Report Affordable Textbooks: Transparency for UTSA Roadrunners

Using open educational resources or other affordable textbooks? Report them to provide transparency for students during registration.

Mark Your Courses

You've already taken a big step to reduce the costs of attending UTSA by choosing affordable learning materials.

Reporting your course(s) improves transparency for our students, many of who are First-Gen and a sizeable percentage are also Pell-eligible.

Click the buttons below to report free and low cost learning materials.

OER: Texas Education Code

"…teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that allows for free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with others, including full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” (Texas Senate Bill 810 2017 and TEC 51.542). OER textbooks, like those from OpenStax and Open Textbook Library, are free for students with no associated fees and have a Creative Commons or a Public Domain license."

"OpenStax Sociology Textbook" by m.wolston is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Legislation: Compliance

In compliance with SB 810 and HB 1027, the UTSA Libraries has worked with UTSA Student Government Association, the Office of the Registrar, University Technology Solutions and various other UTSA divisions to deploy these filters in the UTSA Course Schedules.

Students can apply the Free Textbook and Low Cost Textbook filters when registering for courses.

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.

Course Schedules

Low Cost Textbook Courses: Total Required Learning Materials Cost <= $40

Free Textbook Courses: Total Required Learning Materials Cost=$0

Simple Syllabus

Open Educational Resources (OER)

"OER are free textbooks that are either in the public domain or Creative Commons licensed for free use, reuse, modification, and sharing.” OpenStax and Open Textbook Library are examples. OER support student success because they are:

Free
Available on Class Day One
Easily and continuously accessible

UTSA Libraries’ Adopt a Free Textbook grant program has awarded 138 OER grants to faculty, saving $10 million for UTSA students.

Apply the Free and Low Cost Textbook filters, below, to find these courses during registration.

Filter	Helps Students Find
Free Textbook	Courses with total learning materials cost of zero that are Creative Commons licensed. Ensures UTSA's compliance with TEC 51.542.
Low Cost Textbooks	Courses with total learning materials cost of $40 or less.

Learn more at Report Affordable Textbooks: Transparency for Roadrunners."

Adopt a Free Textbook Grants (For grant awarded courses only)

"This course is part of UTSA Libraries' Adopt a Free Textbook program, a collaboration between your professor and the library to encourage faculty adoption of free textbooks into UTSA courses. Open educational resources (OER) are textbooks and learning materials that are available at no cost to students, accessible from mobile devices, and available from class day one. Research has shown that OER can improve student engagement and course outcomes."