Skyline College recognizes the continued high cost of textbooks as a barrier that impacts student success. The inability to afford textbooks and course materials is an equity issue and it can be addressed through Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) & Open Educational Resources (OER) adoption. The primary goal of Skyline College’s Textbook Affordability Solutions is to reduce educational costs for all students by providing no-cost learning materials that are available from day one of their class and customizable to fit their learning needs.
Student-Ready ZTC Pathways: It Takes a Village
Motivation
With rising tuition and fees and the high cost of living in the Bay Area, many Skyline College students are unable to afford textbooks and other class materials that support their learning goals. The Associate of Science (AS) degree in Respiratory Care is a priority for ZTC program pathway implementation for a number of reasons. First, the Respiratory Care AS degree is a high unit major for completion. Major units required for the degree are 48.5 units (17 courses) compared to 18 major units (6 courses) required for many other AA/AS degrees. The major also has high textbook costs. Finally, the Respiratory Care AS degree program is in great demand on campus, ranked among the top 10 degrees awarded to Skyline College graduates since 2012 and demonstrating a close to 100% completion rate.
Prior Experience
Prior to the CA ZTC Phase II Grant Initiative, Skyline College ZTC adoption was ad hoc and limited to early adopters of traditional OER textbooks such as Intro to Statistics offered through OpenStax. Familiarity with and exposure to statewide OER/ZTC initiatives was elementary.
Planning & Challenges
Skyline’s ZTC grant initiative launched with a series of campus-wide Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME)-OER training sessions offered to all interested campus faculty and burgeoning ZTC Champions. This provided the Career Technical Educators (CTE), AS Respiratory Care, and pre-requisite faculty a shared experience, baseline expectation, and a springboard from which to begin curation, adaptation, and creation of OER resources. An unexpected outcome of Participation in ISKME-OER training was the launch of our Skyline College Community on the OER Commons where faculty still regularly share & discuss relevant OER materials offered through the OER Commons.
Primary launch challenges included degree-wide faculty buy-in and locating OER course materials in the field of respiratory care.
Specifically, one significant challenge that we encountered was centered on our Respiratory Care faculty’s use of what they described as a pivotal textbook in Respiratory Care, often referred to as “the bible” of Respiratory Care. Faculty were hesitant to research & explore alternate ways to curate similar content previously gleaned from the pivotal high-cost textbook. Our third ISKME-OER training focused specifically on authoring and creating OER content which helped reassure and affirm our faculty as content experts in their own right while showing them the possibilities of authoring respiratory care content that could be shared broadly.
Faculty Engagement
Skyline College developed a multipronged strategy to faculty engagement that included: professional development training and workshop opportunities; Open Education Week and other awareness events; Faculty Incentive Programs, cross-campus collaboration; individual faculty consultation; and consistent ZTC representation in Flex Day programming.
Support and implementation of the ZTC degree pathway has been possible because of campus-wide collaboration. As subject matter experts, faculty are indispensable in identifying and remixing ZTC course materials that support equitable access and academic success of Skyline College students. The Skyline College Bookstore is a strong supporter of textbook affordability solutions and provides students with low-cost print services of a broad selection OER course materials. The Skyline College Library is a source of print copies of OER textbook course reserves, as well as electronic books, journal subscriptions, and media for faculty and student use.
The ZTC Early Adopter and Discipline Lead incentive program supports ongoing ZTC course transition and addresses textbook affordability and equity issues at Skyline College while providing financial support for faculty to engage in no- and low-cost course materials adoption and what is frequently a full course re-design around the principles of Open Pedagogy.
Stakeholder Engagement
Engagement of stakeholders began with development of our ZTC Task Force which included librarians, an instructional designer, a bookstore manager, the Director of Learning Commons (Library), the Vice President of Instruction, and the Dean of Academic Support and Learning Technologies. The ZTC Taskforce met regularly to strategize how to engage key areas of our campus community to support increased ZTC awareness and adoption. Strategies implemented by the ZTC Taskforce to engage cross-campus stakeholders included Academic Senate presentations, an Associated Students of Skyline College presentation, the ZTC Textbook Affordability Solutions Report to Skyline College President, a Cabinet and Board of Trustees Presentation, campus outreach, and direct communication with Deans. In addition to on-campus networking, the ZTC Taskforce, now known as the ZTC Team, maintains participation and engagement with state-wide ZTC Champions who have provided indispensable insight, support, and encouragement.
Student Awareness & Engagement
Searchable ZTC and OER designated classes in online course schedules, presentations to Associated Students of Skyline College, student outreach and awareness campaigns, ZTC student panelists at Flex Day events are just some of the ways our ZTC Team conducts student outreach. Additionally, each semester the ZTC Team shares out a ZTC student survey to assess access, awareness, impact, and subjective student experience utilizing ZTC course materials.
Challenges
- Identification of high quality, respiratory care career technical education OER materials presented a challenge. Some faculty were resistant to research and explore alternate ways to curate similar content previously gleaned from a pivotal high-cost textbook and ultimately relied heavily on library subscription resources.
- The original one-year timeline was not enough time to complete all grant objectives, so we requested and were granted, a grant extension of our ZTC timeline.
Outcomes
Skyline College successfully launched our first ZTC Degree with the support of the ZTC grant and the tireless efforts of Campus ZTC Champions!
- 1-ZTC Degree: A.S. Respiratory Care (ASRC) + Prerequisites
- 22 Courses: 7 pre-reqs + 15 Respiratory Care core courses
- Launched Fall 2018; first cohort of ZTC graduates: Spring 2020!
ASRC ZTC Degree 3-year impact
Fall 2018 – Summer 2021
- 223 Sections
- 5471 Students
- Estimated Student Savings of $1,334,365.75
Another outcome of the ZTC Grant program has been positive administrative support of a local ZTC Early Adopter and Discipline Lead Program that provides curation support and faculty financial incentives for course conversion to ZTC materials. With this expanded support, Skyline College has realized growth in faculty adoption and student savings since ZTC courses were first tracked in Spring 2018 through Spring 2020 of over $2,687,467.95!
Lessons Learned
- ZTC adoption is iterative, collaboration is essential, and students have the most to gain from these efforts.
- Marketing and awareness outreach including website, emails, office visits, elevator pitches, presentations to students, and newspaper articles attract attention.
- Faculty incentives such a grant funding or release time are necessary to support the sometimes time-consuming curation, remixing, or authoring of high-quality OER materials.
- High enrollment, high impact General Education courses are where the most significant cost savings to students are realized and Skyline College is in the process of identifying its next ZTC Degree/Certificate Pathway.
- Sharing student impact data such as cost savings, retention, and academic success motivates stakeholders.
- Cross-campus collaboration of ZTC champions including faculty, administrators, bookstore managers, librarians, students, learning communities, and student services are essential to creating local support and sustainable ZTC programs.
Sustainability
We have achieved ZTC adoption and implementation success with a focus on cross-campus collaboration, building networks of faculty, administrators, and staff across disciplines to create a network of resources and support for our students and instructors. Feedback from student and faculty champions, real savings to students, and the potential for open pedagogical practices to support equitable and contextualized learning have directly resulted in the institutionalization of our campus-wide textbook affordability solutions program. Essential to our ZTC program is the extraordinary commitment that our administrators and campus ZTC champions have shown. With their support, we have secured funding for early adopter/discipline leads to compensate them for timespan integration, adaptation, and authoring of ZTC materials.
Future Aspirations
The next step in Skyline’s ZTC Degree initiative is to identify our next ZTC certificate/degree pathway. Deans have been charged with identifying potential pathways in their division which will be reviewed by the ZTC Task Force with consideration given to high-volume GE courses for transfer. Preference is given to courses that have consistent enrollment across multiple sections, high-cost course materials, and faculty champions with some experience with ZTC.
A shortlist of possible certificate/degree pathways include:
- Accounting A.S. for transfer (BEPP)
- Business Administration A.S. for transfer (BEPP)
- Psychology A.S. for transfer (SS/CA)
- Letters and Science Interdisciplinary Studies
- Communication Studies A.S.
- Transfer Social Justice Students A.S. Transfer
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