Course Materials

Rafter Launches Books in Tuition Service

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 11/19/14

Rafter, a company that specializes in course materials management, has launched Rafter360, a new service that promises to deliver all class materials to a student upon registration for a course.

Features of Rafter360 include:

• Integration with student information systems and learning management systems to provide course registration information and single sign-on;
• An automated adoption tool designed to help faculty easily discover and adopt both digital and printed resources;
• The ability to manage physical and digital materials and distribution;
• Pricing intelligence tools for discovering trends and patterns to help set a flat fee for materials; and
• Three fulfillment options.

Thomas More College and Schreiner University have seen reductions in class material expenses for students of 55 and 54 percent, respectively, according to a news release.

"For Schreiner to get on the leading edge like we have by offering a books-in-tuition solution, it was really critical that we were able to partner with a provider like Rafter," said Bill Muse, VP of administration and finance at Schreiner University, in a prepared statement. "We could not have done this on our own. Students love the convenience and the level of service in the bookstore. It's a win-win and we are delighted."

"It was clear there needed to be a better way to take control over the skyrocketing costs of textbooks and make sure that students have the content and materials they need to be successful," said Sara Leoni, CEO of Rafter, in a news release. "With Rafter360, we changed the game by designing the program to fully automate the course materials process. We looked painstakingly at every angle to make sure our solution would benefit all stakeholders — students, faculty, and campuses — with greatly reduced costs for students, freedom of choice for faculty when choosing course materials and ease-of-use for administration and staff."

More information is available at rafter.com.