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Colleges May Start Forcing Switch To eTextbooks

Posted by Soulskill on from the thousands-of-chiropractors-cry-out-in-dismay dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Here's the new approach under consideration by college leaders and textbook manufacturers: 'Colleges require students to pay a course-materials fee, which would be used to buy e-books for all of them (whatever text the professor recommends, just as in the old model).' That may be 'the best way to control skyrocketing costs and may actually save the textbook industry from digital piracy,' proponents claim."

13 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Students will complain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Currently, students at most universities aren't required to buy textbooks. They can borrow them at the library (frequently on reserve) and save money (at the cost of time and convenience). I can't see this working without some opt-out mechanism at the very least.

    1. Re:Students will complain by vlm · · Score: 5, Informative

      They can borrow them at the library (frequently on reserve) and save money

      In ye olden days, when we could get 5 cent per page photocopies, the university bookstore never seemed to sell any any books that cost much more than 5 cents per page, if you know what I mean.

      The response of the professors/TAs/instructors was highly variable.

      The publishing industry solution was wait for photocopy prices to raise to like ten cents or whatever it is now, and also bulk the heck out of the books like a walmart customer on HFCS. So, a 600 page calculus tome is going to cost me $60 to photocopy or $80 new... may as well buy it.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:Students will complain by zeugma-amp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This will also kill the used book market.

      That's the idea.

      --
      This is an ex-parrot!
    3. Re:Students will complain by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Something ye forgot:

      YOU CAN'T RESELL E-TEXTS. When I was in college I used to buy books for about $50 used, get my work out of it, and then sell it for $40 at the end of semester. NET COST: $10.

      Now this e-text idea will prevent us from doing that. It will end-up costing MORE not less.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:Students will complain by bhcompy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My college professor for the GE philosophy course I had to take was also the department chair and union president. He said that the other professors were all scumbags and that there is nothing we need in a 150$ textbook that isn't available in a cheap book that may be many years old for the bulk of GE type courses. He also said that charging students for things like Scantron sheets is just another way to punish the students despite all the fees they already pay. To back it up, the only required book was 15$ at Borders(and 0.50 used online) and tests were done on lined paper(for essay) or on an old fashioned circle your answer multiple-choice. Because of his status, no one could threaten him with termination and he'd probably spit in their face if someone tried to. I wish there were more people like him in the college teaching ranks

  2. Just a way to kill the used book market... by RocketRabbit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The irony of this proposal is that many professors, realizing that book prices are just obscene in the academic market, are preparing their own materials and giving them to the students for the cost of printing them.

    This is clearly just an attempt by the textbook marketers to kill the secondhand book sellers.

    As my wife says, "calculus has not changed much in the last 6 years, but my textbook has gone through 3 revisions in that time!"

    1. Re:Just a way to kill the used book market... by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is exactly right. Somehow the fine article proposes "saving the textbook industry" as something we'd actually want to do. The textbook industry adds no value to your education. All value comes from the university. The best thing for everyone, student, professor, parent, or administrator is for the textbook industry to die and be replaced by online, collaborative, peer reviewed textbooks. The textbook publishing industry adds no value, and is nothing but a parasite on the education industry.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  3. I'm guessing it's not about cost control, really. by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They just want a more effective way to shut used-textbook merchants out of the market so they can more fully exploit their students.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  4. I expect the following: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Book prices will still remain close to $100.
    You'll lose your right to resell your old books.
    Accessibility for us disabled folks will be an artificial extra cost, to satisfy the imaginary property brigade who think text-to-speech isn't a right.

  5. Textbooks are a total scam by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By the time I was in grad school at GaTech, undergraduate courses were spinning revs every quarter, and the only thing that would change would be the problems. This eliminated the book buy-back market almost entirely, because profs of course would require problems from the book.

    Undergrad level calc has not changed in the last 20 years. There's no reason someone shouldn't be able to use a calc book handed down from a parent or older sibling. Yet, term after term, every student is nearly compelled to spend $140 on a new book.

    It's no wonder our educational system from cradle to PhD is a complete failure. Institutions are too focused on productizing and profiteering rather than growing the world's best talent.

  6. My experience with e-textbooks by garcia · · Score: 5, Informative

    I attend an online university for my masters program. As part of this program, because it is new, they offered a pilot whereby students enrolled from the outset would receive free e-books. Being that I am poor (single income, one child and a SAHM) I welcomed this offer.

    The software used is miserable to operate (slow, buggy, required me to sit on with their tech support for over an hour to resolve an upgrade issue). It takes upwards of 15 minute to print a single chapter because it adds text with your name and e-mail address assigned to the account (for DRM ) to every page.

    While I am grateful for the free books, if I had the choice between the two I'd definitely go hardcover. The student should be able to make the choice between the two mediums, not the school regardless of whatever their motivation is.

  7. Right to Read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

    That crazy kooky Stallman. What nonsense fearmongering will he rant about next?

  8. Re:I expect the following: by DragonWriter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Book prices will still remain close to $100.
    You'll lose your right to resell your old books.

    A bigger issue is that you lose the right to retain your textbooks. Given rapid edition changes, the right to resell was often of limited value and theoretical anyway; OTOH, most of the people I know kept many of their textbooks and occasionally reference them even a decade or more after leaving school; during high school, one of the ways I learned things outside of school was from my fathers old college texts.