ZTC Grant & Faculty Information
ZTC@LMC Course
LMC has been awarded grant funds by the state legislature to develop and implement ZTC degrees or certificates. The aim of this grant is to, “...reduce the overall cost of education for students and decrease the time it takes students to complete degree programs offered by community colleges. ”
ZTC@LMC is a self-paced Canvas course designed to support faculty in making their courses ZTC with the grant funds awarded by the state. Faculty who enroll in the course and complete all requirements are eligible for a stipend.
Why ZTC?
The District OER Council conducted a districtwide student textbook survey most recently in the fall of 2025 to understand how textbook cost affects our students here at LMC and our sister colleges. The data collected suggests that textbook cost remains a major barrier to students.
- (52.1%) of LMC students are unable to afford all of their textbooks within the first three weeks of class
- 31.7% reported working extra hours to afford textbooks
- 21.8% reported taking fewer classes
- 15.4% reported skipping meals to afford textbooks
"...[I've had] to receive W's on my transcripts because I could not afford the required texts/math homework sites."
"I collected recycling [to pay for textbooks]"
"My personal experience as [a] low-income student purchasing a costly book that was way out of my budget impacted me that month tremendously... I was unable to fill up my gas tank which is not cheap and I was unable to buy some necessary groceries as well. My diet that month consisted of eggs rice and canned tuna. And at some point eggs was the only thing I had."
"When teachers give free online materials or OER textbooks, it really helps students like me who have families and other expenses."
"...I look for ZTC classes and prefer to take those when possible to save money"
OER Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) allow the user to retain a copy of the content to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute it. OERs can include entire textbooks, videos, images, Canvas course shells or individual modules, lesson plans, syllabi, and more. Using these resources is one of the best ways to convert a course to ZTC. Below is a list of OER repositories.
- ASCCCOERI OER by Discipline: The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges OER Initiative's list of OER materials. These materials are currently being used in community colleges across the state and are listed by C-IDs. Each list is curated by an OER expert in the discipline.
- OpenStax: Based at Rice University, OpenStax offers high quality textbooks with adaptive learning technology, designed to improve learning outcomes through personalized educational paths.
- Open Textbook Library: The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks. Housed at University of Minnesota, resources can typically be downloaded in various formats.
- College of the Canyons OER Textbooks: A highly relevant collection of free online textbooks written by California Community College faculty.
- LibreTexts: LibreTexts provides access to OER resources and a platform for faculty to curate and compile resources. LibreTexts is based at UC Davis.
- BC Campus: Curated selection of high-quality OER. Search or browse by discipline
- Galileo: GALILEO Open Learning Materials brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.