I am working on a number of projects now whose aim is to lower the price of textbooks to college students. I am interested in particular with a model termed "inclusive access" and am appealing to this list for suggestions as to resources to guide my way.

I don't know how widespread the use of the term "inclusive access" is. It is not the same thing as Open Educational Resources (OER), another model that I am studying closely. My understanding is that inclusive access refers to a method of purchasing college texts that differs substantially from the conventional method, where publishers encourage instructors to "adopt" a text, which is then purchased by students. In inclusive access the purchaser is the institution, which negotiates favorable pricing with publishers. The texts themselves are paid for in various ways, the most common being that students are required to pay a flat fee for all their textbooks, a fee that is a fraction of what it would cost to purchase the books in the traditional way.

My first question is how widespread inclusive access is. I am aware of examples at Cal State and the U. of Indiana, but have heard unconfirmed rumors of programs at other institutions. I note as well the acquisition of Verba by Ingram, which brings an important piece of inclusive access infrastructure to Ingram:

 https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/15/ingrams-vitalsource-wants-to-acquire-verba-to-give-students-affordable-access-to-textbooks/. 

What other institutions have inclusive access programs in place or under development?

My second question is what issues institutions have faced in setting up such programs. A related question is to what extent libraries are participating in these programs. My interest here is that I am a problem-solver and I am trying to get my arms around all the problems.

Finally (and for me, the most important question), what are the implications for academic freedom? What safeguards are there to ensure that instructors may teach from the texts that they select rather than texts acquired as bargains by the parent institution?

This is a big topic, for which any help on the road to enlightenment would be greatly appreciated.

Joe Esposito