RETFII | Textbook Costs & Digital Learning Resources Committee | Interim Report

TEXTBOOK COSTS & DIGITAL

LEARNING RESOURCES

Interim Report

Task Force on College Textbooks

JUNE 2004

Task Force on College Textbooks: 20041.Faculty members receive education about the

cost of textbooks.  Particular attention is paid to those parts of the ordering process over which they have leverage and how this leverage can be used to help control costs.

2.Textbook adoption processes are formalized and include textbook cost as a consideration.

3.The same textbook is adopted for all sections of a given course within colleges and across multi-campus colleges.

4.Textbook adoptions are consistent across statewide or region-wide college groups.

5.Textbooks are adopted for a minimum of three years.

6.Academic divisions’ textbook orders are accurate and timely.

Task Force on College Textbooks: 2004

7.The College encourages faculty to adopt or develop alternatives to traditional textbooks for their classes.

8.The college provides students with alternative ways to pay for textbooks.

9.The bookstore provides a used textbook sales and purchase program that results in significant cost savings to a significant number of students.

10.There is a positive working relationship between bookstore personnel and college personnel.

11.Bookstores make use of less expensive sources for textbooks.

12.The bookstore utilizes alternative approaches of providing textbooks at lower cost to students.

4x the rate of inflation 812% since 1978• higher than medical services, new home prices, and the CPI

$520-$1000 per semester

TEXTBOOK COSTS & DIGITAL

LEARNING RESOURCES

WORKGROUP

1. Examine VCCS administrative practices and policies that unnecessarily add to the cost of academic textbooks

2. Explore how networked digital technology can best be leveraged to lower the overall cost of textbooks, including using open educational resources

3. Investigate ways which currently licensed electronic resources can be used in electronic "course packs," as a substitute for text books, or for the supplementary material often required for a course of study

4. Identify opportunities for interested VCCS faculty to explore using openly licensed resources in their courses

5. Examine the current relevance of printed textbooks in an age of interactive, web-based content, digital publishing, and collaborative social networks.

6. Recommend strategies and policies for creating an institutional culture that embraces and practices openness, transparency, collaboration, and sharing.

VISIONOur vision is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive high quality instruction with supporting instructional resources that are cost-effective, most efficient for colleges, and supported by faculty.

SUBCOMMITTEESFINANCIAL AIDBOOKSTORE CONTRACTSPUBLISHERSACCESSIBILITY

SURVEYMOOC

FINANCIAL AID• 34.7%, 100K+

students• Awards disbursed

after 15% of term has passed

• Follett (9 colleges)• Barnes and Noble (4 colleges)• Nebraska Book Company (5 colleges)• College-owned (5 colleges)

BOOKSTORE CONTRACTS

TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS

TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS

Accessibility

Teaching & Learning

2013 Horizon ReportLess than a year• MOOCS• Tablet computing2-3 years• Games & gamification• Learning Analytics4-5 Years• 3D printing• Wearable technology

LIBRARY RESOURCES

LIBRARY RESOURCESPSY 200 pilot

Institutional & faculty culture“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”

–Peter Drucker

OER IncentivesFull-time1. Grant funding2. Release time3. Additional education and training4. Assistance from a peer group

Part-time5. Additional education and training, 6. Grant funding7. Assistance from a peer group8. Release time

Chancellor’s OER Adoption Fund

1. BIO 1012. BIO1023. BUS 1004. CHM 1115. CST 1006. ENG 111

7. ENG 1128. HIS 1019. ITE 115

10.MTH 16311.PSY 20112.SDV 100

Tidewater Community CollegeOpen@TCC

Z CoursesAssociate degree in Business Admin

$0 Textbook Costs

NVCC’s OER General Education Certificate

1. ENG 1112. ENG 112 3. ENG 1254. MTH 1515. PHY 2016. PHY 202

7. HIS 1218. HIS 1229. ART 10110. ART 10211. HIS 262

12.SDV 100

RECOMMENDATIONS

VCCS Presidential evaluations should be revised to include metrics for measuring the goal to significantly reduce the cost of textbooks and related course materials in at least 10% of all course sections offered each year, in each of the next ten years.

Institutional & faculty culture

RECOMMENDATIONS

Full-time faculty evaluations should include required criteria to “select high-quality learning resources, such as textbooks, bearing in mind appropriateness, necessity, accessibility, and reduced student costs”.

Institutional & faculty culture

RECOMMENDATIONS

Promote reduced student costs for textbooks and related instructional materials in new evaluation systems for part-time and administrative faculty.

Institutional & faculty culture

RECOMMENDATIONS

Individual colleges and the System Office should provide training, resources, and incentives for both full- and part-time faculty to identify, develop, and/or adopt open educational resources (OER) for their courses.

Institutional & faculty culture

RECOMMENDATIONS

Encourage colleges to develop a request for proposals (RFP) for potential vendors to provide system-wide bookstore services.

College Bookstore Contracts

RECOMMENDATIONS

Conduct periodic data collection to determine student satisfaction and student success related to acquisition, cost and use of required course materials over the next five years.

College Bookstore Contracts

RECOMMENDATIONS

Investigate the use of inexpensive print-on-demand services to offer VCCS students the option of printing high-quality copies of any digital-only course materials

College Bookstore Contracts

RECOMMENDATIONS

Pursue opportunities to collaborate with publishers to design strategies to reduce course materials costs in selected target courses.

Textbook Publishers

RECOMMENDATIONS

Investigate and consider the feasibility of introducing legislation to require publishers to warehouse digital versions of any adopted textbooks.

Textbook Publishers

RECOMMENDATIONS

Identify college practices relative to the disbursement of financial aid that hinder a student’s ability to acquire required course materials before the first day of class, remedy them to the greatest extent possible, and develop best practices for use by all colleges.

Financial Aid

RECOMMENDATIONS

Pursue opportunities to provide additional flexibility in how students can creatively access their financial aid to obtain lower costs for required course materials.

Financial Aid

RECOMMENDATIONS

Provide incentives and resources to identify and package licensed library resources into course packs for high enrollment courses that can be freely used as primary or supplementary course materials by any VCCS faculty.

Library Resources

RECOMMENDATIONS

Provide incentives and resources to identify and package licensed library resources into course packs for high enrollment courses that can be freely used as primary or supplementary course materials by any VCCS faculty.

Library Resources

RECOMMENDATIONS

Use LibGuides to quickly customize and “brand” access to a set of particular e-resources, whether library, open access, or other.

Library Resources

RECOMMENDATIONS

Conduct a survey to determine the extent to which recommendations of the 2004 Task Force on College Textbooks continue to be implemented.

Other Recommendations

RECOMMENDATIONS

Pursue the feasibility of establishing a flat textbook fee.

Other Recommendations

RECOMMENDATIONS

Explore the use of alternative technologies to provide students access to low cost required course materials (i.e., use of tablets pre-loaded with required e-books).

Other Recommendations

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