The Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was signed into Law in 2008 to address important issues that include student rights, student financial aid, and transparency in tuition and fees. You can read this summary to learn about key aspects that the HEOA governs. One fundamental area of the Act refers to the requirement to provide textbook information (section 112) “to ensure that students have access to affordable course materials by decreasing costs to students and enhancing transparency and disclosure with respect to the selection, purchase, sale, and use of course materials.”
For the CSU, this means adopting textbooks and providing information to students by the day registration opens in late October (for more information you can refer to the CSU HEOA Frequently Asked Questions page). In order to meet this requirement on our campus, the due date for Spring 2021 course materials submissions to the Wildcat Store will be October 16th, 2020. Faculty’s contribution in this effort can really have a tremendous impact on students at the time they register for classes and plan the cost of their education for Spring 2021, so we want to encourage all instructors to make a decision about their chosen textbook and course material by the October 16th deadline.
In order to facilitate this process, the bookstore has set up Follett Discover, which you can access directly from Blackboard. After logging into Blackboard, click on the “Launch Follett Discover” button (located after your list of courses, at the bottom on the left hand side) and you will be taken to a page that will ask you to select your role (faculty).
- From the home page, you can use the search tools to find the specific term, department, course, and section you want to “Adopt” for.
- If you know the ISBN, just enter that in the box for each section and click “Adopt”.
- After this, the selection will be sent to the Wildcat Store automatically for ordering and after that to the student website.
- You can also search for the ISBN by entering the Title, Author, along with any other description into the search bar on the top right. Publishers can have multiple ISBNs for the same title.
- If you see a message saying “ISBN is not found,” either click the link to “request materials not found,” or email the Wildcat Store.
For other questions, please contact the Wildcat Store.
I also want to take this opportunity to promote one more time the Chico Affordable Learning Solution (CAL$) workshop this Friday, October 9th (from 10:00 to 11:30 am), to explore the adoption of open access material. The forum will be held via Zoom. Please visit the Friday Forums page for additional information. This session will be recorded and posted in the FDEV media channel.
