Zero-text-cost courses ease financial burdens | City University of New York | CUNY Newswire

"John Jay prides itself on giving all students, coming from any financial background, the opportunity to succeed. Understanding that the price of textbooks is a cost barrier for many students, some professors are opting to use the zero-text-cost program. Through this program, CUNY allocated grant money is used to offer courses that utilize Open Educational Resources (OER) and licensed Alternative Educational Resources (AER) instead of traditional textbooks that students have to purchase. “There are students who can’t engage in the classroom because of textbook costs,” says Karen Argueta, a recent class of 2018 graduate and current student in John Jay’s Human Rights Master’s Program. “I’ve had classmates who took pictures of another student’s textbook, just to have the reading for the following week.” Using OER and AER materials like DVDs, eBooks, and streaming videos, which are all digitally available, boosts student engagement and increases student success. To learn more about the zero-text-cost program and its impact on students and professors, we spoke with Argueta, Dr. Raymond Patton, Director of Educational Partnerships and General Education; and Verlene Herrington, John Jay’s OER Librarian and Adjunct Associate Professor...."