Instructional materials – Costs, purchasing, and definitions.

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  2. Oklahoma Statutes
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  4. Instructional materials – Costs, purchasing, and definitions.

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A. It is the intent of the Legislature to:

1. Give students enrolled in institutions in The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education more choices for purchasing textbooks and instructional materials;

2. Encourage higher education faculty and staff to work closely with bookstores and publishers to implement the least costly option without sacrificing educational content; and

3. Provide maximum cost savings to students.

B. As used in this section:

1. "Instructional material" means any textbooks, workbooks, CD-ROMs, and other course-related material that are published with the intent that they be used for or in conjunction with classroom instruction and that are adopted for academic use by the faculty or the person or entity in charge of selecting learning materials at the institution within The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education;

2. "Bundled" means a textbook and other supplemental instructional materials that may be packaged together to be sold as course materials for one price but shall not include integrated textbooks that cannot be sold separately due to third-party contractual agreements, custom editions, or special editions;

3. “Integrated textbook” means a textbook that:

  • a.is combined with materials developed by a third party and that, by third-party contractual agreement, may not be offered by publishers separately from the textbook with which the materials are combined, or
  • b.is combined with other materials that are so interrelated with the intent of the textbook that the separation of the textbook from the other materials would render the textbook unusable for its intended purpose; and

4. “Custom edition” means instructional material that is compiled by a publisher at the direction of a faculty member or other person or adopting entity in charge of selecting course materials at an institution, and may include, alone or in combination, items such as selections from original instructor materials, previously copyrighted publisher materials, copyrighted third-party works, and elements unique to a specific institution, such as commemorative editions.

C. Each board of regents of an institution or group of institutions within The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education shall adopt an instructional material policy that requires:

1. Bookstores located on campus or bookstores which contract with the institution to provide bookstore services to students to:

  • a.provide students with the option of purchasing instructional materials that are unbundled when possible, disclose to faculty and staff the costs to students of purchasing instructional materials, and disclose publicly how new editions vary from previous editions,
  • b.actively promote and publicize book buy-back programs, and
  • c.disclose retail costs for instructional materials on a per-course basis to faculty and staff and make this information publicly available; and

2. Higher education faculty and staff members to consider the least costly practices in assigning instructional materials for a course, such as adopting the least expensive edition available when educational content is comparable as determined by the faculty and working closely with publishers and bookstores to create bundles and packages if they deliver cost savings to students.

D. In developing an instructional material policy as required in subsection C of this section, each board of regents shall work with and seek input from bookstores, publishers, students and faculty representatives.

E. Each publisher of instructional material used by students enrolled at institutions in The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education shall make available to the faculty and staff of that institution the:

1. Price at which the publisher will make the instructional materials available to bookstores, either those located on campus of the institution or those which have a contract with the institution to provide bookstore services to students; and

2. A description of the substantial content revisions made between the current edition of the textbook or supplemental material and the previous edition, if any.

Added by Laws 2007, c. 368, § 2, eff. Nov. 1, 2007. Amended by Laws 2009, c. 58, § 1, eff. Aug. 1, 2009.


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