Lower Costs for Students!
Use Open Educational Resources (OER)
OER helps students minimize material costs and allows instructors to curate & design 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 if you have the relevant CRNs.
The survey 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 are 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!
Low Textbook Cost (LTC) Designation
“Low-Cost” means required course materials for this class cost no more than $50.
Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Designation
- “Zero-Cost” means all required course materials for this class are available at
no cost to students.
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!