Tennessee Tech Combating Rising Textbook Costs For Students

Tennessee Tech has launched an online resource to help combat the rising costs of textbooks.

Volpe Library Public Services Coordinator Sharon Holderman said in some cases this could eliminate costs for required course materials. Holderman said faculty will use the site to lower the financial burden on students.

“It takes evaluating to see whether or not those are good resources and very valuable to their students in their classes,” Holderman said. “But it will also send the message to students that our goal is not to charge them a ton of money for their course materials, we just want them to have the best material.”

Holderman said the textbook affordability website’s Open Educational Resources are freely available content. She said depending on licensing, faculty can edit and pull chapters to create tailored course materials.

“Most of the things we discuss on our textbook affordability website are electronic content or e-content,” Holderman said. “Which really helps if the classes are online or you have distanced students. That’s usually where the cost can be reduced and the best way to share it is because there isn’t the cost of printing pages.”

Holderman said that instructors will use the library’s system through guidance in the classroom.

“They would use our course management system and link to any of the materials that they are using that are OER’s or if they’re library purchased materials,” Holderman said. “Because those links would be to the digital content that is required for the course.”

However, Holderman said that anyone can use the resources on the site. Tennessee Tech’s textbook affordability options can be found at tntech.edu/library/textbooks and Holderman can be contacted with additional questions.