Overview

College of San Mateo recognizes the continued high cost of textbooks and course materials as a barrier that impacts student success.

Inability to afford textbooks and course materials is an equity issue that can be addressed through the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC).

What is OER?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. (Hewlett) OER Materials may include:

• Textbooks
• Course readings, articles, and journals
• Course packs
• Quizzes
• Streaming videos
• Virtually any other material used for educational purposes

What is ZTC?

S.B. 1359 states Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course materials “may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials.”

Zero textbook cost (ZTC) also means that students do not incur any costs for purchasing course materials. Zero-cost to the students does not guarantee zero-cost to the institution, i.e. subscription databases, library equipment loans. To create a ZTC course, instructors might use Open Educational Resources (OER); Open Access, Creative Commons, and public domain materials, along with teacher-created materials and electronic resources owned or licensed by the College of San Mateo Library.