No-Cost Learning Material: Perspectives From Industrial and Systems Engineering Students

Abstract

Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) is an initiative that began in 2014, which supported faculty when transforming their previously required textbooks to low-cost, no-cost textbooks. The goal was to help reduce the financial burden on students in their pursuit of a college education. In this study, the researchers developed no-cost textbooks for two undergraduate industrial and systems engineering courses. Both quantitative and qualitative measures are used to assess the effectiveness of the textbook transformation and students’ experience of no-cost learning material in the Industrial and Systems Engineering program. The responses were overwhelmingly positive with respect to the no-cost textbooks in both courses.