Classes in CUNYFirst can be designated ZTC -- Zero Textbook Cost. Students can find ZTC classes by choosing that option under course attribute.
ZTC courses use materials that don't create an extra cost for students! These might include OERs, library materials, or other kinds of freely available materials (freely licensed or not).
It's in the licensing! ZTC just means that the students don't have to pay an extra fee to access the course materials. They don't have to be available to students outside your institution, and they don't have to have a license permitting others to adjust or remix them.
Yes! They are a great first step to reducing costs for our students, which makes our institution much more equitable. We don't have to wait until we have enough open materials for the class to begin taking these steps.
Additionally, they do count for the OER grant! So if you see a good way to reduce costs for students by using materials generally available on the web or through the library, please go ahead and do it, and let us know!
Just be sure to follow the licensing terms for the materials you use -- and if you create your own materials, please consider making them open! The Creative Commons tool can help you do this.
The open access movement focuses on scholarship, so if you want to make your scholarly or creative work available, this is usually referred to as open access. OA advocates often look at openness as a spectrum, so certain items may be "more open" or "less open" depending on the rights they afford the readers, but as long as they're made available to the public without a fee, they're considered open access.
Open educational resources support pedagogy, so if you're making any kind of teaching resources available, they count as OERs! OERs do have a stricter definition when it comes to licensing, though; it isn't really an OER unless future instructors can make changes for it to suit their own pedagogy.
OA and OERs have a lot in common! Both kinds of materials:
Although there are different emphases to each of them, there is great overlap between the scholarly communication/open access community and the open educational resource community.
Open Access and Open Educational Resources: The Basics by Nancy Foasberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
