Course materials are anything the students are asked to purchase for your course: textbooks, trade books, ebooks, anthologies, subscriptions, software, models, etc. We are obligated to publicly post any additional costs for courses when the Spring ’24 schedule is released on Oct 30. For more information, see the FAQ.
“The course adoption deadline is guided by federal law. The Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was passed in 2008. It is an updated version of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Section 112, the “textbook provision,” requires institutions to provide students with the ISBN number and cost for all course materials at the time of Registration.”
Please use the newly re-designed Course Adoptions Form to adopt books or materials for your course. You will need the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) of the items you wish to use in your course. The ISBN is how we ensure that students purchase the correct item. Please do not send book lists through email; the new form, together with the mini-COW, is designed to corral important information for multiple departments.
No Textbooks/No Out of Pocket Costs: If there will be no out of pocket costs for your course, you can indicate that in the mini-COW. Nothing further is needed.
Same as Last Time: If you will be using the same materials as the last time the course was taught (or the last time you taught the course), you can indicate that in the mini-COW. Nothing further is needed; I will reach out with any questions.
No ISBN: If you are adopting a platform, package, or subscription that does not have an ISBN number, please email me at [email protected] with the information.
OERs: If an OER will be used in lieu of a traditional textbook, please let me know so I can indicate that in the virtual bookstore. OERs are Open Educational Resources. Examples recently used at Bowdoin: Herramientas, Operating Systems: Three easy pieces, OpenStax University Physics.
If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected]. I know the course design process has a lot of little details—thank you.
All the best,
Kate
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Related topics:
Desk/Exam Copies: Desk copies can be requested before December 1 from me at [email protected]. Publishers are not sending these as freely as they used to and sometimes they send a link to ebook access instead of a physical book. Desk copies take 4-6 weeks to arrive. If the publisher declines to send or the book never arrives, please see below for information about teaching copies.
Teaching Copies: If an instructor needs a copy of a book to teach with and requesting a desk copy didn’t work (or there isn’t time), a copy may be purchased by the ADC with department funds. Please work with your ADC to order your preferred format (book, ebook, looseleaf, etc).
Reserves: With few exceptions, all books that students are asked to purchase are automatically pulled from the collection/purchased and placed on 3hr reserve as an access point for students. All other reserves for a course are submitted by instructors/ADCs with these forms.
Library Ebook Licenses: Some course materials are available with unlimited ebook licenses. If you would like to know whether the library can purchase an unlimited ebook of your course adoption(s), please email me at [email protected].