Rowan-Cabarrus Community College has announced that it will be launching a new online college bookstore, just in time for its 2018 summer semester. The story was recently covered by North Carolina's Charlotte-based news station, WBTV. In a press release covering the details of its partnership with Akademos, the college had this to say about offering its students low cost textbook options and significant savings:
“We are pleased to be partnering with Akademos to launch a school-sanctioned virtual bookstore and marketplace,” said Dr. Janet Spriggs, chief operating officer at Rowan-Cabarrus. “This decision aligns with our strategic plan to provide our students with an affordable quality education, and positions us to expand our offering of course material formats and purchase options.”
Starting April 2, students can shop for textbooks in new, used, rental and digital formats on any device using a custom-branded version of the mobile-optimized online bookstore and have them conveniently shipped directly to their homes. Students will save an average of 60 percent on course materials when they use the new online bookstore’s exclusive marketplace of over 100 million new and used textbooks. The online bookstore will be fully integrated with Rowan-Cabarrus Community College’s student information system to enable students to automatically view their required course materials for classes and order books for an entire term in less than five minutes.
Another benefit of the new online bookstore is the ability for students to seamlessly apply financial aid to any of their course material purchases and sell back their textbooks at any time using the online buyback program.
Rowan-Cabarrus will be able to further reduce course material costs for students through an adoption portal, which provides faculty with complete visibility into the real-time prices of course materials in multiple formats during the adoption process enabling them to select the most affordable, high-quality textbook options for students. Faculty can also take advantage of features to create low-cost custom course materials that include content from various texts, journals and even original faculty content.
“We’re pleased to be working with Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. In our experience, more affordable and accessible textbooks drive bookstore utilization, which results in more prepared students and, as a result, overall success for the institution,” said John Squires, CEO of Akademos, Inc.
While the College will not have an on-campus bookstore presence, the existing bookstore space will be repurposed and transformed into an on-campus spirit store selling Rowan-Cabarrus clothing, gear, school supplies, and snacks. The College hopes to go live with the new spirit store sometime this summer.
Akademos is proud to be partnering with Rowan Cabarras, to assist them with their course materials goals. To learn more about how you can lower textbook costs and help your students succeed, contact us for more information.
