Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 66.51
Liaison Aurora Sharrard
Submission Date Feb. 28, 2021

STARS v2.2

University of Pittsburgh
IN-41: Textbook Affordability

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 0.50 Nick Goodfellow
Sustainability Coordinator
Dining Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution host a peer-to-peer textbook exchange program, textbook lending library, or alternate textbook project?:
Yes

A brief description of the textbook exchange program, textbook lending library, or alternate textbook project:

The University Library Service, as well most academic departments, have an extensive textbook reserve system which allows students to check out textbooks on a short-term basis.

Additionally, the Office of the Provost encourages instructors to incorporate more open education resources (OER) to reduce textbook costs. Students can identify classes using open education resources in the Pitt Class Search, which includes the OER course attribute.


Does the institution provide incentives for academic staff that explicitly encourage the authorship, peer review, and/or adoption of open access textbooks?:
Yes

A brief description of the incentives to encourage the authorship, peer review, and/or adoption of open access textbooks:

Following a Student Government Board resolution in 2018 supporting an expansion of OER and open textbooks to control costs, the Office of the Provost named OER a priority and formed the OER Standing Committee to provide a targeted and sustained OER awareness program to instructors.
In addition, the Office of the Provost created the Open Education Resource Grants program to support the development of open educational resources to enhance the educational experience of Pitt students and provide faculty with the ability to customize their course materials. Since 2018, 44 projects have been funded through the OER Grant program.


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.