The movement to replace overpriced commercial texts with Open Educational Resources (OER) has expanded rapidly since 2016. California has enacted legislation and allocated funds to foster the coordinated development of OER in higher education. See below for an overview of the key terms and landmarks in this movement.
California's legislature and Community College Chancellor's Office consider OER a primary tool for creating Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) pathways to affordable college degrees and certificates. The following definitions are drawn from CA Ed Code Article 78052.
Open educational resources means high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released pursuant to an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. Open educational resources include, but are not limited to, full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.
Zero-textbook-cost degrees means community college associate degrees or career technical education certificates earned entirely by completing courses that eliminate conventional textbook costs by using alternative instructional materials and methodologies, including open educational resources. For purposes of this paragraph, “zero-textbook-cost degrees” may include a low-cost degree option if a no-cost equivalent option is not available or cannot be developed.
Are you interested in developing low-cost pathways to degrees or certificates in your discipline? Under the current (2021) ZTC grant program, Cuesta has been allocated $20,000 for planning to implement at least one ZTC degree or certificate pathway. Please contact Wesley Sims with questions or to initiate a collaboration.
Saddleback College has been a leader in the ZTC movement, having already developed more than 20 ZTC degrees and certificates. You can find more information on their ZTC webpage.
Cañada College also participated in the ZTC pilot program and has posted their OER/ZTC Implementation Plan for 2022-2027.
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