Textbook Affordability Task Force
It is our mission to encourage and support faculty to use textbook savings programs and Open Educational Resources (OERs) to provide affordable, high-quality materials from day one in their courses.
The cost of textbooks has increased 82% over the last ten years, costing Tennessee students enrolled in public institutions an average of $1,400 last year. Textbook costs force many of our students to make decisions that compromise their academic success. Major studies show that 66.6% do not purchase the required textbook, with the result that:
- 6% earn a poor grade
- 8% fail a course
- 6% take fewer courses
- 5% do not register for a course
- 1% drop a course
- 7% withdraw from courses
Want to ensure that students have textbooks and other materials for your course?
Consider the option of an Open Educational Resource (OER) to lower the cost of materials for students in your course(s) and to ensure that students have immediate access to the materials. Creative Commons defines OER as teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities – Retaining, Remixing, Revising, Reusing and Redistributing the resources.
Once an OER has been adopted for your course(s), it can be loaded into the D2L course shell and accessible when the course begins.
For help selecting an OER, Michael Hooper, APSU Electronic Resources Librarian, has created an OER guide. https://libguides.apsu.edu/OER.
Other resources for OERs:
Rice Connexions is providing peer reviewed, quality open textbooks with interactive components. There are some amazing textbooks available here, with more in production.
This effort funded by the Hewlett Foundation, seeks to drive adoption of open textbooks. Many of the books shared on this resources are reviewed.
This resource seeks to collect and distribute a variety of OER at a variety of levels and subjects.
Task Force Members Include:
Ellen Brown - Faculty, Library
Susan Cockrell - Faculty, CoB
Amy Gillick - Faculty, CoAL
Jessica Hatz - Faculty, CoBHS
Michael Hooper - Faculty, Library
Samuel Ligo - Faculty, CoSTEM
Rodney Mills - Faculty, CoSTEM
Tracy Nichols - Faculty, CoAL
John Phillips - Faculty, CoBHS
Anthony Sanders - Faculty, CoE
Donna Short - Faculty, CoE
Colleen White - Faculty, CoSTEM