All Cornell students pay the same rate for tuition, fees, and health insurance, regardless of major, but financial inequity has remained when it comes to textbooks and other course materials costs. By modeling the textbook charge after other costs of attendance, this program will reduce this financial inequity so that every student has access to the same academic opportunities, regardless of the field in which they choose to study.

Based on data from the program’s first year, students saved an estimated average of $140 per semester with the $275 flat rate versus purchasing individual textbooks. Having easy access to required course materials by the first day of class means you have more time to focus on preparing for classes instead of spending time sourcing textbooks.

You are provided access to use your course materials during a trial period through the opt out deadline. As you weigh the benefits and cost of the program tailored to your unique schedule, you have the freedom to make an informed decision about how the program benefits you personally. The goal of this program is to create a more sustainable and convenient process for acquiring the course materials your instructors indicate you must have to be successful in the course. If you decide that the program isn’t right for you for any semester, you may request an opt out to have the program fee reversed. Please note that an opt out deadline is in place; you have until February 9, 2024 to opt out for the spring semester.

Course materials which include any written material are included in the program, whether provided to you in ebook or printed format. Course supplies are not considered “written material” and are not included in the program. CAMP includes any required printed lab manuals and coursepacks that are not made available in digital format. If digital format for the course material is offered with the program, printed versions will not be available. Exclusions may apply; to request accommodation, please contact textbooks@cornell.edu.

To access your digital content/textbooks for any given course, simply log in to the course page in your Cornell Canvas account and open your Bookshelf from the navigation menu. Depending on the textbook or content type, you may find additional access information on the Attachments tab for each item displayed.

Need help? View tutorial: CAMP – Accessing your Course Materials

Digital textbooks are the default option. Traditional print textbooks will only be supplied when a digital option is not available. Lab manuals and other course materials that are traditionally printed may remain in print as part of the program.

Required print textbooks may be picked up by participating students at The Cornell Store or shipped if you are unable to pick up your books in person. If you are in or near Ithaca, we highly recommend that you pick up your books at The Cornell Store on campus beginning the week prior to the first day of class (please check store hours). 

We have worked closely with the Student Disability Services (SDS) during the development of this program. If you have questions about accessibility and using digital content or need accommodation, please contact SDS for assistance.

Custom created lab manuals and coursepacks will be distributed to participating students through The Cornell Store during the start of courses. Students that have opted out of the Cornell Academic Materials Program and need to obtain a lab manual or coursepack outside of program participation may email textbooks@cornell.edu for further assistance.

Students that need assistance with their Canvas or Bookshelf account may contact Vitalsource 24/7 via live chat or email. Additionally, you may contact textbooks@cornell.edufor further assistance with the program. Watch the tutorial: CAMP – Accessing your Course Materials for step-by-step instructions on how to access your materials in Canvas.

Only required materials are included as part of the Cornell Academic Materials Program. If your professor has requested optional materials for your course, these materials are not considered required and will be your decision whether to obtain them on your own or not. If you need assistance with acquiring optional course materials, please contact textbooks@cornell.edu.

Yes, for certain materials. Many of the digital textbooks in Bookshelf may be downloaded to a device and read after the term is over by using the Bookshelf app. Digital textbooks that are a part of the courseware are only usable for the semester during which they were originally provided; unless otherwise noted, access to these materials expires once the term is over.

You may also keep any physical textbooks you receive as part of the Cornell Academic Materials Program if you stay enrolled in the program and the applicable course. If you opt out of the program or drop any course with print materials, you’ll need to return print textbooks to The Cornell Store within 14 days. Any materials provided digitally will automatically be removed from your account.

If you choose to remain opted into the Cornell Academic Materials Program, required printed textbooks are included and are yours to keep. If you opt out of the program at any point within the semester or drop any course for which you receive printed textbooks, you are required to return those books within 14 days. If not returned or shipped back to The Cornell Store, the replacement cost for outstanding textbooks will be billed to your bursar account. Any provided digital course materials will automatically be removed from your account.

Faculty will always have full academic freedom under the Cornell Academic Materials Program, and the textbook selection process will remain the same.

The Vitalsource ereader is fully device agnostic, scalable, and allows simultaneous usage across 2 mobile devices and 2 desktop devices. Further, content downloaded to the ereader app can be accessed in offline situations as long as it was downloaded prior to loss of internet connection. As for saving as a file, copyright laws can restrict licensed content from taking form as re-distributable files. Allowing content to only be downloaded within the ereader puts the onus on the provider to protect copyright and relieves the University of associated risks.

The first phase of the Cornell Academic Materials Program will only include undergraduate students in the scope of the program. Our goal is to be able to include graduate students in the future phases of the program. Graduate programs are incredibly diverse in scope and each program will need to be evaluated individually.

Opt in means that you are participating in the Cornell Academic Materials Program. No action is required to opt in. You will have access to your required course materials by the start of classes within Canvas. If you decide that you do not want to participate, you may opt out prior to the opt out deadline. The opt out deadline for the fall 2024 semester is September 13, 2024.

You will see the flat-rate Cornell Academic Materials Program fee on your July Bursar billing statement for the fall semester and the January billing statement for the spring semester.

No, if you decide that the program isn’t right for you, you may opt out starting in Ju​ via a digital link you receive in email or in Canvas through the opt out deadline (September 13, 2024) and the program fee will be reversed. After making an informed decision to opt-out, your access to all course materials provided through the program will end. Access will be removed for digital ebooks and publisher courseware provided in Canvas. Students who choose to opt out of the Academic Materials Program may purchase individual digital textbooks and other course content online at https://cornellstore.vitalsource.com or special-order print textbooks from the textbook help desk on the lower level of The Cornell Store.

Financial aid is determined by Cornell’s estimated cost of attendance. The amount of financial assistance a family needs each year is determined by the following formula:  Cost of Attendance – Expected Family Contribution = Demonstrated Financial Need.  Your Expected Family Contribution remains consistent unless your family reports significant changes to your financial situation.  For more information regarding estimated costs for books and supplies within the cost of attendance, view Cost of Attendance on the Financial Aid website.

The opt out deadline for the fall 2024 semester is FSeptember 13, 2024.

If the opt out deadline is missed, opt outs will be considered on an individual basis and may not be approved without a valid academic reason. To request an opt out after the deadline, please contact textbooks@cornell.edu.

You can choose to opt out each semester. However, if you choose to opt out you will need to purchase your textbooks at current retail or resale prices either by special ordering from the campus store or from an outlet of your choice.

To opt out:

• You can opt out starting in July​ via a digital link sent to you in email.
• You can opt out by logging into Canvas anytime between August 23, 2024 and September 13, 2024. Click the “Course Materials” tab in any Canvas course, then select “Opt-Out.”
• Once you have opted out you will receive a confirmation email from noreply@verbasoftware.com stating the opt out request has been received and a reverse charge will be processed to your bursar account.

Need help?

If you have any trouble opting out, please send an email to textbooks@cornell.edu with your student ID in the body of the email and the words “opt out” in the subject line.

After making an informed decision to opt-out, your access to all course materials provided through the program will end. Access will be removed for digital ebooks and publisher courseware provided in Canvas, such as McGraw-Hill Connect or Pearson MyLab. The Cornell Academic Materials Program fee will be reversed in your bursar account within 5-7 business days of opting out.* If access to courseware is still needed, you may purchase your continued access directly from the publisher’s website.

*Any printed materials provided to you by the program must be returned to The Cornell Store within 14 days of opting out of the program. If print materials are not yet in your possession (e.g., you received an email to pick up your print items but have not yet picked them up from The Cornell Store), those items will be removed from your account and returned to the program. After all print items have been returned to The Cornell Store (where applicable), the program fee that is posted to your bursar account will be reversed.

Digital: you can easily purchase individual digital textbooks and other digital course content within your Canvas Bookshelf. For courseware (depending on the platform) you may purchase an access code within Bookshelf or directly through the publisher

Print: The Cornell Store will not be selling in-stock undergraduate print textbooks to those who have opted out of the program; those books have been purchased at lower prices based on the subscription model per our contract with the publishers. However, you can special order print textbooks from the textbook help desk on the lower level of The Cornell Store at current retail prices.

When you opt out of CAMP, access will be removed for all digital ebooks and publisher courseware provided in Canvas, such as McGraw-Hill Connect or Pearson MyLab. All access will be deactivated by the opt-out deadline.

If you have reviewed your course materials costs/needs and have determined that you will not benefit from CAMP this semester, you are encouraged to opt-out. You can easily purchase individual digital textbooks and other digital course content within your Canvas Bookshelf or by visiting: https://cornellstore.vitalsource.com/. For courseware (depending on the platform) you may purchase an access code within Bookshelf or directly through the publisher. You can review your personalized booklist with the required and optional materials for your registered courses by logging in to https://www.cornellstore.com/ using your Cornell NetID. You may also look up materials by course (no log in required) at: https://www.cornellstore.com/adoption-search.

Yes. Prior to the opt out deadline, you can opt back into the Cornell Academic Materials Program using the link provided in the email you received when you opted out. Once you are in your student textbook portal in Canvas, simply click the button to opt back in. After the opt out deadline, please email textbooks@cornell.edu to request an opt in. Once your opt-in is confirmed, a $275 charge will be submitted to your bursar account.

This program has been developed in collaboration with multiple University offices, taking into account important feedback from Faculty Senate, Student Assembly, and many other college and school departments alongside student-led organizations. The planning team has worked with these groups to address concerns around this program, making suggested modifications as needed before communicating the developing program to a wider university audience.

Study- and semester-abroad courses may not participate in the Cornell Academic Materials Program. Please contact textbooks@cornell.edu to discuss your options, including opt out and bursar fee charge reversal.

When adding a course, the course materials will become available to you on Canvas. Course enrollment changes can take up to 48 hours to be processed. If printed materials are required for your new course, it will display on your Student Portal dashboard. You will receive an email from The Cornell Store to pick up any required print materials.

When dropping a course, any digital course materials access will be removed in tandem with your enrollment drop. If you drop and have printed course materials that were provided to you by the Cornell Academic Materials Program, you must return those print materials to The Cornell Store within 14-days of your drop. Non-returned print materials will be charged to your bursar account at the publisher’s listed new book price.

Only students fully enrolled in a course will have access to course materials provided by the Cornell Academic Materials Program.

Per university policy, auditing a course is prohibited for undergraduate and professional school students. Additionally, program eligibility is inclusive of undergraduate students with “full-time” status of 12 academic/degree credit hours of college-approved coursework per semester.

Undergraduate students are responsible for any additional course fees associated with taking graduate courses. Graduate and professional courses are not within scope of the Cornell Academic Materials Program at this time. 

No. Faculty retain full academic freedom under this program. Any required title with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is included in this program. Additional items that may not have an ISBN but are included in the program include campus custom coursepacks and lab manuals. Whether you are assigning paid publisher content or free and open educational resources (OER), all of your textbooks remain available for adoption. Only required titles are included; recommended/Optional, out-of-print, and hard-to-find titles are not included in the program. If you want a title to be offered within the scope of this program, it must be requested on your adoption as required.

Courses are not required to use Canvas for instruction in order to participate in CAMP. All courses will have a Canvas shell created, and Canvas is a single access point for students to access their course materials. Faculty do not need to use Canvas in an instructional capacity. Courses that utilize alternate Learning Management Systems (LMS) may choose to add a URL somewhere in course content that provides access.

There is no change to the current process. You will adopt content through the Verba Collect Adoption tool. The Verba Collect tool is only available during active adoption periods. If you are unable to access Verba Collect, you may request a login or submit your adoption by contacting textbooks@cornell.edu

The Cornell Academic Materials Program is a digital-first program; titles will be researched for their available digital options. After submitting a textbook adoption, items on your adoption will be reviewed for ebook availability. Titles that are available in ebook format will be offered in Canvas as an ebook. Titles that do not have an ebook available are further reviewed for print options in new format only. Titles available in new print will be included in the Cornell Academic Materials Program. Titles without new print or ebook availability will not be included in the program. Titles only available via used marketplace vendors will not be included in the program. This includes out-of-print, rare and any title otherwise unobtainable in new print or ebook format.

This process remains unchanged. You will reach out to your publisher representative to request a desk copy. When you speak to your publisher representative, ask them about the VitalSource Faculty Sampling Service. Canvas course users with role Teacher, Course Admin or TA receive complimentary access to ebooks provided by VitalSource. For ebooks or courseware provided directly through a publisher’s content platform (such as McGraw-Hill Connect or Pearson MyLab), please contact your publisher representative or textbooks@cornell.edu for further assistance.

The Cornell Academic Materials Program is a flat-rate, term-level program that covers all required textbooks for every undergraduate student. The fee is not based on individual classes. Therefore, if you decide to cancel an adoption for your class there is no additional cost or reduction to the student.

Yes, but it depends. It is understood that a one-size-fits-most model may not meet the needs of every course format, curricula, or mode of instruction. During an extensive risk assessment, the program has reserved limited space for titles remaining in print format. However, in instances with pedagogical mismatch where the required course materials are impractical, unfeasible or unavailable in digital format, print options may be considered on an individual title by title basis. For situations in which digital greatly outprices print, the success of the program assumes greatest risk by deferring to print format when digital options are available. Additionally, if requested titles are out-of-print or hard-to-find, the program will not be able to provide copies in any format. Please contact the program if you wish to review your required course materials textbooks@cornell.edu.

Yes. You may continue to request the same content as prior terms. Many third-party software/courseware providers may already be integrated partners or can be integrated. Library Reserves may be offered in Canvas in addition to, or included with, this program. For a library resource, use the “Comments Field” on the Verba Collect Adoption tool to list the material being used. If you have the library link, please provide that in the same “Comments Field.” For questions regarding non-publisher content’s fit within the program, contact textbooks@cornell.edu

CAMP as an initiative is designed as a “both/and” environment. We applaud any and all adoption of OER alongside the program’s paid publisher content. Scalable OER solutions at Cornell are still several years in the horizon, and the Cornell Academic Materials Program is bridging this transition. Additionally, providing free or low cost content will bring down the associated costs that the University incurs, a main goal of this program. As program costs continue to go down, the program fee charged to students is also expected to go down.

The Cornell Academic Materials Program is inclusive of all undergraduate courses. Students taking courses in addition to your course may find their other courses do require paid content. Library Reserves may be limited on some items, so be sure to check with the library to ensure the items on reserve have adequate capacity to accommodate all your students’ access. Additionally, you may choose to have your reserve items displayed in the student dashboard so students only need to access a single page to view all their paid and free content.

For help with Cornell Academic Materials Program course materials: textbooks@cornell.edu

For help with Canvas setup: canvas@cornell.edu

For help with Library Reserves: culreserves-L@cornell.edu

The Cornell Academic Materials Program is inclusive of all undergraduate courses. Students taking courses in addition to your course may find their other courses do require paid content.

All digital course materials will be provided through your Canvas course. You do not need to use Canvas for instructional purposes; however, a course shell will need to be created for every participating course to distribute the course materials.

Students initially access ebooks directly through Canvas. After initial access, a student may continue to access through your Canvas course, or by logging in directly to their VitalSource account. ebooks provided by VitalSource can be downloaded to any device, and across devices for offline use. At the conclusion of a term, ebooks may be accessed through VitalSource until the ebook’s duration expires.

Publisher courseware (such as McGraw-Hill Connect or Pearson MyLab) is accessed through an integration in Canvas or with a provided URL. Most publisher courseware is integrated with Canvas to connect to the publisher’s content platform and students will use the Canvas link to create their initial courseware login. After an initial login has been created, students may go direct or bookmark the login page of the publisher’s content platform.

For non-digital course materials (only those titles offered as new print), copies will be distributed to students through The Cornell Store at the start of the course.

It depends. Some publishers do not offer more than 6-month access. However, for the majority of ebooks, 5-year or lifetime duration is usually selected, which would allow student access beyond the courses’ end. After the course ends, students can continue access by logging into their VitalSource Bookshelf account. Post-course access is not likely to be restricted unless courses adopt courseware (e.g. MyLab, Connect, Achieve, etc.). Publisher courseware is extremely expensive to create and maintain and is indeed the unfortunate reason why access can be restricted to a 1-or-2 term limit.

Yes, students can choose to opt out by semester. When advising students on the opt out process, it is important to consider a student’s full-term course enrollment, and not a single course. Single course opt out is not permitted; students that opt out will have program access removed for all courses in that term. Please view the Student FAQs above for complete details on the opt-out process. 

Students who opt out of the Cornell Academic Materials Program are expected to self-source their required course materials necessary for your course. However, The Cornell Store will assist any student seeking help acquiring the correct course materials.

For ebooks: Students may purchase individual ebooks and other digital course content directly within their Canvas Bookshelf or through VitalSource. For courseware (depending on the publisher), students may purchase an access code through VitalSource or the corresponding publisher’s website

For printed textbooks: Print textbook inventory held at The Cornell Store is reserved specifically for participating program undergraduate students. Students that opt out of the program for the term may special order a print copy of a textbook by contacting textbooks@cornell.edu

The Vitalsource ereader is fully device agnostic, scalable, and allows simultaneous usage across 2 mobile devices and 2 desktop devices. Further, content downloaded to the ereader app can be accessed in offline situations as long as it was downloaded prior to loss of internet connection. As for saving as a file, copyright laws can restrict licensed content from taking form as re-distributable files. Allowing content to only be downloaded within the ereader puts the onus on the provider to protect copyright and relieves the University of associated risks.

This program has been developed in collaboration with multiple University offices, taking into account important feedback from Faculty Senate, Student Assembly, and many other college and school departments alongside student-led organizations. The planning team has worked with these groups to address concerns around this program, making suggested modifications as needed before communicating the developing program to a wider university audience.

Students that choose to opt-out the Cornell Academic Materials Program will be responsible for obtaining the required materials. The Cornell Store will not stock course materials for participant opt-outs. To search availability of individual digital course materials, students may browse: https://cornellstore.vitalsource.com/