KU professor helps find way to curb textbook costs

Textbooks remain a big student expense on college campuses. An associate professor at the University of Kansas has overseen development of an online program that might show how to cut costs.

Amy Rossmondo, who teaches Spanish, oversaw development starting in 2009 of a program called Accesso, an open-access, web-based platform for learning, the university said in a prepared statement.

KU thinks the program has saved students $500,000 since it began. About 3,000 students have used it to study Spanish, either at KU or in other schools.

Rossmondo helped develop the program because she saw that textbooks weren’t offering the kind of cultural literacy that would remain with students. Cutting book costs was an added benefit, she said. Students who would have spent $150 on textbooks spent only $40 for the online grammar workbook, KU said.

This story was originally published August 11, 2014 at 8:35 AM with the headline "KU professor helps find way to curb textbook costs."