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Textbook Affordability Project: OER, No Cost, and Limited User Textbooks: Home

This guide provides possible OER and no cost textbook alternatives along with limited user ebook editions of textbooks for current courses. Our goal is to increase textbook access and affordability for students.

Definitions

OER: Open educational resource that is free for you to use and share. Some also have licenses allowing for adaptation and remixing. For more information on OER, visit with the OER at Valencia College Libguide. 

No Cost: Educational resource that the library owns with unlimited user rights or is available for free but does not allow adaptation. These are not OER, but they are free to your students.

Limited User: Educational resource the library owns that at least 3 users can view at a time. This type of resource is similar to the physical reserve collection model except that it is online and there is no 2 or 4 hour time limit the way there is with physical checkouts. 

 

Welcome

This LibGuide provides curated OER, no cost, or limited user textbooks and alternatives for courses taught at Valencia College.  Our goal is to increase textbook access and affordability for students. 

Don't see your course yet or don't have a textbook currently on reserve? We're happy to put your course at the top of the list (first come first served) for finding an OER or no cost replacement for your class, just fill out the OER Request Survey.

Have you used one of the books on this guide or another that isn't? Please share with us using the Faculty OER Review Survey, and we'll add your review and/or resource. 

Icon legend

Resources are labeled with icons to indicate whether they are:

OER Icon OER: Open educational resource that is free for you to use and share. Some also have licenses allowing for adaptation and remixing. (Icon adapted from Open Scotland CC BY 4.0)

No Cost Icon No Cost: Educational resource that the library owns with unlimited user rights or is available for free but does not allow adaptation. These are not OER, but they are free to your students. (Icon adapted from Debby Wang)

Limited User Icon Limited User: Educational resource the library owns that at least 3 users can view at a time. (Icon adapted from Andrejs Kirma).

This Guide and the Textbook Affordability Project have been a team effort of the East Library. Many thanks to:

Project Manager: Chris Wettstein

Guide Creator & Principal Textbook Detective: Karli Mair

Textbook Detectives: Joanne Wojtyto, Brian Calhoun, Min Tong, Reggie Davis, & Ven Basco

 

The Valencia College libraries do not welcome solicitation of resources to be added to our LibGuides. This includes but is not limited to vendors, search engine optimizers, placement of ads, products, or any other requests. Our LibGuides are carefully curated resources developed in partnership with faculty, staff, and students to support specific assignments, courses, events, and other related purposes at Valencia College. The Valencia libraries reserve the right to ignore LibGuide resource solicitations, and/or block persistent requests from groups or individuals to add or promote links in our LibGuides.