Pursuant to the requirements of RCW 28B.10.590, the board of regents of the University of Washington has established these rules regarding promoting cost savings in course materials for students at the University of Washington.

It is declared the policy of the University of Washington that students should have increased choices for purchasing lower cost educational materials. Faculty and staff are encouraged to work closely with book stores and publishers to implement these rules and to find the least costly options for course materials without sacrificing educational content, and to provide maximum cost savings to students.

(1) "Materials" means any supplies or texts required or recommended by faculty or staff of the University of Washington for a given course.

(2) "Bundled" means a group of objects joined together by packaging or required to be purchased as an indivisible unit.

In making course materials available for purchase, any University of Washington affiliated book store should:

(1) Provide students the option of purchasing materials that are unbundled when possible;

(2) Disclose to faculty and staff the costs to students of purchasing materials, and work with faculty and staff to encourage publishers to provide information showing how new editions vary from previous editions and to make this information available publicly;

(3) Actively promote and publicize book buy-back programs;

(4) Disclose retail costs for course materials on a per course basis to faculty and staff and make this information publicly available; and

(5) Disclose information to students 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 provost may waive the disclosure requirement provided in this subsection 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 does not apply if the faculty member using the course materials is hired four weeks or less before the start of class.

In assigning course materials, faculty and staff members shall consider the least costly practices which may include, but are not limited to, adopting the least expensive edition of materials available, consistent with copyright restrictions, adopting free, open textbooks when available, and working with librarians to provide compilations of web and library resources that are freely available to students, when educational content is comparable as determined by the faculty.