Open Educational Resources (OER)

What is Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC)?

A ZTC course does not require the student to purchase any type of course materials to fulfill the course. This can include a combination of any of the types of course materials listed below.

• Open Educational Resources that are free to students.
  • Open educational resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.
• Library-licensed materials that are free (and readily available) for students.
• Instructor-created materials that are free for students (whether they are OER or not).
• Free online resources.
• OR, no course materials are required for the course.

We track the growth and impact of Zero Textbook Cost courses on our ZTC Data Dashboard.

Frequently Asked Questions

What course materials are included? All required textbooks, course packs, and other text-based materials, workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms, access codes, and other publisher-provided curricular materials.

What course materials are excluded? Art supplies, calculators or other equipment, and any course fees. Also excluded are optional texts that students are not required to purchase for your course section.

What if my text is available as an e-book through the MTSU library? If the required text is available as a free-to-students e-book through the library, as long as you do not require the printed text in your class, your course can qualify for the Zero Textbook Cost designation. If you are interested in e-books the library has to offer, please consult with your subject librarian liaison. Your liaison can check to see if the licensing allows for the type of unlimited concurrent use for students that required course materials would need. Please note: Limited access e-books (1 user at a time, etc.) do not count as a Zero Textbook Cost course since access to the e-book is not guaranteed as readily available.

What if I don't require any texts or "outside" materials for my class? Your course CAN qualify for the Zero Textbook Cost designation if no "outside" materials or texts are required. Apply the question: does my course have any text, course materials, or publisher-related costs? If the answer is no, the course meets the Zero Textbook Cost designation.

How do I report whether my courses are ZTC? There are 2 steps to take in order to designate your course as ZTC. 1) Please inform your department chair each semester. We reach out to departments a few weeks before priority registration requesting a list of ZTC course sections. 2) Alert the bookstore that no course materials are required for your course & indicate whether you are using open educational resources (OER). You can do this by contacting the bookstore directly or by submitting this info via their adoptions portal (see Submitting OER Adoptions to the Bookstore for instructions).

How do I find ZTC courses at MTSU? A step-by-step guide to finding these courses is available at How to Find Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Classes.

What about low-cost courses? Some universities have both a low-cost marking and a zero-cost marking (ZTC). It is substantially more complex to implement a low-cost marking compared to a zero-cost marking. Therefore, we will focus on improving our current ZTC course marking before we consider adding a low-cost marking.

I have other questions. Who can I ask? Contact Ginelle Baskin (Ginelle.Baskin@mtsu.edu)