Your Textbooks Cost

Too MuchWhat The VCCS Is Doing About It & How You

Can Help

“It is our misfortune, as a historical generation, to

live through the largest expansion in expressive

capability in human history, a misfortune because

abundance breaks more things than scarcity.”

-Clay Shirky

Blue Pill

How much do college

textbooks cost?

$ 1200/year

Why do textbooks cost so

much?

Why expensive textbooks are

bad**especially for community college students

What can be done

to lower textbook costs?

Increase selection

and use of “e-books”

Increase selection and

use of textbook rentals

http://library.vccs.edu/reference/locate.html

Increase awareness and

use of library resources

http://vccs.libguides.com/

Increase availability and

use of used textbooks

EDUCATIONAL

RESOURCES

Increase use of

Open Educational ResourcesOpen educational resources (OER) are 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 andrepurposing by others.

CREATIVE COMMONSwww.creativecommons.org

Use this to prevent sharing

©copyright

Use this to enforce sharing

THE 5RsRETAIN Make & own copies

REUSE Use in a wide range of ways

REMIX Combine two or more

REVISE Adapt, modify, and improve

REDISTRIBUTE Share with others

Virginia Community College System • Chancellor’s OER Adoption Grant

• CIF Grant

• Textbook Costs & Digital Learning Resources

Group

Tidewater Community College• Z-Degree Project

Germanna Community College• General Education OER Certificate

J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College• General Education OER Certificate

Developmental MathTextbook and MyMathLab ($170)

To OER and MyOpenMath ($0 / $3)

Withdrawing (%) | Fall 2013

8.2%

2.3%

0%

1%

2%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

8%

9%

Traditional

SectionsZ Degree

Sections

Z Degree°

Associate of Business

Administration

World’s first “all-OER” degree

What can YOU do

lower textbook costs?

Ask your professors

to investigate the use

of OER*

http://bit.ly/VCCS_OER_Courses

Organize!

“To expand the use of open textbooks in order to achieve

savings for students.”

Talk to your

representatives about

the Affordable College

Textbooks Act

% Completing with C or Better

48.4%

60.2%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Spring

2011

No OER

Spring

2013

All OER

When a student drops,

it..

Slows down their graduation

Costs the institution tuition

dollars

• Richard Sebastian, Ph.D.

• Director of Teaching and Learning

Technologies

• (804) 819-4795

• rsebastian@vccs.edu

• http://edtech.vccs.edu

• @rasebastian

Contact me