Lower Costs for Students!
Use Open Educational Resources (OER)
OER helps students minimize material costs and allows instructors to curate instructional material to their classes.
For Instructors:
Want to make sure your course is flagged as using free or low-cost materials? ZTC? LTC? Fill out this quick survey. It will be linked to your name and instructor ID.
This survey applies from FA24 through SU26. You can fill this form out for a single class that encompasses multiple quarters. It guides you through the questions and helps you decide.
Need help figuring out OER? Make sure you answer that part of the survey and the OER Coordinator will reach out to you.
What is Open Educational Resources (OER)?
OER is an initiative to detach education from expensive instructional material through the use of open access, collaborative, and iterative instructional material. OER is commonly associated with textbooks, but also includes test banks, question homework systems, and other instructional tools.
OER textbooks are always free, digitally-accessible works. Instructors can use a full textbook, chapters or sections of a textbook, and even remix textbook content into something tailored to your course.
OER gives you the flexilibity that closed-off textbooks cannot afford to give you. OER textbooks can be printed and purchased by students or hosted in the library in the Course Reserves program, further lowering costs for students!
Below you'll find some of the initiatives available to faculty members at De Anza.
Low Textbook Cost (LTC) Designation
De Anza's online course listings now indicate which courses have a total cost of no more than $50 for required books and other materials. If you believe your course qualifies, submit the OER Survey as soon as possible and select that designation.
Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Designation
De Anza's online listings also indicate courses for which all required materials are available in digital formats at no cost to students. If you believe your course qualifies, submit the OER Survey as soon as possible, when you know your schedule.
Resources
De Anza has several ways you can access and evaluate OER for your classes.
LibreTexts Commons
De Anza is now an affiliated institution in LibreTexts, a premier OER platform. LibreTexts Commons allows you to look for OER, including books and instructional assets, and easily integrate it into your teaching style.
Have your OER textbook immediately accessible in your course's Canvas shell. Separate chapters and have them directly accessible in each module! Want help navigating LibreTexts? Contact your OER Coordinator!
Canvas Course Shell
The Online Education Initiative has put together multiple course shells in Canvas using OpenStax. These courses align with the OEI rubric (sound design and fully accessible) and have already been set up in Modules using OpenStax content. Faculty can import the content into their own course shell and then add elements for substantive interaction and additional assignments/assessments.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0), which allows you to freely share, copy, distribute and transmit the work.
To find these adoptable courses:
- Go to the Canvas Commons
- In the search box at the top, enter “CVC-OEI Adoptable”
ASCCC OERI Resources
The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Open Educational Resources Intiative has curated OER Collections for the California Community Colleges, organized by discipline, CSU general education requirements, Transfer Model Curricula, and C-ID are available, as well as a summary of OER gaps. The OERI’s curated collections are developed by the OERI Discipline Leads. Access ASCCC OERI Supported Resources for an overview of the OER that has been supported by the OERI, as well as an overview of the OER that is presently being developed.
- OER by Discipline
- OER by California State University General Education
- OER by the California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC)
- OER by Transfer Model Curriculum
Questions?
If you need assistance finding, using or creating open educational resources for instruction, please contact:
- James Perla-Adams, OER Coordinator
email: adamsjames@deanza.edu - Shagun Kaur, ZTC Grants Coordinator
email: kaurshagundeep@deanza.edu - Tom Dolen, Library Coordinator
Email: dolentom@deanza.edu