BGSU is actively engaged in efforts to provide an affordable education for its students, including making textbooks and other learning resources more affordable.
Textbook Affordability Initiatives
- BGSU Textbooks - Faculty are encouraged to register their textbooks and learning materials prior to the first day of student registration for the subsequent term. Then students can easily find the required materials on BGSU Textbooks, compare prices from nine major retailers, and save time and money. BGSU no longer has a traditional campus bookstore. All textbook purchases are done online and students can select any retailer.
- Course reserves - The University Libraries offers course reserves to help reduce the cost of textbooks. Faculty may place books, textbooks, or media on reserve for 2-, 24-, or 72-hour time periods. The University Libraries purchases textbooks for selected courses with high enrollments, multiple sections, and/or textbooks with the highest list price.
- Faculty Senate Textbook Affordability Committee - An ad hoc committee was established in 2017 to gather information regarding textbook ordering practices and make recommendations for faculty, students, and administrators.
- Textbook cost benchmarking - BGSU has joined with other IUC institutions to take part in a textbook cost benchmarking project. Each participating institution calculates the cost of textbooks/learning materials for 5-10 of the most popular majors/programs.
Advocacy Initiatives
- Undergraduate Student Senate Resolution - In March 2019, the Senate of the Undergraduate Student Body passed S.R. 2018/2019 – 09, A Resolution Formally Supporting the Utilization of Open Educational Resources to Reduce Textbook costs.
- Open Textbook Network (OTN) membership - The University Libraries has been a member of the Open Textbook Network since 2017 and hosted OTN presenters for on-campus faculty and staff workshops on textbook affordability.
- OER faculty resource guide - In response to growing interest in low- and no-cost educational materials, the University Libraries developed Alt-Source Your Textbook Adoption, a resource guide for faculty looking for alternatives to traditional high-cost textbooks.
Adoption and Creation Initiatives
- Open textbook creation grants - The University Libraries offers open textbook creation grants to BGSU faculty interested in writing their own open textbooks.
- Faculty community of practice - University Libraries staff offer an annual faculty community of practice focused on best practices in the use of University Libraries and OhioLINK resources and OER as required course materials.
- Digital textbook publishing - The University Libraries administers ScholarWorks@BGSU, an institutional repository that provides access to scholarly work created at BGSU and supports publishing and distribution of digital textbooks.
Contact Information: Timothy Sandusky, Open Educational Resources Strategist, Bowling Green State University, University Libraries, 1001 East Wooster St., Bowling Green, Ohio 43403, tsandus@bgsu.edu, 419-372-6517.
