Open Educational Resources (OER)/Affordable Educational Resources (AER)

How are OER and AER defined?

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.

  • All required curricular resources, including textbooks and other instructional materials such as workbooks,
    lab manuals, and online homework platforms must be openly licensed.
  • Students will have zero costs for course materials.

AER: A single or collection of required resource(s) offered at no or low cost to students at a pre-sales tax cost not to
exceed an amount equal to four times the federal minimum wage (i.e., no more than $29 with a $7.25 federal
minimum wage).

  • The total cost of all required textbooks and other required instructional materials will remain affordable as
    defined in Act 125.
  • Library eBooks that are free to students but not open access are included in this designation.

What is Act 125?

Act 125/SB117 is a bipartisan bill signed into law in June 2019, requiring transparency in textbook pricing for students and creating an incentive model for the wide scale adoption of low and no-cost course materials. As a result of Act 125/SB117, Louisiana’s postsecondary public colleges and universities are required to “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.”

Beginning in Fall of 2020, each public postsecondary education institution shall implement the course schedule marking.

The Board of Regents has implemented a course marker field on each course within the SSPS Submissions. This is used to identify if the course is OER or AER.

The valid options will be:

O (OER)
A (AER)
<blank>  [ N (if blank is not accepted)]

How do I designate my course as OER or AER?

Before Lockout*: All course information is entered by department schedulers. Instructors should communicate AER/OER course designation with department schedulers along with all other course information.

After Lockout: Instructors communicate course designation with department schedulers, who then request for the Office of the University Registrar to list the course as AER/OER. Alternatively, instructors can communicate their request directly to the Office of the University Registrar by submitting a Request to Change the Course Offering After Lockout form. Please select “Make a change to an existing course section," then "Special Enrollment Code" as the type of change.

*Lockout refers to the cutoff date when department schedulers no longer have access to make course updates. Lockout dates are generally in early to mid-September for Spring and Summer scheduling and early to mid-February for Fall and Intercession Scheduling. Please communicate with your department scheduler to obtain the correct date every semester.