A recent showed that two-thirds of students surveyed did not purchase their assigned course material due to cost (U.S. PIRG, 2021). Open educational resource implementation and related efforts for increasing the availability and use of no- or low-cost materials have been on the rise to address these issues.
麻豆精品 Libraries and the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) have partnered to progress efforts to address course material affordability. The following information describes efforts at other campuses.
Several states, including California, Oregon, Texas, and Washington have legislation requiring educational institutions to label courses that use no-cost materials and/or OER in their course schedules and registration systems (). Some institutions offer “z-degree” programs and “z-courses,” that have no course material costs due to the use of free resources and/or OER.
For case studies, resources, and best practices on labeling no- low- materials courses, see:
Lieberman, M. (2017, December 6). . Inside Higher Ed.
The City University of New York is one example of a PeopleSoft student information system that incorporates a zero textbook cost course attribute for identifying and searching for courses with zero textbook costs.

SPARC. (2021, October 27). .
Bliss, T.J. (2015). . The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources.
. University Libraries, 麻豆精品
Phone: 815-753-0595
Email: citl@niu.edu
Phone: 815-753-1995
Email: lib-admin@niu.edu