Dear colleagues,
As we near the start of the semester, please remember to submit your textbook adoptions to the Cal Student Store. The accommodation deadline for instructors to submit their textbook adoptions for Fall 2023 has been extended to Wednesday, August 2. This is the deadline by which textbooks and readers should be adopted/available for purposes of accommodating students with disabilities.
If you have not yet submitted your textbook adoptions, please do so via the custom link that was emailed from the Cal Student Store to the instructor of record. For assistance with submitting your textbook information, contact the Cal Student Store via email at text@berkeley.edu or by phone at (510) 229-4703.
Each faculty member has the responsibility to identify instructional materials for their courses far enough in advance of the semester so that the Disabled Students’ Program (DSP) has adequate time to convert them into an accessible format (e.g., Braille, large print, digital/electronic). Timely submission of textbook adoptions enables the University to meet its legal requirement to provide students with disabilities an equal educational opportunity to learn course subject matter, to participate actively in classroom discussions, and to meet assignment deadlines. For more information on instructor accessibility responsibilities for faculty, visit the DSP website.
Thank you for helping to ensure course materials are accessible by our students. Wishing you a successful start to the fall semester.
Sincerely,
Oliver M. O’Reilly
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
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Future Deadlines for Submitting Textbook Adoptions
Spring 2024
Affordability Deadline: TBD*
Accommodation Deadline: December 4, 2023**
Summer 2024
Affordability Deadline: TBD*
Accommodation Deadline: April 1, 2024**
*The first date is the HEOA affordability deadline to submit textbook adoptions to the Cal Student Store.
**The second date is the seven-week accommodation deadline by which textbooks and readers should be adopted/available for purposes of accommodating students with disabilities.
Details on Faculty Responsibility with Regard to Student Accessibility
Faculty and other course instructors may be subject to referral to the Vice Provost for the Faculty if they refuse to submit textbook adoptions at least seven weeks before classes start. To be subject to referral, the instructors must have been made aware of this policy and must have knowingly refused to follow it without good cause, whether arbitrarily or not. The Vice Provost will consider whether faculty misconduct has occurred under Section II.A. of the Faculty Code of Conduct for (1) failure to meet the responsibilities of instruction due to “arbitrary denial of access to instruction”; (2) discrimination against a student for reasons of disability; or (3) violation of University policy, including the pertinent guidelines concerning nondiscrimination against students on the basis of disability.
Tips for Reducing Costs and Increasing Accessibility
There are many ways to reduce costs and ensure accessibility, and you and your colleagues have helped in a variety of ways. We hope you continue to:
- Use common textbooks, where possible, for related courses or keep the same text for two or more years.
- Submit your course lists for required books, articles, and films and request the Library provide those materials as course e-reserves. The priority deadline for Fall semester e-reserves requests has passed, but requests can be submitted through September 29. The call for Spring 2024 e-reserves requests will go out in late September with a priority deadline in late October.
- Create online readers that combine open educational resources with electronic resources licensed by the Library.
- Use electronic and open content solutions available to students at low or no cost
- Meet textbook adoption deadlines to allow timely course book availability and low-cost book options.
- Work with the Disabled Students’ Program to provide students with print disabilities a copy of the course textbook/reader in an accessible format (note: for conversion purposes, it is important that course-reader text be clean and legible).
- Meet textbook/reader identification deadlines to allow timely conversion and thus equal educational opportunity for students with print disabilities.
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