Overview

Buying a second-hand textbook prevents the student from completing the course material in some courses. This petition would require professors to assign all graded assignments in MyCourses instead of (or in addition to) 3rd-party course assignment apps.

Reasoning

Certain textbook distributors have course assignment software that can only be accessed by students who buy the textbook brand-new, from the distributor (which is an antitrust violation).
I bought a second-hand textbook for my calculus class, but I had to buy another, new textbook in order to access the course assignment software, since the course assignment access code in the second-hand textbook had already been used. I now have two calculus textbooks. This policy prevents antitrust violations from being committed against students by the textbook distributors.

Additional benefits include:
- Every time I sit down to complete homework, I have to individually log into 4 different websites to find out what I have assigned, before I even start with the work. This policy would centralize assignments to one application.
- When a professor does add 3rd party coursework as an assignment on MyCourses, it is never marked as completed on MyCourses, since I turn it in through the 3rd party application and not MyCourses. This prevents students from knowing which assignments are completed.

Note: notice that the wording of this policy still allows professors to assign work and accept submissions through 3rd party apps if they want to, as long as the 3rd party app is free, it integrates with MyCourses such that all assignments also appear in MyCourses, and work can be turned in through MyCourses in addition to the 3rd party app.

Specific policy suggestion

- All assignments that impact a student's grade must be assigned to that student through MyCourses. All materials and instructions required to complete an assignment must be available within the assignment description, instructions given in class, and/or links to unpaid resources in the assignment description (paid resources such as textbooks must be available to buy second-hand).
- All assignments must be able to be turned in through MyCourses.
- When a student turns in an assignment, the assignment must be marked as completed in MyCourses in a timely manner (if a student turns in an assignment through MyCourses, this is done automatically).

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2-Week Homework Return Policy

Allow second-hand textbooks, prevent antitrust abuse against students

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