3.10 Academic Textbooks

The USG chief academic officer shall establish guidelines concerning the designation and sale of textbooks required for coursework at USG institutions. Minimally, the guidelines shall include provisions that:

1. Promote increased communication between and among students, faculty, and college bookstores concerning the use of textbooks in the classroom, the designation of required versus recommended texts, textbook costs, textbook adoption schedules, alternative acquisition methods, and other factors affecting the designation and sale of textbooks in order to increase the options available to students in meeting their cost of education.
2. Ensure that bookstore operations, whether managed internally or outsourced to private vendors, offer the best value to students in acquiring textbooks and actively promote alternative options to help minimize student cost.
3. Require a third-party review process at the institution for determining if faculty may use self-authored texts in their classroom, and disallow faculty to resell sample texts provided by publishers or to take advantage of any financial incentives offered by publishers in the assignment of specific texts.

(BoR Minutes, May 2005; February 2007)