University of Cincinnati
IN-41: Textbook Affordability

Rent-a-Text
University of Cincinnati Bookstores’ Rent-A-Text Program provides savings up to 80 percent off the price of new textbooks. The program saved students more than $475,000 during the 2017-18 school year.

In addition, UC’s includED® model - the campus’s ‘inclusive fee’ program - saves students 40%, on average, by leveraging student buying power and streamlining the purchasing process for students. Students are charged a course fee for these materials.

During the 2017-2018 Academic year, more than 11,000 students participated in IncludED®, for a total savings over $1.3M through nearly 18,000 registrations across 41 includED® courses.

Home-Grown Ebooks
The Center for Excellence eTextbook Author Project supports instructors to develop their own interactive textbooks using iBooks Author, avoiding the high cost of going through a publisher. These either supplement the materials used in courses or replace them altogether.

UC Library E-Resources
A growing array of articles, books, audio tracks, and other learning materials are available online for free. By visiting UC Libraries Digital Collections, students can find additional resources online such as ACLS Humanities, CRCnetBASE, Ebrary, Gutenberg-e Database, Naxos Music Library, Safari Books Online, SpringerLink, and the Wiley Online Library.

UC encourages its faculty across all colleges to take advantage of Open Educational Resources Grants, including the following:

1) Textbook Transformation Innovator Grants: These aid the modification or creation of new open educational resources. There are three levels of Textbook Transformation Innovator Grants (up to $1,200, $2,000 or $4,000) based on course size. In addition to a monetary award, recipients of the Textbook Transformation Innovator Grant are published digitally, with the possibility of print, by the University of Cincinnati Press;
included in the Pressbooks Directory, allowing global adoption of work; and
included as a participant in the Next Lives Here annual Strategic Sizing Grant's Lead the Open Agenda initiative report to the Provost.

A $100 award is provided for each non-author faculty member who uses the developed course materials in their sections at any University of Cincinnati campus.

In addition, Textbook Transformation Adoption Grants of $200 are given to faculty who replace an existing textbook with an OER or low-cost set of learning materials without modification.

https://libraries.uc.edu/research-teaching-support/scopenaccess/oergrants.html

Textbook Affordability Committee
UC has created a partnership, led by UC’s Office of the Provost, that includes UC Faculty, Faculty Senate, Student Government, UC Libraries, CET&L, UC Bookstore, IT@UC, Campus Services, the Office of Undergraduate Affairs and the Division of Administration and Finance. Together, we are utilizing multiple strategies to reduce student spending on course materials.
https://www.uc.edu/about/provost/initiatives/textbook-affordability.html