UTSA Textbook Transparency: Find Courses with Affordable Textbooks

A guide for UTSA Student Roadrunners on how to find free and low-cost textbook courses in the UTSA course schedules.

Background

Making college more affordable: To assist UTSA Students in easily finding Free and Low-Cost Textbooks during course registration, UTSA Libraries, Student Government Association, Office of the Registrar, University Technology Solutions, and Rowdy Campus Bookstore have added filters that students can use when browsing the UTSA Class Schedules in compliance with SB 810 and HB 1027 codified in TEC 51.542 to support equitable access for UTSA students.

Free textbook	Course with total learning materials cost of $0 that uses primarily open access textbooks and other free learning materials
Low-cost textbook	Course that has total learning materials cost of $40 or less

Find Courses

1. Login to myUTSA during course registration.

2. Select Term.

3. Select Subject.

4. Apply the Attributes

5. Find Courses

More Details

Attribute	Definition	Examples
Free Textbooks	Courses with total learning materials cost of zero that are Creative Commons licensed. Ensures UTSA's compliance with TEC 51.542.	Open Educational Resources from Open Textbook Library, OpenStax, or any other Creative Commons licensed learning material that allows for free access and re-use.
Low Cost Textbooks	Filters for courses with total learning materials cost of $40 or less.	Open access: free, publicly accessible resources that may be copyright-protected. Examples: YouTube videos, freely accessible websites, etc. Online resources from the UTSA Libraries: e-books, streaming videos, etc. that are no additional cost and available to students remotely. A collection of resources from copyright-protected resources that are provided to students at no cost by applying fair use: no more than 20% of each resource is used at any given point through the semester. Example: chapters from different print books scanned and made available to your students in Canvas. Learning resources that are copyright-protected that cost $40 or less. Example: a required novel or several required novels for a literature course with a combined total purchase price of $40 or less.

Attribute

Definition

Examples

Free Textbooks

Courses with total learning materials cost of zero that are Creative Commons licensed. Ensures UTSA's compliance with TEC 51.542.

Open Educational Resources from Open Textbook Library, OpenStax, or any other Creative Commons licensed learning material that allows for free access and re-use.

Low Cost Textbooks

Filters for courses with total learning materials cost of $40 or less.

Open access: free, publicly accessible resources that may be copyright-protected. Examples: YouTube videos, freely accessible websites, etc.

Online resources from the UTSA Libraries: e-books, streaming videos, etc. that are no additional cost and available to students remotely.

A collection of resources from copyright-protected resources that are provided to students at no cost by applying fair use: no more than 20% of each resource is used at any given point through the semester. Example: chapters from different print books scanned and made available to your students in Canvas.

Learning resources that are copyright-protected that cost $40 or less. Example: a required novel or several required novels for a literature course with a combined total purchase price of $40 or less.

License

"Textbook Transparency: Find UTSA Courses with Affordable Textbooks" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.