allows for two-way communication between students and instructors (both typed and freehand) as well as embedded assessments and practice problems linked from learning management systems on campus.
• eText can be tailored specifically to a given course as it is taught on the Urbana campus. Extraneous topics can be omitted and content refreshed along with important background information and scaffolding as needed.

Applicants may email their submissions to citl-extextrfp@illinois.edu.

Learn more about developing an eText.

For more information or demo access to textbooks on the eText@illinois platform, please email Milind Basole at basole@illinois.edu