SA President Takeena Strachan is seeking to improve the accessibility of textbooks for students at Oswego State as a part of this year’s legislative agenda.
“What we’re trying to do it to get reliable resources to students at a more accessible, affordable price,” Strachan said.
Currently, Oswego State and the SUNY system are encouraging the adoption of open-source or digital options for textbooks. There are three initiatives in pursuit of this goal currently at Oswego State. One is called the All-Inclusive Access eTexts Initiatives, another is the open educational resources grant program, and the third is the recent introduction of e-text options at the campus bookstore.
Strachan’s goal is to have SA assist where needed to make it easier for students to find the books they need as quickly as possible, cutting down on the length of time at the start of the semester that students do not have the required course materials.
Delayed textbook purchases can leave a gap of a week or longer between the start of a class and when a student receives their materials, depending on where the student orders their books from, between when a class starts and when a student actually has their materials. When the book is popular, some students can find that it is out-of-stock at their preferred retailer, causing further delays and costing the student more money.
“The university could tell people how to get their books for cheaper,” said Matt Crary, a senior history major. “Instead of just trying to push us through the bookstore, I feel like the university doesn’t really make it easier to find it cheaper or faster right now.”
Strachan says that her goal is to get a currently undefined percentage of required books in each of Oswego State’s four schools available either on course reserves at the library, or in a longer-term fashion as early as possible in the semester.
“There’s a wide range of books, from 100-level courses to 400-levels, and we’re trying to figure out which books are needed more than others,” Strachan said. “The higher the course level, the more expensive the book is what we’re finding. But the lower the course level, the more students need the text.”
Oswego State Campus Technology Services is responsible for finding delivery methods for e-texts, which are an important part of the efforts to improve accessibility. They just finished implementing the computer systems in the bookstore that allow the store to offer e-text versions of some books, and are responsible for the maintenance of the systems which support the All-Inclusive eTexts Initiative.
“A big part of these initiatives is delivering digital content,” said Sean Moriarty, the Chief Technology Officer for Oswego State. “However, they are different in other ways.”
The All-Inclusive eTexts Initiative is a program where students receive a digital copy of their textbook on the first day of class, and have the bill for the book added to that semester’s bill from the school. While students can opt to take the charge off of their bill, and get their materials from another source, Moriarty said that there are relatively few students who choose that.
“By having all of the students buy in, we can get the materials at a far lower price,” Moriarty said.
Currently, 87 individual class sections utilize this program, with about 2,747 students receiving their books through it. Moritary said there could be fewer individual students in the program, as it is not uncommon for a student to have multiple courses who use the All-Inclusive eTexts Initiative.
The Open Educational Resources grant program is a program by which professors can receive a grant from the state or SUNY to build a free, open-source set of materials for a class. There were 10 classes using OER materials for the 2018-2019 academic year, and more are expected to use it this year.
Alexander Gault-Plate | The Oswegonian
