ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost)

Ventura College recognizes the continued high cost of instructional materials as a barrier that impacts student success. Inability to afford course materials is an equity issue, which can be addressed through Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) materials & Open Educational Resources (OER). The primary goal of Ventura College's ZTC Brain Trust is to promote equitable access to higher education by advocating for the development, expansion, and long-term support of ZTC degree and certificate pathways to completion, as well as individual courses, that remove financial barriers to learning, and advances student success, retention, and completion by providing no-cost learning materials that are available from day-one of class.

What is ZTC?

ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost) classes are offered with FREE TEXTBOOKS FOR STUDENTS.

Students taking ZTC classes may average savings between $1,400 and $1,700 per year.

ZTC classes may use the following resources:

Open Educational Resources (OER): openly available to the public
Lending Library Textbooks: available for check-out at the campus library and/or bookstore for the semester
Faculty-Created Content: provided in class
Online Course Content: accessed through the college library, websites, or publisher databases

Ventura College faculty have adopted and created hundreds of ZTC course materials to provide high-quality educational materials to you at no cost online and with low-cost print option

How Do I Find ZTC Classes?

Visit the class schedule
Click on “Search—All Classes” and select “Advanced Search”
Select Zero Textbook Cost classes for sections filter and any other desired search options
Register for the courses on the MyVCCCD portal

OER & ZTC

Open Educational Resources (OER) and ZTC ( Zero Textbook Cost) Explained

Instructional Materials that are available to students at zero-cost are considered “ZTC”, such as open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials.

Due to the custom nature of ZTC resources and the many ways to integrate content into a course, your ZTC textbook may be provided as a PDF, on a website, or embedded into the course within Canvas. Check with the instructor of the course for more information.

What if I want a print version?

Order a low-cost print copy at a campus bookstore.
Check for print reserve copies at your campus library.
Check with your instructor for other options.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons License, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students (Hewlett).

OER are frequently available online at no-cost and may be shared and/or used according to the Creative Commons license(s) attributed to each individual resource. OER also have static URLs and typically have publication dates in order to ensure compliance with transfer partners’ expectations for textbook currency.

Courses that exclusively use digital and/or print course materials that are free of charge to students and may have a low-cost option for print versions such as instructional materials that students can access at no cost, including OER, institutionally funded resources, and other freely available materials. (AB 607)

Acquisition of ZTC materials may incur a cost to the college and/or library to obtain resources, but these costs are not passed through to students.

ZTC Pathways are comprised of only ZTC courses and provide a viable and timely path to degree and/or certificate completion for enrolled students, during which enrolled students can expect to incur zero-cost for instructional materials. (Education Code Section 78050-78052) .

What is ZTC?

ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost) classes are offered with FREE TEXTBOOKS FOR STUDENTS.

ZTC classes may use the following resources:

How Do I Find ZTC Classes?

OER & ZTC

What is ZTC?

Where is my online textbook?

What is OER?

What are ZTC Courses?

What is a ZTC Pathway?

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