Library Research Guides
Library Research Guides
No one knows more about a faculty member's textbook selection better than the faculty themselves. For this reason, accurate No Cost Materials marking relies on faculty reporting whether their courses use entirely No Cost Materials.
Beginning with the Fall 2022 PCO process faculty will have the option to indicate if their courses are a Zero Textbook Cost section. This process looks a little different depending on your department, school or campus.
In future semesters the overall process is no different than what you are used to!
When you report information about your courses to your department/school PCO Admin in the usual way, simply indicate whether each one qualifies as a Zero Textbook Cost section. When your department/school/campus PCO Admin has completed the PCO for the semester the designated scheduler for your department/school/campus will ensure that your course sections are coded appropriately for Banner and UAOnline.
Students will then be able to search for ZTC sections.
Any course section that has zero required textbook/course materials costs should be marked Zero Textbook Cost.
Course materials are those resources used to convey course information or evaluate student performance, including (but not limited to): books/ebooks/textbooks, lab manuals, workbooks, online homework platforms or other publisher-provided tools and materials.
Zero Textbook Cost Section calculations only pertain to required course materials.
Recall that required course materials are those that are essential for success in the course while optional materials may be helpful but are not necessary. When a textbook or other course materials can be accessed online for free and also has a print format available for purchase, the former should be listed as required in MBS and the latter should be listed as optional.
Continue reading for sample scenarios that may help you navigate your particular situation.
Unsure whether your course section should be marked Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC)?
Contact Jonas Lamb (j.lamb@alaska.edu) and/or checkout this document: Reporting ZTC Sections Guidance for Faculty & Staff
Dr. Wu uses an Openstax (OER) textbook for her Business Ethics course. It is available freely online but a print copy can be purchased as well. She wants students to choose the format that works best for them. The course requires no other course materials.
This course should be marked Zero Textbook Cost. Further, when Dr. Wu enters her course textbook adoptions during the PCO process, she should list the print copy as optional rather than required and explain in the notes field that the book is freely available online.
The above scenario would also apply if Dr. Wu used a library-licensed ebook for her course. It is available freely to students via Egan Library but a print copy could also be purchased. She wants students to choose the format that works best for them. The course requires no other course materials.
This course should be marked Zero Textbook Cost. Further, when Dr. Wu enters her course textbook adoptions during the PCO process, she should list the print copy as optional rather than required and explain in the notes field that the ebook is freely available via Egan Library.
Professor Adams uses an OER textbook with a low-cost homework system ($25) for their College Algebra course.
This course should NOT be marked Zero Textbook Cost since some of the course materials have a cost. However they should explain in the notes field that the textbook book is freely available online.
Dr. Chadha teaches CHEM 103L, the lab course for General Chemistry. His students are not required to buy a textbook or lab manual but they must buy a chemistry model building kit, lab coat, and safety goggles. Someone else teaches CHEM 103 (lecture) and they use a commercial textbook.
CHEM 103L should be marked Zero Textbook Cost; all items bought for this course are considered supplies, not course materials.
CHEM 103 (lecture) should NOT be marked Zero Textbook Cost. Course markings are specific to each section.
Professor Kaitaq teaches Beginning Handbuilt Ceramics. Students aren't required to buy anything for the course, but they do pay a course fee that covers the clay and glazes they use during the semester, as well as shared tools, supplies, and equipment.
This course should be marked Zero Textbook Cost. If any of the fee went toward the purchase of course materials for a specific student (such as a textbook that they keep or a homework system), then this would not be marked No Cost.
Dr. Novak doesn't use a textbook for Sociology of Globalization. Instead she uses a mix of journal articles accessed through the Egan Library and links to materials freely available on the web. All of the materials are "all rights reserved" copyrighted materials so none of them are OER.
This course should be marked Zero Textbook Cost. Students do not have to pay anything to access these materials so they are considered No Cost. It does not matter whether they are OER.
Dr. Carson has never used course materials for their Psychology Practicum course in the past. They will continue not using course materials.
This course should be marked Zero Textbook Cost.
Sample Scenarios by D'Arcy Hutchings is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
In most cases faculty have academic freedom to select materials to meet the intended learning outcomes for their courses and programs. It is recognized that not all disciplines have sufficient openly licensed materials (OER) to support courses and programs and therefore this initiative also discusses other types of Zero Cost Textbooks (ZTC). ZTC materials may be instructor created materials, library ebooks, online journal articles or other freely available web resources that do not carry an open license but are free for students to access.
If nothing else, please consider the cost when selecting required course materials or online homework platforms as students may need to purchase very expensive textbooks for several classes and many students (6 in 10 in national surveys) do not purchase course texts due to the cost.
One of the big components of utilizing OER is attribution. Attribution is very much like citing references -- it is providing credit to the creator of the OER that you are using. In order to provide correct attribution, you may have to list Creative Commons information, as well as the creator's information. Throughout this LibGuide, you can find many examples of attribution.
Resources:
Attribution Tool : Just like a citation generator, this tool from Open Washington helps you format attributions for any OER you utilize (Open Attribution Builder is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Managed by WA SBCTC) .
Creative Commons: On this page, you will find out how to provide correct attributions when utilizing resources licensed through Creative Commons.
Research Guides by Egan Library | University of Alaska Southeast are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
