The purpose of this chapter is to give students more choices for purchasing educational materials and to encourage faculty and staff to work closely with bookstores and publishers to implement the least costly option without sacrificing educational content.

For the purposes of this chapter, the following words and phrases mean:

"Course materials." Any supplies or texts required or recommended by faculty or staff for a given course. Course materials may include, but are not limited to, texts, workbooks, study guides, CD-ROMs, art supplies, and other ancillary materials.

"Bundle." A group of course materials joined together by packaging or required to be purchased as an indivisible unit.

(1) The affiliated bookstores for Washington State University (WSU) are incorporated as the students book corporation. The students book corporation is responsible for the following:

(a) Providing students the option of purchasing course materials that are unbundled whenever possible;

(b) Disclosing to faculty and students the retail costs of textbooks on a per book and per course basis and making such information publicly available;

(c) Disclosing publicly, when such information is available, how new editions vary from previous editions;

(d) Actively promoting and publicizing book buy-back programs; and

(e) Disclosing to students information on required course materials including, but not limited to, title, authors, edition, price, and International Standard Book Number (ISBN) at least four weeks before the start of the class for which the materials are required. The chief academic officer may waive the disclosure requirement provided in this subsection (1)(e), on a case-by-case basis, if students may reasonably expect that nearly all information regarding course materials is available four weeks before the start of the class for which the materials are required. The requirement provided in this subsection (1)(e) does not apply if the faculty member using the course materials is hired four weeks or less before the start of class.

(2) To provide cost savings to students for course materials when educational content is comparable as determined by faculty, WSU faculty and staff members are encouraged to:

(a) Consider adopting the least expensive edition of course materials available;

(b) Consider adopting free, open textbooks when available;

(c) Work closely with university librarians to put together collections of free online web and library resources.