Textbook Ordering Deadlines: Reminder

To: Departmental Executive Officers
From: Helena Dettmer, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Curriculum, and the Humanities
RE: Textbook Ordering Deadlines: Reminder

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As announced last spring, all textbooks must now be ordered by the start of the early registration period of the following semester.

  • Early registration for Spring 2018 begins on Monday, November 6.  Please have your textbooks ordered by that due date.
  • Simply choosing a bookstore is no longer sufficient; the order must be submitted to a bookstore by the deadline.

As you know, the reason for this early deadline is that the University of Iowa must comply with the federal legislation that requires textbook information for a course to be available through the institution’s online course schedule before students register for the semester that the books will be used.

Institutions must comply to the “maximum extent practicable.”*  The law indicates that institutions (rather than each individual or department) may define more specifically what is considered “practicable” and when “to be determined” may be used on the course schedule in place of specific textbook information.

At the University of Iowa, “to be determined” may be used in these circumstances:

  • If an instructor has not yet been hired
  • If the instructor has not yet been assigned to a course
  • If the course is new and still under development
  • If the textbook is new and still under development 

Departments should use these exceptions judiciously and should submit the bulk of orders by the deadline. 

Thank you.

*Visit the HEO Act for more details concerning the legislation (scroll to down to this tag [Page 122 STAT. 3108].