Skip to Main Content

Open Educational Resources and Affordable Learning

A guide to discovering, evaluating, and using low cost textbooks and other course materials.

ECampus Bookstore

When you choose to use OER, you save your students money and ensure every student has immediate access to all the required learning materials on the first day of class. We want to ensure that when we make decisions like using online textbooks we communicate clearly with students and provide accurate data to SUNY regarding OER usage. 

Reporting OER usage to SUNY is a prerequisite for us to receive grant funding, vital to our initiative's continuation. Since 2018, SUNY Oneonta has received over $150,000 worth of SUNY funds and 100% of those funds have been directly allocated to faculty who are doing this curricular work. 

Best Practices example:

In this course, the instructor has done a few really nice things for their students: 

  1. The faculty member has let the student know they are using OER and included a link to the online resource. 

  1. The instructor has selected OER or library content from the eCampus menu. 

  1. A print version of the text has been added as optional. The instructor has repeated their note that the online version is free, and students may choose to purchase or rent a physical copy. 

  1. Not all OER have physical copies, but those that do can be added to the eCampus bookstore by adding in the ISBN number or searching for the title. If you are unsure if a print option is available for your chosen book, please contact your OER support team by filling out the OER Help Form. 

So how do I set up my course in eCampus online system (FAST adoption tool)

Visit the FAST adoption tool from MyOneonta. The FAST Adoption tool is found in a block named Academic Resources. This block may not be on your front page, so you may have to use the search bar to find the Academic Resources Block.  (You can save this block for next time by clicking the bookmark icon in the top right corner)

Find your course by using Course Search

Mark your course as OER in the eCampus System. This important step makes sure your course is counted when we do our OER reporting to SUNY

 

  1. Add a course comment that describes the way you are using OER in your class. Sample comments (or write your own!

    • For courses using Waymaker or other textbook/homework systems: This course uses a free, online textbook with an integrated homework system. This will be available to you in Brightspace for no cost.
    • For courses that use an online textbook: This course will utilize an online textbook, (Textbook name) (link to textbook)

For courses that use an online textbook and have a print option available: (textbook name) (link to textbook) is available for FREE as an Open Education Resource (OER) text online. However, a paper copy is available for students who prefer one.
 

 

(optional) Add your OER text as an adoption (if a print version is available). We suggest that print options for OER are listed as optional. Look up your book using the ISBN number, and contact your OER team if you are unsure.

After submitting your adoption, we recommend repeating your course description comment into the book comments field. This will ensure that the note appears directly above the adoption.