| Overall Rating | Silver |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 46.21 |
| Liaison | Chris Gardner |
| Submission Date | Aug. 23, 2022 |
Douglas College
IN-41: Textbook Affordability
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
0.50 / 0.50 |
Does the institution host a peer-to-peer textbook exchange program, textbook lending library, or alternate textbook project?:
A brief description of the textbook exchange program, textbook lending library, or alternate textbook project:
Douglas College has several programs and platforms available to increase textbook affordability to students.
The Douglas College Library has a platform to host open Open Education Resources (OER). Open educational resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that are created with the intention of being freely available to users anywhere. They may include, but are not limited to, textbooks, readings, multi-media files, software, assessment tools, and even entire courses. Most are covered by licenses that allow for using, re-mixing, and sharing.
https://guides.douglascollege.ca/OER
The Douglas College Students Union also runs a 'Open Textbook Now!' Campaign for open access educational resources. The campaign highlights, "Douglas students have made our campaign a tremendous success. Out of all of the institutions in the province, Douglas College ranks first in OER adoption rates – since 2013, almost 17,000 students have saved over $2 Million from OER adoptions that have replaced traditional commercial textbooks!
The Douglas Students’ Union contributed to and supported the creation of the Douglas OER Grant for Douglas faculty members to create new OERs for their courses – since the grant began in Winter 2018, 49 grants have been awarded leading to increased adoptions of Open Education Resources (OERs) at Douglas."
Does the institution provide incentives for academic staff that explicitly encourage the authorship, peer review, and/or adoption of open access textbooks?:
A brief description of the incentives to encourage the authorship, peer review, and/or adoption of open access textbooks:
The B.C. Open Textbook Project, used by Douglas College, is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and it is managed by BCcampus. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making 60 openly-licensed textbooks available. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. This is the first government funded initiative of its kind in Canada.
Website URL where information about the textbook affordability incentives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.