Skip to Main Content

Free the Textbook

All over the world,  teachers, administrators, professors, and students are looking to make education more affordable and students more successful. To help students deal with the rapidly growing economic burden of textbook prices, colleges and universities are collaborating, creating and sharing quality resources. This trend has led some traditional and new publishers to offer low-cost digital textbooks and many include online homework and other practice features to bolster student success.

Why does the cost of textbooks matter?

 

  What can we do about textbook prices?

Faculty at colleges and universities across the world are finding open source textbooks and learning resources. Faculty choose low cost/no cost textbook alternatives for a variety of reasons including:

  • OER provides flexibility since there is no one textbook fits all and faculty is free to pick and choose quality resources.
  • Resources can be revised and remixed without concern of copyright restrictions.
  • Students have access to the learning materials right away.
  • Faculty can choose a wide variety of learning materials.

Before you begin to explore, familiarize yourself with these terms below.

  OER stands for Open Education Resources and describes resources that are in the public domain or licensed in a 
    way that provides users with free and perpetual permission.
 

  CREATIVE COMMONS is an alternative to copyright, allowing the content creators to release some of
   their rights using Creative Commons licenses. Under these licenses, other people can reuse, remix and redistribute
            these works.

 

 NO/LOW COST RESOURCES FOR TEXTBOOKS is a way to describe textbooks (mostly) that are available at a much lower price for students. Here at Albright, we are using the term Low Cost/No Cost to describe
          affordable textbook options. This category includes no cost options (OER) and low cost textbook options.
 

  Zero (Z) Cost Resources are resources that don't cost the instructor or student any money.  At Albright, we
  have Zero cost resources include resources that the college has already purchased (including the library) and other
           resources that do not charge a fee. Explore the Zero Resource tab to learn more about ZERO cost case studies,
           presentation tools and many more resources.