Starting this semester, Fresno City College’s West Campus is expanding their use of low and zero cost textbooks to most classes for students.
Ronnie Wrest, a professor teaching an introductory visual arts course offers free textbooks.
Wrest says the textbooks in his class are substantial in quality while being affordable.
“I think the content that I offer at zero-cost textbooks for the class is very contemporary and expansive material for the course work,” Wrest said.
There weren’t any challenges with offering zero-cost textbooks because of the many options and materials for the students, according to Wrest.
Wrest also found that students are performing better since the financial barrier of a paid textbook is removed.
He partnered with a professor from Clovis Community College to help provide more free textbooks. This goes alongside the State Center Community College District (SCCCD) supporting low/zero-cost options for the students, according to Wrest.
Jason Thomas, a professor at West Fresno that teaches human biology, is offering courses students low-cost textbooks.
Zero-cost/low-cost textbooks are a part of open educational resources (OER), which is made up of teaching and research materials that are licensed to be free or low cost. These resources are open-source and able to be modified by its users.
Thomas utilizes OER to customize his learning materials for his courses. He is able to build courses around what he would like to be covered, instead of having to be limited by a paid textbook he selects.
“I can take comfort in knowing that my students can keep up with the course without having to worry about purchasing these expensive course materials,” Thomas said.
Thomas also mentioned that OER materials still have to be reviewed for accuracy like most textbooks and content has to be pulled from “multiple resources.” OER still may have an advantage since expensive textbooks can have boundaries of what it covers, according to Thomas.
“There is rarely a one stop shop for everything you need,” Thomas said.
He also acknowledged that OER is not available for every course and topic. This is mediated by a large culture of collaboration.
“Several biology faculty members and I decided to write an OER manual and have now implemented it in our courses,” Thomas said.
Thomas mentioned that OER resources are often in digital formats. Meaning, there are potential technological barriers for students who don’t have computer access or access to the internet at home.
He explained that the West Fresno Center receives the same initiatives that FCC implements since it is considered an extension of the college.
“I would like to see increased support for technology and internet access for students as we will see an increase in reliance on these systems as we continue not only with online classes but increase our OER materials for students as well,” Thomas said.
The benefits are not limited to instructors at West Fresno, but other employees as well.
Monica Torres, a student aide at the West Fresno Campus is also majoring in American Sign Language.
Torres says that as a student, classes with zero/low cost textbooks makes students less stressed with having to pay for additional resources and be able to focus on their tuition payments. She explains that zero/low-cost textbooks are easy to access in class syllabi or the teacher provides PDF’s on Canvas.
As State Center Community Center looks to develop their new technology plan for the next 5-7 years, according to a tech survey sent to FCC students, making OER resources such as low cost textbooks as accessible as possible, could be something to consider for the future.
