Campus Direct Access Programs in the OER Landscape: Friend or Foe?
Contributed by Michaela Keating
Inclusive access programs are spreading throughout colleges and universities on the promise of making education more affordable while increasing student success. The appeal of these programs is the discounts campus bookstores receive from signing a contract with a content provider. Programs with names like immediate access, instant access, direct access, day-one access, etc. are cropping up at large state institution systems and small community colleges alike. Unfortunately, campus Open Educational Resources (OER) advocates rarely have a place at the table for the discussions of adopting one of these programs. While OER and inclusive access differ in their approach, the shared goal of lowering education costs and ensuring students have the materials they need for success should be a good starting point for building relationships. However, the reality of how many of these programs work, and the lack of transparency on the part of publishers makes achieving these partnerships difficult. At my institution, California State University Fullerton (CSUF), OER advocates like myself suddenly found ourselves in competition with the bookstore over how affordable learning was discussed on campus. What ensued was a month’s long research project to understand how our inclusive access program started, and what our students and faculty think of the program.
The stated goal of inclusive access is to reduce costs and provide students with access to course materials from day one, and it is no secret that publishers see this as a “win-win” scenario. (Straumsheim, 2017). The benefit to publishers is evident through the maintenance of contracts that provide a consistent and stable revenue stream. Major textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill, Cengage, and Pearson began offering their inclusive access models as early as 2016, and all of these companies reported rapid growth and revenue as a result. (McKenzie, 2017). The win for publishers is clear, but it begs the question is a cheaper textbook enough of a win for students?
While group discounts seem like a helpful way to save money, the benefit to students is more difficult to justify when looking at the differing “opt-in” or “opt-out” stipulations that are part of these contracts. The less common opt-in models give students a window of time to decide if they want to purchase the course materials, otherwise they will need to buy the material elsewhere without the discount. The opt-out model automatically bills students for the materials, then sets a time frame where a refund can be requested. Should students miss the communication from their bookstore about when and how to opt out of their purchase, they are on the hook to pay for the materials. At CSUF, we witnessed the difficulties of the opt-out model during the Fall 2020 semester, when a series of communication missteps led to student backlash.
At CSUF, our nonprofit campus bookstore began working with Pearson Education to offer a small selection of online textbooks in Spring 2017, as part of an Affordable Learning $olutions initiative. (CSUF, 2016). This initial program was an opt-in model, where students had access to the materials for a short trial period, after which they needed to pay to keep their access. Over the next three years, this program took on the name “Titan Direct Access (TDA) Program” and gradually expanded its online textbook collection with various publishers through VitalSource. By the start of the Fall 2020 semester, the TDA textbook collection had grown by 366% and included materials for over 1800 course sections. At this same time, CSUF was no long able to maintain it’s opt-in contract and still ensure substantial discounts for materials. Starting that semesters, students now needed to actively log into their student portal to cancel the materials for each class associated with TDA, otherwise a charge would be placed on their account.
The earlier version of the TDA program was low impact with only a limited number of courses receiving materials, but TDA’s collection increase and the transition to an opt-out model caused a stir that drove the program into the spotlight. Students were unhappy to find they now owed money for materials they never requested to purchase. They took to the CSUF student sub-Reddit page to air grievances with their peers, with many feeling that they were the victims of predatory business practices. These comments provide a unique glimpse into how students racted to the program, and on the whole, they thought they were being duped. Numerous students felt that this program was a way for the University to make money, not something that was implemented for their benefit. While the university does not benefit from participating in direct access programs as students suspected, their concern that this program may not be for their benefit is justified.
The reality of when and how students benefit from inclusive access remains elusive. While the most inclusive access programs claim to have discounts up to 80%, actual discount percentages on individual titles are difficult to identify. (Carrns, 2020). With little present scholarship on the impact that inclusive access has on student success or retention, and even less transparency from publishers to demonstrate savings, claiming it is for student benefit can be a hard sell. The suspicion surrounding this program comes from the lack of choice that is built into the opt-out model. Students are disempowered by a program that makes choices for how they will obtain course materials, and then asks them to do added work if they exercise their right to decline.
Faculty advocates for OER were not pleased with the rollout either. Several faculty members teaching “zero-cost courses” were frustrated to find their students being materials that they could access as unlimited ebooks from the library. Conversations about opting-out largely centered on students, so faculty did not know that they also had the right to choose if the participated in the program. While faculty universally expressed concerns about the amount of time that students have to opt-out, many still thought the program seemed like a good idea. Where OER advocates spent years on campus educating faculty about new ways to consider course materials, inclusive access gave faculty an easy way to lower costs without taking any steps toward reimagining affordable education.
In CSUF campus dialog, inclusive access and OER are frequently mentioned in the same sentence as a way for faculty to consider reducing costs. This kind of messaging is frustrating to OER advocates like myself, because we have more than just student savings in mind. (Watson, 2020). We are also pursuing the long-term goal of making affordable education sustainable, promoting greater flexibility and academic freedom for our faculty, and disrupting the traditional paradigms in education that contributed to disparities in student experiences along class, race, and gender lines. This is not to say that inclusive access doesn’t have a place in conversations of student success and education affordability, but it doesn’t need to be at the head of the table.
Works Cited
California State University Fullerton. (2016, December 22). New program increases students’
digital access to course materials. http://news.fullerton.edu/2016/12/directaccessbooks/
Carrns, A. (2020). A digital textbook might be cheaper, but it’s hard to say. New York Times. B7.
McKenzie, L. (2017). “Inclusive access” takes off. Inside Higher Ed.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/07/inclusive-access-takes-model-college-
Straumsheim, C. (2017). Textbook publishers contemplate “inclusive access” as business
model of the future. Inside Higher Ed.
Watson, C.E. (2020). OER has benefits beyond affordability. What are they? Open Stax Blog.
https://openstax.org/blog/oer-has-benefits-beyond-affordability-what-are-they
Author Bio
I am the Open Educational Resources Librarian and California State University Fullerton. I received a Master of Arts in History and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Rhode Island, with intersecting interest in feminist philosophy and social justice in both degree paths. She is interested in exploring the implications of OER for promoting equity and anti-oppressive education.
This post is by Michaela Keating and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, except where otherwise indicated. Please reference OER and Beyond and use this URL when attributing this work; for more information on licensing, see our Open Access Policy.
