Course Adoptions
Course adoptions for Fall '25 are due Monday, March 27, 2025. Please use the Fall 2025 Course Resource Request Form to provide your course adoptions and your Learning Assistant and technology needs.
Bowdoin contracts with eCampus, which is an online retailer of new, used, and electronic textbooks for sale or rent. Given this arrangement, the College does not stock textbooks on campus. eCampus integrates with Bowdoin's class schedule and course registration system to provide a virtual storefront for course materials sales. Students have the opportunity to order their course materials from eCampus at bowdoin.ecampus.com, and their purchases are shipped directly to them.
Two Bowdoin staff members serve as liaisons between Bowdoin and eCampus. Kate Wing, Electronic Resources and Scholarly Communications Librarian at H-L Library, works with faculty on adopting materials into courses, and Emma Reno, Administrative Coordinator for The Bowdoin Stores, ensures smooth purchasing on the student side.
Are you looking for information on textbook affordability? Please see our guide: Course Materials: Affordability, Accessibility, and Sustainability.
Please use the Fall 2025 Course Resource Request Form
Yes, please fill out a Fall 2025 Course Resource Request Form for anything you are asking students to purchase. This ensures that students know the cost of the course materials before the course begins and gives us the opportunity to research how access could be provided if students cannot afford course materials.
The course adoption deadline is guided by federal law.
The Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was passed in 2008. It is an updated version of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Section 112, the “textbook provision,” requires institutions to provide students with the ISBN number and cost for all course materials at the time of Registration. At Bowdoin, registration occurs in the middle of the previous semester.
Textbooks are grouped with other indirect costs like toiletries, laundry, and travel in the Cost of Attendance. In the context of financial aid packages at Bowdoin, these expenses are generally paid by a student and/or their family as part of their expected contribution. Students are expected to arrive on campus with a plan to pay for indirect expenses. This plan may include receiving money from family for school expenses, working a summer job, working on campus, or requesting additional assistance.
Yes, the HEOA accommodates the design of new courses. Any items you know you will be using can be adopted by the deadline, with additions later on. It is important to submit your adoptions as soon as possible so eCampus has time to source the books and students can see how much the materials will cost.
If the department knows what text will be used, the department can adopt the text into the course before the visiting faculty member arrives. If not, the visiting faculty member can adopt course materials as soon as possible after arriving on campus. Given the tight timeline, the new faculty member should post the first two weeks of readings on Canvas.
The deadline is the same for all courses. First years are the most vulnerable to needing on-time and accurate information to plan for indirect costs such as textbooks, travel, clothing, toiletries, and laundry, so your on-time adoption is appreciated.
If you adopt by March 27, you will be able to see your books in the eCampus bookstore by April 3. If you adopt after that date, your books will not be visible until eCampus sources them.
Visit https://bowdoin.ecampus.com/, click on Shop Textbooks, and find your course.
Email Kate Wing to request a desk copy. Please request desk copies prior to June 1. Desk copies take 4-6 weeks and are sent at the discretion of the publisher.
Your ADC will purchase the book for you with department funds. Please contact them with the information about the book and ask that they order you a copy to teach with.
You are welcome to use the Library's collection to decide on materials for your course, but Library copies of books that you ask students to purchase must be returned to the Library before the semester begins. Library copies of course adoptions materials are placed on three hour reserve as an access point for students. If you need a copy to teach with, please request a desk copy or ask your ADC to order a copy with department funds.
No, you do not. The Library automatically pulls from the existing collection or purchases all books that are adopted for student purchase, whether required, recommended or optional, and places them on Reserve. In addition to a physical copy, ebook licenses are purchased when possible, though please be aware that ebooks often have restrictions on the number of users, printing, and downloading. If you have checked out the library's copy, please be aware that it will be recalled for reserve before the semester begins.
- Unlimited license: Yes
- 1- or 3-User license: No
It is important to know what kind of license the Library has for the ebook before depending on it as the primary access point for your students. With 1-User and 3-User licenses, only that number of students can use the book simultaneously, and they must remember to close out of it to release it to another user. Please contact Kate Wing, or your Research Liaison, to inquire about licenses for items you are interested in assigning as course adoptions or as readings.