Faculty Statement on Open Textbooks

Faculty members share students' concerns about the high cost of college textbooks, but they often find it difficult to find appropriate course materials at an affordable price. Open textbooks -- college texts offered online under a license that allows free digital access and low-cost printing -- represent a promising way to expand the existing textbook market to include more low-cost, comparable options.

By signing this statement, faculty members state their intent to include open textbooks in their search for the most appropriate course materials, and they declare their preference to adopt an open textbook in place of an expensive, commercial textbook, if the open textbook is the best option.

Preamble

The cost of college textbooks has become a major affordability issue for low and middle income students, adding to the potential that these students will either drop out, take on additional loan debt to pay for textbooks, or undercut their own learning by forgoing the purchase of textbooks. Textbook publishers have not responded adequately to these concerns, but have continued to exacerbate this problem by raising prices and employing practices such as unnecessarily issuing new editions of textbooks. Faculty and students both share a concern about textbook affordability and its impact on student success, and we must address this problem without undermining the academic freedom of faculty to choose course content.

Open textbooks and other open educational resources present an affordable, comparable and flexible alternative to expensive course materials:

• Open textbooks are available online at no cost to students, and they can be printed for a low cost in various formats. This ensures all students have equal access to the content, while still preserving the option to use a conventional textbook format.

• Open textbooks that are of comparable quality to commercial textbooks are already available. An example of an open textbook is Caltech Professor R. Preston McAfee’s Introduction to Economic Analysis, which has been adopted at NYU and Harvard.

• Open textbooks are flexible. Instructors are free to use a particular edition indefinitely or customize content if desired.

Statement of Intent

As faculty members, we affirm that it is our prerogative and responsibility to select course materials that are pedagogically most appropriate for our classes. We also affirm that it is consistent with this principle to seek affordable and accessible course materials for our classes whenever possible. This includes “open textbooks,” which are textbooks offered online to students at no cost.

Therefore, we the undersigned declare our intent to:

• Seek and consider open textbooks and other open educational resources when choosing course materials.

• Give preference to a low or no cost educational resource such as an open textbook over an expensive, traditional textbook if it best fits the needs of a class.

• Encourage institutions to develop support for the use of open textbooks and other open educational resources.

Sign the statement

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