Skyline College recognizes the continued high cost of textbooks as a barrier that impacts student success. Inability to afford textbooks and course materials is an equity issue, which can be addressed through Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) materials & Open Educational Resources (OER). The primary goal of Skyline College's Textbook Affordability Solutions is to reduce educational costs for students by providing free or low-cost learning materials that are available from day-one of their class and customizable to fit their learning needs.

What is ZTC?

ztc logo

S.B. 1359 states Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course materials “may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials.”

Zero textbook cost (ZTC) also means that students do not incur any costs for purchasing course materials. Zero-cost to the students does not guarantee zero-cost to the institution, for example, materials may be supplied through program budgets or library subscriptions.

To create a ZTC course, instructors might use Open Educational Resources (OER), openly available resources, items in the public domain, library materials, and teacher-created or student-created course content.

ztc wheel

What is OER?

oer logo Open Educational Resources (OER) are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. (Hewlett)

OER Materials may include:

  • Textbooks
  • Course readings, articles, and journals
  • Course packs
  • Quizzes
  • Streaming videos
  • Virtually any other material used for educational purposes

Why use Open Educational Resources? OER are free, ready-to-use content for your classes. Creators and users are free to retain rights, reuse content, remix content, revise content, or redistribute content.

For more information on ZTC and OER resources, please visit our For Faculty page or For Students page!

ZTC at Skyline

Zero Textbook Cost materials are changing the way instructors teach and students learn. ZTC classes provide ALL enrolled students with simultaneous and immediate use of textbooks and course materials. They are available online and/or through Skyline Library. ZTC materials are available to students at no cost!

Contact Us

Want to participate? Have questions?

Contact the ZTC Team at: skylineztc@smccd.edu

Student Voice - Student Open Education Week 2023 Survey Summary

We asked Skyline College students what they thought about textbook costs. Here is what they had to say: Because of high course material costs...

  • 56% use ZTC indicators to search for no-cost and low-cost courses
  • 42% purchase course materials elsewhere (not from the Bookstore)
  • 30% take fewer classes
  • 30% don't purchase course material
  • 15% drop a course because they cannot afford course materials

 

Creative Commons License  Unless otherwise noted, content on Skyline College ZTC pages by the Skyline ZTC Team and licensed CC BY 4.0. The ZTC Wheel by Ame Maloney for Skyline ZTC is licensed CC BY.