Faculty at St. Clair County Community College have been adopting open educational resources (OER), openly licensed textbooks and learning materials in their courses, and while many OER are available for purchase in print, some items are only available to users in a digital format. To accommodate the need for printed copies of some of these digital files, the college has developed a process for providing copies of OER for sale in the college bookstore.
This form will assist faculty in providing printed copies of OER in the college bookstore for student purchase. Keep in mind, there are many OER textbooks available in print (such as OpenStax titles), and this process is not intended to replace the ordering of those items through the bookstore, but as a means of providing a printed option for students of OER currently available only in digital format.
Before completing this form, ensure that you have permission to print the resource. All items with Creative Commons licensing or items that are currently in the public domain can be printed. You must obtain permission to print any items that are not openly licensed.
How the OER Coursepack process works:
1. Faculty communicate their book selection for an upcoming to department secretaries. Provide a print ready file of the OER to be used to department secretary when communicating the selection.
2. Department secretaries complete the OER Coursepack Print Request form. This form notifies both the printshop and the library.
This form should be completed in conjunction with the regular communication of textbook selections to the bookstore. It does not replace the need to submit textbook selections to the bookstore. Please add a note field in the bookstore communication for any OER Coursepack, as well as indicate that the digital item of the text is available for free at https://esearch.sc4.edu/textbooks .
3. The print shop will print and package requested according to instructions and deliver to bookstore for sale according to pricing listed on the OER Coursepack Print Request Form.
4. The bookstore will create a SKU for the item and place copies for sale in the bookstore.
5. Towards the end of the semester, the bookstore will return any unsold copies to SC4. Unsold copies will be distributed to the appropriate department. These items can be saved and re-sent to the bookstore for additional semesters if the same text is used in the future.
6. The bookstore will communicate number of items sold to the business office at the end of the semester.
Faculty - Don't forget to add your OER in its digital form to your Canvas course site. Openly licensed items can be linked to or uploaded directly into Canvas. If you need assistance adding your OER to your course, please contact the Center for Online Learning at (810) 989-5525 or col@sc4.edu.
