Choose relevant, meaningful, diverse material that reflects your discipline or subject area and fits firmly within the confines of your course as defined by your student learning outcomes. Consider the importance of inclusive and diverse content and strategies for connecting disciplinary excellence to real-world relevance.
Things to consider as you choose course materials
Consider educational value when selecting textbooks or other course materials:
- Are they the appropriate level for your course?
- Will you assign or have students use a good portion of them?
- Do they offer diverse examples and perspectives?
- Do they support the way you want to teach your course? Or is the format too rigid (making it so that you need to use all the chapters in order, for example)?
Consider their cost: Often when a textbook is expensive, students will not purchase them or may delay purchasing them. If you have an expensive textbook ($100 or more), see if there are cheaper alternatives. Do students need the most recent edition? Or will a previous edition suffice? Would a different text work? Would a collection of resources work? Are there library resources you could use?
Consider access: To ensure all students have access to course materials, where possible, instructors should place materials on reserve at University Libraries and/or use Open Educational Resources (OER). For more on Open Educational Resources (OER), Open Access, and Open Textbooks, see University Libraries’ research guide on OER. Consult your department’s liaison librarian for suggestions and guidance on library and/or open materials for your course.
Fair Use and copyright research guide developed by Montclair University Libraries Textbook and Course Reading Materials Evaluation Checklist: developed by the Chicago School’s University Library, this checklist guides you through evaluating course materials for flexibility, cost, cultural relevance, accessibility, and data, privacy, ethical business practices.
Last Modified: Thursday, July 18, 2024 5:52 pm
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