• To comply with legislation: CSUN is required to highlight courses with zero cost in Class Search per SB1359. By filling out this form, you are in compliance and you don’t need to send a separate email to the Campus Store about ZCCM. 
• To support student success: by filling out this form, you are providing transparent textbook information (zero cost, low cost, mid cost, high cost) to students when they select classes and plan ahead of time to purchase course materials for your class.
• To ensure the most appropriate designation: perhaps you want to offer your course textbook through the Campus Store for convenience, but you have another source that can provide all of your students a lower-cost alternative. If your source is not a limited supply, you can report this cost and it will be used for the icon designation for your course, rather than the Campus Store cost. 

Per SB1359, CSUN is required to “clearly highlight, by means that may include a symbol or logo in a conspicuous place on the online campus course schedule, the courses that exclusively use digital course materials that are free of charge to students and may have a low-cost option for print versions.” CSUN uses four designations for courses with $0 required costs, under $50 required costs, $50-$150 required costs, and Over $150 required costs. 

Included in the cost caps are: 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 are: standard school supplies (pens, notebooks, paper, scantrons, green books, etc), standard calculators, and class fees.

See below for a screenshot of how textbook icons look like now in Class Search for students to identify classes with low cost or zero cost course materials. The NEW icons for four textbook icons will be announced soon:

No. These designators are a means of providing awareness and transparency about course costs to students. AL$ hopes that this increased visibility will positively influence negotiations between instructors and publishers, and lead some faculty to become more aware of no-cost and low-cost options, such as OER. Faculty should continue to work in coordination with their departments to select the materials that best work for them and their students, weighing into consideration that the fraction of students purchasing a given textbook is negatively correlated with the cost. 

The cost designation for your course will be determined by the cost of your new course materials sold through the bookstore, and the corresponding icon will appear in Class Search.

​The zero-cost designation stems from SB1359, and the under-$50 low-cost designation from practices in other institutions and data on current textbook pricing from reserves at the University Library and Campus Store. The cost ranges for the other categories, proposed by the Academic Technology Committee in collaboration with AL$, are based on surveys of student perception of textbook costs, as well as data on current Campus Store textbook pricing.

Please fill out the form as soon as you can. 

To calculate your text-related costs for these designations, use the cost of materials in the CSUN Campus Store. While materials may be less expensive elsewhere, those prices can often vary and can have limited quantities that are not always guaranteed to be available to all students. Contact Robert Munck or Keila Reyes, textbook managers, for help with bookstore pricing.

If your required text is available as a free-to-students e-book through the University Library, as long as you don’t require the printed text in your class, your course can qualify for the $0 cost designation. However, in this case, the text should not be listed as “required” through the bookstore’s site, because students may assume they must purchase it. Consider listing the text as “optional” on the bookstore’s site and messaging students about their choices before the term begins.

Your course qualifies for the $0 designation if no purchased materials or texts are required. For the purposes of these cost designations, it doesn’t matter if you are using instructor-created materials, activities, slides, websites, library materials, etc. Apply the question: does my course have any costs? If the answer is no, the course meets the $0 designation. If the answer is yes, but $50 or less, the course meets the low-cost designation.

• In Class Search, your course will be associated with an icon corresponding to the cost category you have selected.

• If you choose over $50 for the question on the total cost of your required course materials, we might be able to purchase a copy of your textbook to put on Reserve for your students.

• If you indicate an interest in knowing more about any of the topics on course materials, we will contact you to provide more info.

Please fill out the form again or email Robert Munck at 0150txt@follett.com. 

​Consult Robert Munck or Keila Reyes, textbook managers, for guidance. For questions about AL$, please contact the AL$ team.