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 the following attributes in the UTSA Course Schedules.
Students can apply these as filters during registration.
| 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, |
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| 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. |
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While OER provide more benefits when compared to low cost textbooks, the OER landscape is sparse in some disciplines: there may not be OER available for faculty in some areas even though they might like to use them to help with affordability.
We appreciate all faculty efforts to help students with affordability and access, and we value transparency for our students looking for courses using both low cost and free textbooks.