16 Course Marking and Cost Savings – A student’s view

Starting Summer 2024, students will be able to browse for Zero and Very Low Cost classes using the Banner class schedule.

Zero Cost Courses use openly licensed resources, and sometimes licensed materials provided to students through library access, to create course readings that are free for students.

Very Low Cost Courses are defined by the State Board of Education as courses where the materials are $30 or less. Inclusive access courses may be eligible for this designation depending on the total cost!

Finding Zero and Very Low Cost Courses in the Class Schedule

1) Visit the Banner class schedule and select your term of interest, as per normal:

2) Click the “Advanced Search” button to expand the search options:

Banner Browse Classes search screen, with Advanced Search highlighted.

3) Under Attribute start typing “Materials estimate” and two auto-options should pop-up. Select one or both attributes ($0 and $0-$30):

Zero (Materials estimate: $0) and Very Low Cost (Materials estimate: $1-$30) Attributes.

4) Browse the results.

5) Verify the materials cost for each class by checking under attributes, see below:

Close-up of example class with a Zero Cost text.

 

That’s it! If you select this class, you can expect to have no course materials costs!

Important notes:

  • These costs refer to course materials costs only, please be sure to check for other fees like lab fees, online course fees, and inclusive access fees. The goal is to help students forecast what out of pocket course materials fees they may encounter for textbooks and other similar type materials.

 

 

Student Driven Course Reserves

Sometimes faculty need to use for-cost texts because they’re the best choice for the course. Students can still help reduce their course costs by utilizing course reserves, which place physical and sometimes digital copies of textbooks online for students to access. Check out the Course Reserves web page to learn more.

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Open at the University of Idaho Library Copyright © by Tyler Rodrigues and Marco Seiferle-Valencia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.