Getting Textbooks to Zero Student Cost: ZTC and OER

This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to Open Education. [Version 1.1. Revised September 5th, 2019.]

This is a YouTube playlist made by Abbey Elder with videos for instructors.

This toolkit is intended as a guide for students who are engaging in open pedagogy. The toolkit defines open pedagogy, the benefits of open pedagogy, and the rights and responsibilities that come with being a student creator. Instructors may wish to use this toolkit as a resource to scaffold conversations about open pedagogy with their students and to appropriately prepare them for working in the open. [Version 1.3 updated March 14, 2024]

By completing this fellowship, participants will make progress towards: deepening their experience with Open Pedagogy and OER in order to identify their own path of engagement; critically analyzing their pedagogical, curricular, and assessment choices through a social justice lens; improving equity in the classroom through their pedagogical, curricular, and assessment choices; and creating pedagogical, curricular, and/or assessment materials to share with their community.

Beyond the Horizon: Broadening Our Understanding of OER Efficacy is a concise yet comprehensive resource designed to provide insight into the current state of research and reporting on Open Educational Resources (OER) efficacy. This guide explores existing frameworks, delves into key themes and gaps, and highlights emerging opportunities in the realm of OER efficacy.

This practical guide provides a framework and tips to enhance inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in Open Educational Resources.

The OERI Student Impact Toolkit is designed to guide colleges, universities, and other organizations in higher education to capture, measure, and share the impressions and impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course sections on enrolled students through a survey and videos. The toolkit includes an editable survey, strategies for implementing the survey, examples of how to display and share the survey data, and considerations for ensuring campus stakeholders are involved. The second part of the toolkit includes a video library of example videos of students speaking about OER and textbook costs, sample video and image release forms, and guidelines for creating successful videos. These resources are all openly licensed (CC BY) and can be used, remixed, and re-shared.

The Working Group Guide is a resource for librarians, staff, and faculty who support or are supporting open education at their institution and are starting or running an open working group. This resource contains three sections to help users establish, run, and sustain a working group.

The Faculty Quick Start Guide is an outcome of a project by ISKME, supported by a grant from the Michelson 20MM Foundation, to conduct a study and develop a set of resources to accelerate OER use for distance education, especially the urgent shift to remote learning during the pandemic in 2020. The Guide, created in collaboration with a selection of OER and online education champions across California community colleges (CCC), contains:

"Automatic textbook billing, sometimes branded 'Inclusive Access,' or 'First-Day Access' incorporates course material expenses into students’ tuition and fees. A growing number of campuses have adopted the model in some form, often with the goal of addressing the increasing expense of textbooks and ensuring students have access to materials by the first day of class. Colleges and universities negotiate with publishers to secure discounts through bulk purchasing agreements, which may in turn be passed along to students. However, there are a number of concerns regarding this model’s implementation that ought to be considered.

From the University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library

This document presents suggested language for contracts between institutions and third-party bookstore vendors such as Barnes & Noble or Follet. The intent of this guide is to assist colleges in authoring and negotiating contract language so that it will promote access, student success, and faculty members’ academic freedom and include choices for affordable course materials such as open educational resources (OER). It is meant to be used as a reference point that colleges can employ for future contract negotiations as they see appropriate.

See Third-Party Bookstore Contracts: A Guide for Negotiating Contracts That Support the Use of Open Educational Resources (2022) from Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges for specific language recommendations on some of these areas.

SPARC created the Textbook Billing Contract Library as a resource for advocates and institutions to understand the legal agreements behind automatic textbook billing.

"The mission of the ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) is to reduce the cost of educational resources for students by expanding the availability and adoption of high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER). OERI facilitates and coordinates the curation and development of OER texts, ancillaries, and support systems."

"The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) promotes the awareness and adoption of open educational policies, practices, and resources...CCCOER is part of Open Education Global."

"Creative Commons is an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to grow and sustain the thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture we need to address the world's most pressing challenges and create a brighter future for all."

"SPARC is a non-profit advocacy organization that supports open systems for research and education that enable everyone, everywhere to access, contribute to, and benefit from the knowledge that shapes our world."