The FY24 budget for the state of Illinois appropriated $3 million in funding that the Illinois State Library has made for authoring, revising/remixing, updating, or creating ancillary materials for OER textbooks. The Open Educational Resource grant has a close turnaround time, with a maximum award of $150,000. Multiple grants can be submitted from the same institution. Applications are due to the Illinois State Library by April 1, 2024.

Student and Faculty Self-Service will be unavailable from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 11 while these systems are being upgraded to a new user experience. Self-Service will be upgraded to a new, modernized look and feel. Along with this upgrade, a new landing page will be created called myUIconnect. The myUIconnect landing page will present users with cards containing links to self-service functionalities.  

Whether you want to encourage or discourage students' use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in your course, syllabus statements are a great way to frame the conversation about generative AI with your students. COLRS has created a common document for UIS instructors to share the generative AI syllabus statements. Please email your AI syllabus language to COLRS for it to be added on your behalf.

Shipra Gupta, an associate professor of marketing in the Department of Management, Marketing and Operations at the University of Illinois Springfield, has been named University Scholar for 2023. The award, considered the University of Illinois System's highest faculty honor, recognizes outstanding teaching and scholarship. Only one faculty member receives the annual award at UIS.