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OER & AER for Nicholls Faculty

What is Act 125?

In 2019, the Louisiana Legislature passed Act No. 125 (Senate Bill No. 117). Among other things, it stated that public postsecondary education institutions in the state shall "Use a conspicuous symbol, logo, or other distinguishing feature to highlight each course included in its course schedule that exclusively utilizes AER or OER course materials."

Key Terms: 

OER: A resource that is in the public domain or has been released under an intellectual property license that permits the free use, adaptation, and redistribution of the resource by any person.

AER: A single or collection of required resources that may be offered at no or low cost to a student at a pre-sales tax cost that does not exceed an amount equal to four times the federal minimum wage.

Course Schedule: Sometimes called the Student Information System (SIS), registration system, or course timetable. This web-based listing details the college or university's courses to be offered in a specific academic period. 

Course Marking: Per the legislation, a "conspicuous symbol, logo, or other distinguishing feature to highlight each course included in its course schedule that exclusively utilizes AER or OER course materials" This may be in the form of an attribute, designation, tag, flag, or label. 

What's included/excluded when calculating course material costs?

Included in the cost: textbooks and other instructional/curricular materials, such as workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms and codes, or publisher-provided materials for students. Also included are any course fees for course materials, such as a textbook rental fee, inclusive access fee, Barnes & Noble College Booksellers’ First Day fee, or Follett’s ACCESS fee. Excluded from the cost: supplies and equipment, including art supplies, lab tools, and calculators. Also excluded are course fees that are a lab fee, technology fee, or testing fee. 

NOTE: Since Nicholls has an agreement with the campus bookstore for inclusive access (Colonel Book Bundle), no undergraduate course can be marked as an AER unless it is a 1 credit hour course. This is because undergraduate courses cost $24/credit hour no matter what type of material the instructor has adopted.
OER courses will still be marked. 

Under the law's definition of OER, a school can still designate a course as OER, even if there is a schoolwide fee for a course material program.  Because there is nothing specific to the cost of OER to the student, just a description of the license:

 3) "Open educational resource" or "OER" means a teaching, learning, or research resource that is in the public domain or has been released under an intellectual property license that permits the free use, adaptation, and redistribution of the resource by any person. The term may include full course curricula, course materials, modules, textbooks, media, assessments, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques, whether digital or otherwise, used to support access to knowledge.

For more information on The Colonel Book Bundle, the inclusive access program, visit the website below. 

Examples of OER & AER

OER: 

An OER course is completely free because it uses openly licensed resources. To receive this designation, the course must use openly licensed materials for all required curricular resources, including textbooks and other instructional materials, such as workbooks, lab manuals, and online homework platforms. An example of an OER course would be one where the instructor provides a link to a free, online version of an openly licensed textbooks. The course does not use any other required curricular resources. The professor can recommend students purchase a printon-demand version, but as long as the instructor does not require the students to use the print version, the cost of printing does not disqualify this course from receiving the OER designation.

AER: 

For an AER course, the total cost for course materials must not exceed four times the federal minimum wage. As of fall 2020, the federal minimum wage was $7.25, so the maximum total cost for an AER designation for Fall 2020 courses was $29. This total must include both required textbooks and other required instructional materials, such as workbooks, lab manuals, online homework platforms and access codes from publishers. An example of an AER course would be one where the instructor requires each student to purchase a textbook. After publisher and bookstore markups but pre-tax, the total cost is less than $29. If this instructor decides to require additional curricular materials, amounts must be included in the calculation.