Mostly, you do not buy them. ACE is an online-first school built around Canvas courses that deliver their readings, e-texts, and media inside the course, so for many courses there is nothing to order and nothing to wait for; the materials open when the course does. A few courses name an outside text or an optional resource, and those you source the ordinary way, by the ISBN on your syllabus. ACE also gives you free access to Microsoft 365 online and Google tools. So the real task is not shopping, it is reading your syllabus in week one to see which of your courses, if any, expects something extra.
Why there is usually nothing to buy
ACE runs on Canvas, and its courses are designed online-first, which means the material a course needs is generally built into the course shell rather than sold to you separately. Readings, media, and course resources live in the weekly modules, and ACE's own course partners describe the model as materials-delivered-in-the-course. The practical effect for a working student is the useful part: no bookstore run, no shipping wait, and no separate books line stacking onto the term. What you should not do is assume; the definitive list for any single course is its syllabus, not a general rule.
Finding your materials on day one
Open the course in Canvas the moment it unlocks and go to the syllabus first, then the module list. Anything the course provides is already there, arranged by week, and the syllabus states outright whether a required text sits outside the shell. ACE also points students to a Digital Tools Center inside the Canvas Student Commons for research and productivity help. Reading the syllabus in week one is the single habit that prevents the only real materials mistake at ACE, which is discovering in week three that one course wanted a resource you never opened.
The exceptions to watch for
A minority of courses, especially in specialized or licensure-aligned tracks, may name an external text, a professional standards document, or an optional supplementary book. Standards documents from professional bodies are usually free to view online. An optional book is exactly that, optional, and worth buying only if the syllabus ties graded work to it. When a course does require an outside text, the syllabus names it with an ISBN, which is all you need to find it anywhere.
Sourcing an outside text without overpaying
- Take the ISBN straight from the syllabus, not the title alone, so you buy the exact edition the course grades against
- Check your local or employer library first; teachers and nurses often have institutional access to the very texts ACE lists
- Compare a rental or used copy against new, since a five-week or ten-week course rarely needs the book past the term
- Prefer the e-book when a course is fully online, so it is searchable the way your assessments will need it to be
The software ACE actually includes
One thing ACE does hand you at no cost is the productivity stack. Students get free access to the online version of Microsoft 365 and can use Google tools alongside it, which covers the documents, spreadsheets, and slides most assessments require. If a specialized course needs more than the online suites provide, a desktop license is your responsibility, but for the ordinary paper, discussion, or presentation the included tools are enough. Budget for the technology and application fees separately, since those are distinct from tuition and from materials.
Where a tutor fits
Once you have your materials open, the graded work still has to be written to a rubric and cleared through Turnitin. That is our half. Send the assessment, the rubric, and the readings the course provided, and a tutor returns a premium original sample that uses your course's own sources in 24 to 48 hours. You keep the materials; we help you turn them into work that reads at the top of the scale. The assessment method shows how we build from a course's embedded readings.
Materials open, assessment still due?
Send the assessment and the readings your course provides. We map the rubric and return a premium sample free.
Sources and verification
Facts on this page come from official and independent sources, and anything that matters is worth checking against the originals:
- ace.edu/about/faqs: ACE's official FAQ, source for Canvas, the syllabus, and course structure
- ace.edu/.../tuition-and-tech-support: ACE's official tech-support page, source for the included Microsoft 365 and Google access
- ace.edu/student-success/catalog: ACE's official catalog and student handbook, where course and materials policy lives
- www.hlcommission.org: Higher Learning Commission, ACE's institutional accreditor
- apastyle.apa.org: APA Style, the official authority behind ACE's formatting rules