Written by: Kenneth L. Servis
Published: 12/18/2008

Higher Education Opportunity Act – Textbook Policies

After several years of legislative debate, the Higher Education Act was reauthorized in August 2008 by the passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (PL110-315). A key feature of the act, Section 133, deals with the requirement for institutions to provide textbook information at the time a student registers for a course. The textbook provisions in HEOA take effect on July 1, 2010. Given the long lead time typical in the preparation of a course schedule, higher education institutions need to begin planning how their institution will meet these requirements.

Historically, information about required textbooks and supplemental materials has been provided in the class syllabus and not in the course schedule. At most schools, the college bookstore has been responsible for collecting textbook information from faculty in order to make textbook orders to publishers. Rarely has the course schedule contained information about required textbooks although a few schools have recently begun to include this. The University of Maryland, College Park, Illinois State University and the College of Du Page are examples.

In order to meet the HEOA Section 133- requirement, either college bookstores will have to collect the required textbook information and provide the information to the registrar to include in the course schedule, or the registrar will have to collect the textbook information, include the information in the course schedule, and provide the information to the bookstore. Section 133 requires that the institution make available to a college bookstore affiliated with the institution the course schedule, required textbook information, as well as the number of students enrolled in the course, and the maximum student enrollment for the course. In order to comply with these requirements, registrars will have to ensure that textbook information is collected in a timely manner and in a suitable format to publish in the course schedule. It would be a waste of time and effort for the registrar and the bookstore to collect this information independently.

Institutions normally provide the course schedule as a printed booklet, electronically on the internet, or both. Many institutions have stopped printing course schedule booklets because they become outdated as soon as they are printed. Changes in the schedule resulting from dropped or added courses, changes in course instructors or room locations and course enrollments cannot be included in a printed course schedule. If preregistration for a fall term occurs in April, as is often the case, institutions must have the textbook information in January or February in order to meet printing schedules. Textbook information gathered at this time is likely to be very incomplete or unavailable. In summary, the inclusion of textbook information in printed schedules may prove to be very difficult.

The law does provide that if textbook information is available on the institution’s on-line course schedule, then the written schedule need only contain a notice that the textbook information is available on the internet course schedule and the internet address for the schedule. Most institutions that provide both print and web versions of a course schedule will probably choose this option.

The information to be disclosed on the institution’s on-line course schedule for required and recommended textbooks and supplemental material is:

• The ISBN
• The retail price.

• The author,
• The title,
• The publisher,
• The copyright date.

The Act does not specify how institutions must provide this information to students. Options for providing the necessary information are:

• Provide a link along with the course number and course title to the specific textbook information for this course.
• Provide links, as appropriate, following each course to textbook information in a general textbook catalogue.
• Provide a link on the internet course schedule to another internet booklist site which provides the course number and required textbook information.
• Include all the textbook information with the course number, course title, and course description in the course schedule.

• Who is responsible for collecting textbook information from the faculty?
• How will the textbook information be collected?
• Who is responsible for gathering the ISBN and retail price for textbooks?
• What is the timetable for collecting textbook information?
• Who is responsible for incorporating textbook information into the schedule of classes?
• How will the textbook information be provided to students?
• Who is responsible for making textbook and student enrollment information available to the college bookstore?
• How will the information be made available to the college bookstore?

At most institutions, a number of changes will need to be made to the textbook information collection procedure and to the course schedule. Once the required changes have been identified and the times required to make the changes have been determined, an overall implementation plan can be formulated. The planning and organization for meeting the Section 133 requirements needs to begin now if the deadline is going to be meet. Although the implementation deadline is more than a year away, institutions should begin to implement the provisions as soon as practicable.

Section 133 gives no regulatory authority and prohibits the Secretary of Education from promulgating regulations with respect to this section. Thus, good-faith effort will satisfy the law. The GAO is required to report on the implementation of Section 133 by institutions of higher education no later than July 1, 2013.

Readers had the following comment(s) on this article:
02/01/2010	Diane Gregoire, Asst Textbook Buyer, Brown University, Diane_Gregoire@Brown.edu
What about titles that are ordered by faculty and then cancelled at a later date? The will want to add titles. This happens quite alot here at Brown. Thanks, Diane