Additional University Perspectives and Experience
16 University of Iowa: Affordable Content Activities
Annette Beck, Director, Enterprise Instructional Technology, Office of Teaching, Learning and Technology, University of Iowa
As tuition and higher education costs rise for students across the country, more and more institutions are focusing on ways to decrease the overall cost through more affordable content options to students. High textbook prices are an additional, many times unnecessary, burden on students and their families.
The good news is that new options and content models, such as digital texts and media-rich online content, are available for free through open educational resources (OER) or at greatly reduced publisher pricing. These opportunities decrease the overall cost of education while also providing new affordances to learning.
Following is a non-exhaustive list of University of Iowa committees and initiatives that are focusing on this issue or may be impacting this problem in peripheral but positive ways. Staff in the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology (OTLT) are partnering with faculty, the Iowa Hawk Shop University Book Store, Administrative Information Systems (application developers), University of Iowa Libraries, and Unizin partners to identify ways in which we can expand these opportunities to our students.
- Unizin—led by the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology
- Implementing the Unizin Engage e-text platform. This platform will provide access to greatly-reduced textbook prices and OER, while also offering faculty insights into how students use these digital materials.
- Pressbooks is a content authoring tool. OTLT supports faculty in creating their own content to support course learning objectives.
- Digital Direct Access (DDA) collaboration—led by the Iowa Hawk Shop Book Store and the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology
- DDA is becoming a popular new model across the country for ensuring that all students receive course content at greatly reduced cost. The key is that the content is immediately available to registered students within their learning management system course site.
- This model provides students quicker access to learning materials, which translates into future success.
- These two offices are jointly developing and supporting the students’ DDA (textbooks and other content) with charges sent to students’ billing accounts, and the Iowa Hawk Shop Book Store is doing this without additional price markups to students.
- UI Libraries
- A Scholarly Communication Librarian has recently been hired, and is focusing on new ways for the UI Libraries to increase student access to OER and Library-licensed content.
- The UI Libraries are leveraging and participating as members of the Open Textbook Network (OTN)—The Open Textbook Network (OTN) promotes access, affordability, and student success through the use of open textbooks.[1]
- A new Textbook Purchase and Affordability Pilot Program has been de