Affordable Course Materials Initiative

The Affordable Course Materials Initiative (ACMI) improves educational outcomes by lowering the cost of course materials for students. Faculty can take advantage of the several ways that we support affordable and Open education.

Adoption Grants

The adoption grant program awards $500 for completed projects to faculty to reduce or eliminate course materials costs for students. Faculty receive dedicated library support to finding and implementing affordable materials in their course. The program includes a brief application, initial consultation, and regular check-ins throughout the academic year. Rolling acceptances for new projects are welcome.

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OER Creation and Adaptation Support

Support for faculty interested in creating a new OER or a new version of an OER is available. Support includes access to and training on UTC Open publishing platforms, consultations about project scope and design, open licensing review, accessibility review, and more. 

Open Pedagogy Projects

Support for faculty interested in using innovative instructional methods that result in publication of student works as open educational resources is available. If you have an idea or want to learn more, please contact us.

Tennessee Open Education

UTC Library supports the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) project, Tennessee Open Education, which unites institutions across the state including public and private institutions from technical colleges to flagship research universities to provide support for Open Education. THEC provides the Tennessee Open Education Hub as a landing page for discovery of OER created by Tennessee faculty. 

Affordable Course Materials Best Practices

• All course adopted textbooks must be reported to the UTC Bookstore.
• Use a "Wait for Class" note to restrict purchasing until after class has met.
• All required texts should be included in the Course Materials section of your syllabus.
  • Provide access information for texts available online or through the library
  • Indicate if optional print versions are available through the UTC Bookstore.
  • Clearly indicate if only some texts are available at no charge
  • Include an optional note "this course was revised to reduce/eliminate the cost of course materials for students with the assistance of an Affordable Course Materials grant in [semester, year]" to recognize the contribution of the grant.
• Discuss the texts and access options with your students.
• Provide links instead of uploading copies to your course.
• Link to a home page which includes all access options.
• Encourage students to download the text for offline use.
• Use chapter-level links to link directly to the content for each session.
• Familiarize yourself with the ebook features.
• Follow tips for Linking to UTC Library Materials.
• Check each semester to see if the links are still active and accurate.
• Keep records of your fair use determination for freely available but not openly licensed materials.