Making the Decision for Affordable Options
Welcome, and thank you for your interest in open and affordable options for your students and courses. This page is designed to aid you in your decision making and thought process. Review the various options below and give thought to your goals and outcomes for your open and affordable options.
Like adopting a textbook with the bookstore, it is important to formally “adopt” your OER through Barnes & Noble’s Adoption Insight Portal (AIP), too. This lets students know that the materials for your course are FREE, helping them with their course selection decisions and financial planning. Our step-by-step directions show you how to do this in AIP.
“I’m trying to make my course materials
more affordable for my students.”
Check with the Library
- You may want to start with a search for library eBooks. If the library doesn’t have it, check with your librarian about the possibility of purchasing an eBook.
- If you want to use only a small portion of a print text, you might be able to scan it for Electronic Reserve.
“I want to use course materials
that are free for my students.”
Find and use OER – Here are some starting points:
- Open Textbook Library
- Penn State’s ROAM
- SUNY’s OASIS
- MERLOT
- Contact the Penn State OER Team for a customized search.
Once you find OER, you can either use it as-is or adapt it to your needs. If you can’t find any suitable OER, you can create your own. Reach out to the Penn State OER Team for help with all of these options.
“I want to customize the OER that I found.”
- Open Educational Resources are frequently licensed so they can be adapted and combined into a customized resource.
- For support with this process, submit an OER Consultation Request.
