Equity and Access to Course Materials as a Social Justice Issue

Access to course materials to ensure equity for students has become an even greater social justice issue than it was prior to Covid-19. The pandemic has highlighted long-standing equity issues in education, including the cost of books, technology, high speed Internet access, among many other issues. In this context, open access resources provide a way to reimagine accessibility in the academy. This chapter shares examples of using free and low-cost course materials from the perspectives of a social work librarian, a graduate student, an administrator, and a tenure-track educator. Ideas are provided to make courses more equitable and to reduce the cost of course materials to support equity, inclusion, and justice.