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Open Educational Resources at Cape Cod Community College: Course Marking @ 4Cs

Open Educational Resources

What is Course Marking, and Why Are We Doing It?

What is Course Marking? Course marking is designating courses as No or Low Textbook Cost in Campus Web, which allows students to know if their course will have no textbook cost and a rough idea of how much the textbooks might cost.

Why Course Marking? Course marking increases access and equity in higher education by helping students make informed choices. Tracking adoption of OER and low-course materials through course marking also allows us to better understand our students’ needs and determine the impact of state and college incentives to adopt OER materials. The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted unanimously on October 22, 2019 (AAC 20-03), to recommend and encourage its implementation. The Board vote noted “OER courses should be designated in the course management systems for all public higher education so that the use of OER may be encouraged by faculty and students, and tracked and reported” (Mass. DHE, 2019).  

You can learn more from the The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education Course Marking Implementation Guidelines.

No Textbook Cost Courses

No Textbook Cost Courses: No textbook to purchase, no cost for students. 

The required instructional materials are provided online at no cost (i.e., free). An optional printed version and some supplementary course instructional materials may be available for purchase. This designation includes Open Educational Resources, No Cost, and Library Resources. 

To be designated as an No Textbook Cost course/section, a course/section should use the following as the primary, required instructional materials for the course:   

  • OER: OER are resources released either under an open license or in the public domain permitting their free use, repurposing, and sharing (the so-called 5R’s). 
  • No Cost: Instructional materials are provided to students at no cost. No cost instructional materials are generally funded by grants, institutional funding models, or a compilation of materials that are not OER.  
  • Library Resources: Unlimited simultaneous user resources from the campus library including ebooks, digital journal articles, streaming films, etc. Most Wilkens Library resources fit this definition except for some eBook Central ebooks, which have a limited number of simultaneous users. Check with the library if you are unsure if library materials you are using qualify. 

Low Textbook Cost ($50 or less)

The required instructional materials cost $50 or less. 

To be designated as a Low Textbook Cost course/section, the combined cost of the course/section instructional materials should be $50 or less. This marking is to designate those course/sections that use affordable instructional materials that do not conform to the OER/No Cost/Library Resources criteria 

This includes all required instructional materials. 

The $50 (or less) threshold is based on the pre-tax retail price and is applied to all class sections regardless of the number of credits offered.   

The threshold is based on the price at the campus bookstore or charged by the publisher directly; whichever is lower. 

Prices offered by other third-party vendors such as Amazon.com should not to be considered due to price fluctuation and uncertainty of stock availability. 

Examples of Courses Meeting the Low Textbook Cost Threshold   

  •  Use of an inexpensive commercial textbook costing $50 or less. 
  •  Use of a course material bundle (e.g., textbook and homework website) costing $50 or less   
  •  Use of a faculty-developed course package costing $50 or less   

Examples of Course that Do Not Meet the Low Textbook Cost Threshold   

  •  Textbook costing $50 and online homework site costing $150. 
  •  Textbook costing $100 but is used for two courses in a sequence.  

Materials That Do Not Qualify as No Textbook Cost

  • Use of OER as a supplementary course/section instructional material while using a commercial textbook as the primary course/section instructional material.  
  • Use of library reserved text when a textbook purchase is required, unless the reserves provide unlimited-user resources. 
  • Use of OER with software or online sites that require the purchase of software or licenses permitting the use of materials, e.g., if a student must purchase an access code to do homework or read primary course/section materials, the section should not be designated as No Textbook Cost. It may be marked as Low Textbook Cost if the course/section fee for each student is $50 or less.  
  • Publisher content included in tuition or course/section fees such as online course/section materials provided through Inclusive Access Program or First Day program are not to be marked as No Textbook Cost.  
  • Third-party bookstore products such as BNC OER+ are not to be marked with the OER code unless the content is publicly available with clear terms of use that allow free public access. It may be marked as Low Textbook Cost if the course/section fee for each student is $50 or less.  
  • Course/sections that traditionally do not require any course materials are not to be marked as an OER course such as aerobics, yoga, or sports dance class. These types of courses should be treated as Low Textbook Cost if the course/section fee for each student is $50 or less.