Effective Fall 2018, University System of Georgia (USG) required institutions to prominently designate sections of a course whose course materials exclusively consist of no-cost (open or free textbooks) or low-cost course materials at the point of registration. In Banner, USG institutions will use two designations for courses with:

  • No-Cost: $0 required textbooks
  • Low-Cost: $40 or under required textbooks

     

    • The No-Cost designator is for use with courses that exclusively use course materials that are free of charge to students. These materials may include open educational resources (OER), institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other materials that require no additional cost to students.

      Open educational resources (OER) are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. OER include, but are not limited to: full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

     

    • The Low-Cost designator is for use with courses that require course materials which cost students a total of $40 or less per course.  If there are more than one items, the sum of the whole package would need to be less than $40 to be considered to be Low-Cost.

USG Purpose No-Cost/Low-Cost Printable PDF

Schedule of Classes and Designation

  • Classes that do not meet one of these two cost caps will not be designated.

Included in the cost caps: Textbooks and other text-based materials, workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms, and codes or publisher- provided curricular materials for students.

Excluded from the cost caps: Equipment (such as art supplies, calculators, or physical lab materials) and fees for test proctoring.

How to Calculate and Assess Your No-Cost/Low-Cost Materials

  • For example: If you provide students with a link to a free, online version of your materials but give them the option to purchase materials in print or point them to an optional homework help platform. The cost of the optional materials should not be included in your calculation. However, if the print version or homework platform is required in your class, you should include that cost in your calculation.
  • By default, classes that do not meet one of these two cost caps will not be designated. Students will have the ability to search for courses that meet one of these two material costs caps in the schedule.
  • For example: a text that costs $120 that is required for three sequenced courses DOES NOT meet the $40 or under label requirement. Not all students take all courses in a series, students may take courses over time and may have to pay for edition changes, and students would have to pay the full cost up-front and could not budget for three even payments.
  • Consult your bookstore for guidance. If you are still unsure about whether your course meets one of the two designations at the registration deadline, DO NOT designate your course as either option.
  • To calculate your text-related costs for these designations, use the cost of new materials in your campus bookstore. While materials may be less expensive elsewhere, students using financial aid often must purchase materials from the bookstore, and while used prices might be lower, used purchasing can be complicated by limited supplies and edition changes. Contact your campus bookstore for help with bookstore pricing.    
  • The eBooks in the collection have a variety of limits to the number of users accessing the item at the same time. The KSU Libraries also purchases texts in electronic format assigned by faculty for academic courses. Please email librarycollections@kennesaw.edu for assistance and to confirm access will support the number of students in your course. If you wish to add freely-available eBooks as required text, the KSU Library System recommends open access resources such as OER Commons, Google Books, HathiTrust Digital Library, or Project Gutenburg.
  • Your course CAN quality for the $0 designation if no commercial materials or texts are required. For the purposes of these cost designations, it does not matter if you are using instructor-created materials, open educational resources, activities, slides, websites, or library materials. Apply the question: does my course have any textbook or publisher-related costs? If the answer if no, the course meets the no-cost designation. If the answer is yes, but $40 or less, the course meets the low-cost designation.

How to Calculate and Assess Printable PDF

How to Request Access to the Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD) in Owl Express

Request Access to the Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD) - Required Materials Cost Application.

To update no cost and low cost attributes, you must have access to the Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD). Chairs, or their designee, are responsible for designating sections with no-cost/low-cost attributes. 

Log into and follow the instructions listed in one of the three guides below:

  1. Email service@kennesaw.edu to request access to the Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD)
  2. Subject: Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD) Access Request
  3. Body: Please grant <name> access to the Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD) > Banner Related > Department Chairs > Assign Materials Cost Attributes

View The Course Attribute Dashboard User Roles

How to Enter No-Cost/Low-Cost Attributes

To update no-cost and low-cost attributes, you must have access to the Course Attribute Dashboard's (CAD) Required Materials Cost Attributes Application. Chairs, or their designee, are responsible for designating sections with no-cost/low-cost attributes.

To request access to the Course Attribute Dashboard's (CAD) Required Materials Cost Attributes Application, email service@kennesaw.edu, and ask for access to the Course Attribute Dashboard (CAD) > Banner Related > Department Chairs > Assign Materials Cost Attributes.

Still Have Questions?

For a faculty presentation or introduction about No-Cost and Low-Cost Materials email Nasrin Dehbozorgi at dnasrin@kennesaw.edu.  For access and technical issues, please email the Office of the Registrar at schedulebuilder@kennesaw.edu.