The rising cost of commercial textbooks is increasingly becoming a barrier to student success. Together with campus partners including the Libraries and the Division of Digital Learning, the Faculty Center is working with faculty and staff to improve students’ access to low- and zero-cost, high-quality educational materials. See the Provost’s website for a general overview of the various initiatives and programs across the university.
Textbook Adoption
UCF Regulation 2.032 requires teachers to post lists of required and recommended instructional materials no later than 60 days before the start of each semester. To ensure your classes’ compliance, please follow the guidelines listed by the College of Undergraduate Studies.
UCF Libraries
The UCF Libraries provide an overview of textbook affordability initiatives at the university, including tips for faculty to help reduce costs for students—these include checking to see if your textbook is available as a free ebook, adopting an open textbook, and placing materials on reserve. Additionally, they offer guides on locating and using open educational resources and options for online textbooks.
One exciting program is Leganto, which allows instructors to easily create, maintain, and share resource lists directly linked to the library’s catalog and digital repositories. This seamless integration with the existing systems means that all academic materials – books, articles, videos, and more – are now just a click away, and directly accessible through Canvas. Read more about Leganto here, including directions for getting started.
Division of Digital Learning
UCF’s Division of Digital Learning also offers a page dedicated to affordable instructional materials. Visit here to learn about Pressbooks at UCF, the Affordability Counts program, and the First Day Access initiative to improve access to reduced-cost publisher materials and zero-cost materials for students.
For information about Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP), the Center for Distributed Learning offers a resource hub about accessing and using Open Education at UCF.