HB2871 SECTION 4. Each public university listed in ORS 352.002 and community college shall prominently designate courses whose course materials exclusively consist of open or free textbooks or other low-cost or no-cost course materials. The course designation required by this section must appear in the published course descriptions that are on the Internet or are otherwise provided to students at the time of course registration, including on the campus bookstore course materials list that is provided for the course.

Please note, this is a legislative mandate that MHCC is required by law to comply with. If your course section meets one of the two designations then it must be prominently designated as such, in our Course Schedule. You cannot opt-out of labeling your course.

Download the full text of House Bill 2871 here

No Cost = $0: All required course materials are completely free. This includes textbooks and other text-based materials, workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms and special access codes.

Example of No Cost: the instructor provides a link to a free, online version of the textbooks, but gives students the option to print-on-demand; as long as the instructor does not require the student to print the textbook, the cost of printing does not disqualify the "No Cost" designation.

Low Cost = $1 - $49: The total cost of all required course materials is less than $50.00. This includes textbooks and other text-based materials, workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms and special access codes from publishers.

Example of Low Cost: the instructor requires each student to purchase their own copy of a textbook, and after all publisher markups, and MHCC bookstore markups (set by MHCC Board of Education), the total cost is no higher than $49.99.

IT and the TAT developed the online Course Section Reporting Form (CSRF) for faculty to report their course sections for three purposes:

1. Automatically map appropriate course sections with HB2871 No Cost and Low Cost designations in Jenzabar CX, to be displayed to students in the online Class Schedule at the point of registration.
2. Capture data on which course sections are using Open Educational Resources (OER) regardless of HB2871 cost thresholds.
3. Capture data on which course sections have an expensive textbook that is used for multiple terms over a sequence of classes.

Faculty can find a link to the CSRF by logging into MyMHCC and clicking the MHCC Course Section Reporting Form link on the Faculty Home page. You can also click on the CSRF button at the top right of this page and login with your MyMHCC credentials.

The form will automatically list the course sections assigned to you. Fill the form out section by section, term by term, for each section you teach, prior to online registration opening for each term. Once you fill it out, the online Class Schedule Textbook Price column will automatically display to students whether or not your section is No Cost: $0 or Low Cost: $50.

If you make a mistake, or you are taking over the section from a different instructor, just fill the form out again—your most recent entry will overwrite the previous entry.

Aside from auto-populating the course schedule with No Cost/Low Cost labels for our students to use as they choose which classes they sign up for (see FAQ #1), textbook cost savings data from the CSRF is collected, analyzed by our Analytics and Institutional Research staff, then reported to our internal and external community, and to the State of Oregon. It is also used for assessment of MHCC’s Textbook Affordability initiatives over time.

Please complete the Course Section Reporting Form if your course uses a blend of OER content with traditional, commercial textbooks that cost more than $50. We need to track OER adoption, regardless of whether or not a course is Low Cost or No Cost.

While all OER is free, not all free content is OER. “Open Educational Resources” are course materials with specialized copyright licenses that inherently grant legal permissions for the free sharing, modification, and distribution of that intellectual property however the instructor sees fit. For more information, see the following pages:

• The 5R's and Open Licensing Explained
• What is OER?

Fill it out section-by-section, term-by-term, being sure to answer question #3 that asks whether or not this section is part of a sequence of classes that all use the same textbook.

Please Note: if the required textbook costs more than $49, it will not receive the Low Cost designation because that is based on course section, not sequence. See below for how to calculate the cost of your course section materials.

No, the instructor must fill it out because the CSRF pulls course section data according to the MyMHCC login account.

The Bookstore’s database is controlled by a 3rd party vendor and their system is not interoperable with our system. Batch loading from the Bookstore’s software was the very first thing we investigated when designing the CSRF, because we knew it would be easiest for faculty. Unfortunately, this is not technically feasible. If it ever becomes feasible, we will make it happen.

Included: all required textbooks, course packs, and other text-based materials, workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms, access codes and other publisher-provided curricular materials.

Excluded: art supplies, calculators or other equipment (clickers, etc.), and any Course Fees. Also excluded are optional texts that students are not required to purchase for your course section.

Optional costs should not be included your calculation.
For example: you provide students with a link to a free, online version of your materials but give them the option to purchase printed versions. The optional cost of printing these materials should not be included in your calculation. However, if the print version is required in your class, you should include that cost in your calculation.

If a text is used across multiple courses in a sequence DO NOT base your calculation on the cost divided by those courses.
For example, a text that costs $120 that is required for 3 sequenced courses DOES NOT meet the $49 or under label requirement. Not all students take all courses in a series. Students may take courses over time and may have to pay for edition changes. Students must pay the $120 and cannot budget for 3 even payments.

Only identify courses that meet these cost-cap requirements ($0 - $49).
By default, classes that do not meet one of these two cost caps will not be designated (same as now). Schedule-builders will have the new ability to call out courses that meet one of these two material cost caps in the online schedule, but all other courses will remain unmarked by default.

What cost should I use? What if materials are less expensive on Amazon, etc.?
To calculate your text-related costs for these designations, use the cost of materials in the MHCC Bookstore. While materials may be less expensive elsewhere, students may have access to a financial aid voucher that may be used at the MHCC Bookstore prior to the release of financial aid funds by the college. Contact the bookstore for help with bookstore pricing.

What if my text is available as an e-book through the MHCC library?
If the required text is available as a free-to-students e-book through the MHCC library, as long as you do not require the printed text in your class, your course can qualify for the No Cost designation. However, we strongly recommend that you work with the Library to determine longevity of access to any particular e-book. Email reference@mhcc.edu the title and ISBN to double check the license to that title.

What if I don’t require any texts or “outside” materials for my class?
Your course CAN qualify for the No Cost designation if no “outside” materials or texts are required. For the purposes of these cost designations, it doesn’t matter if you are using instructor-created materials, activities, slides, websites, library materials, etc. Apply the question: does my course have any text or publisher-related costs? If the answer is no, the course meets the No Cost designation. If the answer is yes, but less than $49, the course meets the Low Cost designation.

What if I am unsure about the cost of my materials?
See the next section, Advice from MHCC Bookstore. If you still have questions, consult the Bookstore Manager for guidance.

Prices on Amazon are likely lower than our retail price. Amazon sells texts as loss leaders to gain long-term customers. This includes their own price, not just the secondary seller market. The MHCC bookstore will need to contact publishers to confirm most pricing information for instructors.
Publishers frequently increase prices at the beginning of each year so instructors will want to check their text prices again for winter term, etc. in case there have been increases. Some publishers also sell access codes and texts to students at our net price so our price for an item may be higher than the direct from publisher option.
MHCC Bookstore does not order texts to be available for a full year, even if an instructor expects to use the book continuously. The college currently does not have any lock down dates for when instructors for a course can change, when texts for a course can change, and we have some cancelled classes due to low enrollment each term. All of these issues prevent us from ordering textbooks in large quantities. Additionally, there is a financial disadvantage for the store to sit on merchandise (each stack of books on the text floor equals a bag of money.) We do order heavily for fall term and try to carry over some texts.
Printing is expensive. If an instructor is planning on printing out copies of an OER text they should not assume that the cost will be less than $50. The print shop would need to provide us with pricing information before the bookstore could give a final retail cost.
The College Board of Education has a set standard markup for textbooks. This is included below, along with how to arrive at the final retail amount. Contrary to popular belief a markup of 25% is not found by multiplying the net price by 1.25.

• Standard retail markup for most texts = 25% or net price x 1.33 = retail
• Markup for Custom texts = 30% or net price x 1.43 = retail (custom texts only allow 10-20% returns to publisher. Unsold copy cost is absorbed by the bookstore at a loss)
• Course Packet markup = 35% or net price x 1.54 = retail (unsold copy cost is absorbed by the bookstore at a loss)

Financial Aid awards can only be used to purchase textbooks through the MHCC Bookstore. The college advances students a loan against their financial aid amount through the bookstore for the first few weeks of text sales. Our books usually go on sale during finals week of the prior term (excluding fall, which usually goes on sale at the beginning of September). Students can use their financial aid advance (up to $1000 depending on student aid) in the store from our on sale date through the 2nd Monday of the term. After that Monday, the funds are no longer available through the bookstore and are distributed to students on the Wednesday or Thursday of the second week.
There are a number of students on 3rd party accounts (Veteran funds, WorkSource etc.) in the bookstore. These students generally have to buy from us or purchase and be reimbursed from their primary source which can take several months. Items purchased direct from vendors and out of print titles etc. can affect these students the most.
MHCC is NOT forcing students to purchase texts from the MHCC Bookstore. Textbooks are expensive & we work with a customer base with minimal funds available, so it's understandable that students will shop around for the best deal. However, financial aid and 3rd party accounts like Veteran funds (see above) do need to be billed through the bookstore.
The Bookstore needs to know what texts are being used so we can best serve students. We often have students stopping in looking for books that were not ordered with us. Please be sure to let the bookstore know what book you are using, so we can tell your students and ensure that MHCC meets HEOA federal guidelines.

Open Educational Resources (OER):
These materials usually have a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license posted somewhere on the work itself; in particular, OER allow what's known as The Five R's: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute.

• The 5R's and Open Licensing Explained
• What is OER?

MHCC Library Resources
The MHCC Library has thousands of scholarly e-books, e-journals, and streaming videos, and you can place a copy (or copies) of your print textbooks on Course Reserve. While these resources are restricted by traditional copyright law (you cannot do The Five R's with these), it still saves students money on textbooks because there is no extra fee--all students need is a MyMHCC login to access these resources.

• Library Resources as Course Materials

YouTube Videos
Most YouTube videos have a "Standard YouTube License" which prevents you from doing The Five R's, but some YouTube videos have CreativeCommons Licenses which permit The Five R's. You can easily check by going to a YouTube video of your choice, click "Show More" and look for the word "License."

Public Domain
Some resources are in the "Public Domain" meaning that copyright law does not protect them, thereby permitting you to do whatever you want with that intellectual property. Information from US government websites, for example, is in the Public Domain, as is all data (you cannot copyright actual data). Certain songs, like "Happy Birthday" are in the Public Domain. It's always a good idea to cite your sources though. Just because something is free of copyright does not mean plagiarism is no longer a concern!

Traditional and Custom Textbooks, and "Access Codes" from Commercial Publishers
Traditional textbooks, custom textbooks, and special access codes to online content from commercial publishers are restricted by traditional copyright, meaning you cannot do The Five R's.

Course Packs
If you pull together various pieces of Intellectual Property into Course Packs, each individual work within it, is protected by the license applied to its original source. The Fair Use clause of traditional copyright law permits you to excerpt it from its original source, but you cannot do The Five R's within each excerpted work, and you cannot use the same excerpts term after term, year after year because this would break copyright law and infringe on the publisher making a profit.

No. And really, why would you want to opt out when you consider the intention behind this: to support MHCC students by helping them budget for their education. Making MHCC programs more affordable to students by reducing textbook expenses provides a positive contribution towards student enrollment, retention and completion, and helps students achieve their academic goals, career success, and fulfill their family responsibilities. Quantifying this statement through data collection will help us verify it over time.

Start by sending an email to reference@mhcc.edu and the library team will get you connected with the right person!