Affordable Instructional Materials (AIM) Committee
- Participatory Governance & Workgroups
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- Affordable Instructional Materials (AIM) Committee
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- Technology Planning Committee
To be aware of and advocate Affordable Instructional Materials (AIM) on campus, provide training to support faculty in the adaptation, adoption, and creation of AIM for their courses, and keep abreast of California legislation regarding the use of AIM.
2nd & 4th Mondays
1:00-2:30 p.m.
Responsibilities
- Conduct professional development
- Support faculty to adopt or create OER one-on-one
- Maintaining a web presence
- Ensure online class schedule meet the requirements of SB 1359
Membership
| Co-Chairs |
Steve Shlisky Elizabeth Wadell |
| OER Coordinator/ASCCC OER Liaison: | YiPing Wang & Kim Glosson |
| Admin: | Inger Stark |
| Librarian: | YiPing Wang |
| Building & Skilled Trades (faculty) | Vacant |
| Business, Entrepreneurship & Management (faculty) | Kim Glosson |
| Computer & Information Technology/Counseling | Minh An Nguyen |
| Culture & Society (faculty) | Vacant |
| Human Services (faculty) | April Bankhead |
| Language & Communication(faculty) | Elizabeth Wadell & Roger Porter |
| Science, Engineering & Math (faculty) | Christine Will & Jen Gerry |
| Visual & Performing Arts (faculty) | Vina Cera/Steve Shlisky |
| Student Accessibility Services (faculty) | Jack Smith, Jr. |
| Student Representative | Carmen Tan |
OER FAQs
| What does OER mean? |
| Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials--digital or print that are in the public domain or have been released under an open license (often a Creative Commons license) that allows no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with limited or no restrictions. |
| How does OER different from copyrighted material? |
| OER is openly licensed, which means that any user can:
Reuse - Content can be reused in its unaltered original format (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video) Retain - Copies of content can be retained for personal archives or reference Revise - Content can be modified or altered to suit specific needs Remix - Content can be adapted with other similar content to create something new Redistribute - Content can be shared with anyone else in its original or altered format |
| How do I know if there is OER for my discipline? |
| The availability of OER does vary across disciplines. A great starting place is the Academic Senate of the California Community College’s (ASCCC) Open Education Resources by Discipline. Another starting point the list of repositories on Laney’s OER website. |
| I provide a list of links or .pdfs of copyrighted material on my course site so students don't have to pay for texts. Is that OER? |
| No. OER is openly licensed work that you can legally use and generally adapt as well. In contrast, there are strict legal limits on what copyrighted materials you can provide to students. In addition, the CSU and UC review the texts for transferable courses and do not consider a list of links as an appropriate text. |
| Is there any evidence that OER increases student learning? |
| Yes, there is. Research done at the University of Georgia and Tidewater Community College, for example, showed that students in OER courses had higher completion rates and final grades compared to peers who use traditional textbooks. Low-income students showed the most improvement. |
| How do I know if the OER is high quality? |
| As with any text, you will need to evaluate the quality. However, keep in mind that most OER is created by other faculty, and projects funded by the ASCCC OERI have undergone peer review by discipline experts. |
Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program
Getting to zero takes money. Sacramento lawmakers recognized that and allocated a one-time $115 million pot of money so community colleges could get there. Read more on Academic Senate of California Community College Open Educational Resources Initiative (ASCCC OERI), OER & ZTC (tinyurl.com/OER4ZTC)
Laney AIM Committee’s office hours help faculty develop ZTC degrees. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out YiPing Wang (yipingwang@peralta.edu).
OER/ZTC/LC Definitions
Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC)
ZTC means that students do not incur any costs for purchasing required course textbooks. ZTC may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials. (SB 1359 definition) (see Resources below for ZTC Parameters)
Open Educational Resources (OER)
OER are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. (Hewlett)
Low-Cost (LC)
A course section that uses low-cost instructional materials, such as but not limited to, textbooks, workbooks, lab manuals, online homework, and required printouts, whose total combined cost does not exceed $50. (Recognition of Course Sections with Low-Cost INstructional Materials Options in the Laney Online Schedule of Class)
XB12, Instructional-Material-Cost
The XB12 has been added to the California Community Colleges Management Information System Data Element Dictionary. The codes, A, B, C, D, Y, are defined below and the implementation date for the new code was the summer of 2022.
A: A Section has no associated instructional material (Use this only if there has never been a text and there are no photocopies or electronic resources provided)
C: Section has instructional material costs none of which are passed on to students (Use this if you are getting a reader made at the IMC or sharing a class set of books)
E. Section uses only no-cost, OER course material
F. Section uses only no-cost digital course material that does not meet OER guidelines
G. Section uses a mix of no-cost OER and other cost bearing resources, but no costs are passed to the student.
Students must buy something
D: Section has low instructional material costs (under $50) (Use this if the cost of a new book at the bookstore is $50 or less. If the book is available online or used for less than $50 but not at the bookstore, it is n not considered low cost.)
Y: Section does not meet no-cost or low-cost instructional material criteria (Use this if a new book at the campus bookstore will be over $50, excluding tax)
Resources
How to search ZTC classes in the online class schedule? Use Laney OER Guide
Zero-Textbook-Cost Parameters by the State:
- If all assigned textbooks are optional for the section
- If all assigned textbooks are identified as Open Educational Resources (OER) textbooks
- If there are no assigned textbooks
- If the assigned textbooks (including course readers) are available online for free (i.e. through library databases), and students are NOT required to buy a physical copy (note: for course readers and online materials, faculty are responsible for adhering to copyright and accessibility requirements)
- If students DO NOT need to pay fees to access a software platform to do coursework or homework
Other considerations
- Lab materials or required supplies are not considered a textbook cost, so if a course section meets the parameters noted above but does require a materials fee – then the section would still qualify Zero-Textbook-Cost per State guidelines.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are free or low-cost teaching and learning materials that are licensed, often under an OER license term, to allow users to retain a copy of the content and reuse, revise, remix and redistribute it.
OER are ready-to-use content for your classes, may include:
- Entire courses
- Course modules
- Textbooks
- Course readings, articles, and journals
- Coursepacks
- Quizzes
- Streaming videos
- Virtually any other material used for educational purposes
Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) means that students do not incur any costs for purchasing course materials. Zero-cost to the students does not guarantee zero-cost to the institution, i.e. subscription databases, library equipment loans.
To create a ZTC course, instructors might use OER, Open Access, Creative Commons, and public domain materials, along with teacher-created materials and electronic resources owned or licensed by Laney College Library.