Library Open Education Textbook Affordability Project 2024-2025
Textbook Affordability Project 2024-2025
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Background
Students in higher education face many cost-of-living pressures and financial challenges. The 2023 Australian Universities Accord Interim Report revealed that student finances and study costs are preventing a significant number of Australians from commencing or continuing with their studies. These findings provide context for a 2022 NCSEHE study that found “students make strategic choices about when and what [textbooks] to buy and borrow”. Not purchasing or having access to prescribed textbooks has implications for student success and retention. For this reason, a growing number of Australian universities are working to alleviate student textbook costs.
Making a difference at JCU
A JCU strategic priority is transformative education, with an aim of widening participation in higher education for regional, remote, Indigenous, first-in-family and international students. Financial pressures are a key challenge for these students. While many student costs are beyond the control of JCU staff, prescribed textbook costs could be reduced by employing a range of strategies.
To address this issue, JCU Library has launched a Textbook Affordability Project (2024-2025) where Library staff invite collaboration with first-year core subject stakeholders to investigate if free-for-students alternatives can be identified. Options include:
- Subject Reading lists: curated lists of Library paid resources (e.g., ebook chapters, scanned hardcopy chapters, journal articles) and high-quality materials beyond our collections
- Open Educational Resources (OERs): adopt, adapt or create high-quality openly licenced textbooks
- Library subscribed eTextbooks: repurposing funds towards eTextbooks with unlimited user licences (dependent on favourable publisher licence conditions). See also JCU Library Prescribed and Recommended Textbook Guidelines.
Connect with JCU Library to participate or share a JCU story relevant to this transformative project.
How to identify zero cost to students flexibly-licenced textbooks
Want to identify free-to-students prescribed textbook replacements yourself?
- Explore JCU Library’s Open Education Resources Discovery Collection for books available for adoption at JCU, curated by our JCU Librarians for your convenience.
- Search JCU Library collections for flexibly-licenced eTextbooks.