Rio Salado College
IN-2: Innovation 2

Rio Salado College is claiming the Innovation Credit for the Textbook Savings Plan. Rio Salado College has created a unique partnership with Pearson Custom Publishing to produce customized textbooks for courses with content specific to Rio Salado courses. These textbooks will be sold exclusively though the Bookstore @ Rio. The result is the Rio Salado Textbook Savings Program, which will offer substantial savings over the price of traditional new and used textbooks. As of December 21, 2010, new textbooks for more than 90% of the courses are available with average savings of 51% off the cost of the original new textbook. These attractively-designed books are distinguished by the Rio Salado College brand on the cover. The content will be of similar high production value to regular textbooks and most importantly will be tailored to address the specific needs of Rio Salado courses. Students won’t be paying for material they won’t be using. Textbooks have been reviewed and edited by Rio Salado College faculty members to ensure that all material needed to master the course is included. This means students will focus their time reading material that is relevant to their course. Furthermore, only one textbook will be required for each course. The result is a more streamlined textbook that more effectively addresses the specific requirements of Rio Salado students. The course content meets all Maricopa Community College District mandated curriculum requirements for degrees and transferability. Although other institutions across the country are working on their own solutions for affordability, only Rio Salado College has this unique arrangement with Pearson Custom Publishing and Follett Higher Education Group to produce and sell texts at a substantially reduced price. This model is made possible by efficient high-volume sales of custom textbooks. For a long time Rio faculty have subscribed to the practice of having an official college text for each course (rather than multiple texts catering to individual faculty preference) making textbook sales very efficient. Now, custom textbooks from a single publisher have been adopted as a college-wide solution to textbook affordability.