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With 'Access Codes,' Textbook Pricing More Complicated Than Ever
jyosim writes "Some see it as the latest ploy by textbook publishers to kill the used book market: 'access codes' for online supplements for course work. In some cases professors require students to purchase these codes in order to even see the required homework. One U. of Maine's student's struggle to find a reasonably priced textbook demonstrates the limits the new publisher practices put on students, but some argue that ultimately the era of digital course materials will be better for student learning."
They hate that you have the advantages they did in school. Now that they've crossed the bridge, it must be burned.
Hey Kids!
If your instructor is doing something like this to you, he/she is an asshole. If you can run FAR away or, if you can't avoid the person teaching, be cautious at every turn. If a prof is inflicting this type of B.S. on students then they another jerk you need to avoid in getting your education.
The unis that I have worked at are trying to avoid this every chance they get by developing their own online course system or (ugh) using Blackboard. Most profs I personally know do things to try to avoid extra costs to their students. This type of behavior is the mark of a jerk.
some argue that ultimately the era of digital course materials will be better for student learning.
And some say that The Stig has three testicles, but only uses one at a time in order to prevent sextuplet pregnancies. But, the statement has no basis in fact.
The web is not the least bit short of 'some saying' that digital learning is better than anything prior and those that question this "wisdom" are old luddites that fear change, lack vision and want to stymy progress. But, simply saying that repeatedly does not make it a fact.
I'd like to see some fact based scientific evidence that these new technologies and techniques do in fact provide better learning that before. Does the online material for Chemistry 201 genuinely provide better learning than the third-time-used and battered text book originally printed 10 years ago? I just can't see how it can. The actual course material hasn't changed and simply replacing a paper book with an ephemeral online copy of the same doesn't seem likely to improve learning.
I can see that the new online material can make for more profits, greater ease for professors, greater portability provided you've got power and internet where ever you go, and even greater ease for quick look-ups by students. But, none of those benefits prove greater learning. None of them prove faster learning, better retention, deeper or easier understanding...
But, despite the lack of proof; "iPads for all students" continues to be a daily headline where 'some say it greatly enhances education' and no proof is ever given.
Well, as I've said before we need to uncouple job training and university study again.
University studies were meant for people that wanted to learn and study. Right now the whole meme is that you go to university to get a better job. There is nothing wrong with that, but that isn't what universities were created for. Not everyone should go to a University and there should be no shame in that.
Please don't insult our intelligence, the e-sites reduce grading time. Charging your students for homework on top of tuition that is going up faster than inflation, and has for three decades, in the face of falling efficacy, is highway robbery of the young. You should be ashamed of yourself, but obviously are not.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Writing assignments is not that hard. And I say that having just finished preparing the tutorial and assignment for the class I'm teaching tomorrow.
This is true. Professors that use online homework because they do not want to bother are incredibly lazy in my opinion. I write my own assignments to tailor them to our lecture discussions. I will even revise homeworks based on unique questions I get every semester. I applaud you for making your own tutorial for your class. I feel this is what everyone should really do... if they had the time.
The lack of time is partly also due to the overcrowding of schools. I have known instructors to get overloaded during semesters because the university doesn't want to pay to hire another adjunct (or to make someone full-time, etc). Not condoning it, but I can sympathize, having had overloaded semesters myself. Not even necessarily overloaded with classes, but the class sizes have become so huge that maintaining your own assignments and grading them by hand is an all day affair and you simply run out of time. At some point, I just have to stop grading because I realize I haven't eaten all day, or the laundry needs done, or dishes washed, or hell, sometimes I just want to be a human and spend some time with the wife or the cats.
I like being able to give direct feedback, and to know how my class is doing myself (in an online machine-graded course, all you have is statistics, but students can cheat or get the right answer by the wrong reasoning sometimes, and you cannot have any clue what they are truly thinking unless you sit and read their papers and grade by hand), but again I can sympathize with the lack of time to do such things. There's a lot of problem with this whole education system all the way up the chain, and while I am not happy with the proliferation of shitty textbooks and online testing systems, I think we should recognize that in many cases, this is not the sign of a lazy professor but an overworked professor. We need to overhaul everything, and I will be on record stating I do not mind paying more in taxes if it goes to fund professors directly to allow class sizes to be smaller, and instructional material to be more unique. Perhaps it will only begin to change if we all start to send statements to this effect to our congresscritters.
What is a 'wealth' gap? Who decides there is a certain amount of wealth that each age group is supposed to have, what are those numbers?
Nice strawman. It's not about "deciding" how much each group is supposed to have (in a moral/deontological ethical way). It's about the gap between the two groups that is measurable (and thus comparable/quantifiable) accross the decades. The gap is there, it's measurable, it's obvious, and it requires explaining. Yours is not an explanation by any stretch of the definition. Furthermore, you are asking "who" "decides" how much each group has. That same question begets the following one: who decided that the income gap must be greater than the ones in prior decades/generations?
Ok, so those in the 55+ demographic are the ones who started and built back in the 70's/80's many of the recognized companies that exist today and in doing so they made some good money. That is exactly what they intended to do.
This would be nice and dandy if these were the very first folks in the history of the US who made up companies that made money. Alas, they were not. There were businesses and businessmen before them, quite successful and their companies still exist today. And yet, the generational income gap present at the times preceeding the Baby Boomers was never the way it is now. Hand waving is not a valid argument.
Wonder what their incomes looked like 20-30 years ago when they were building their businesses (either as early employees of founders)? I'd be willing to guess
Why guess? Verify.
their incomes were not much different (in 70's/80's dollars) to today's youth, but their standards of living were probably lower.
So if their income weren't that different from today's youth (which is not true), and their standards of living were lower (they were), then the income gap as measured today is greater than what it was in the past, say, as a function of the decade in which the measurements took place.
So to the 18-35 crowd who hasn't made as much money I'd ask, where are the companies that you started?
Red herring. Not every Baby Boomer was an enterpreneur, and yet the gap between the average Boomer and the average Gen X/Y is greater than the gap that same Boomer experienced with respect to his then senior. Ergo, enterpreneurship is not a factor. It is if you want to present a fallacy as a logical argument, though.
Where are the years of hard work you put in building wealth?
Where were the years of hard work the Baby Boomers put when they were young that resulted in a narrower income gap with relation to their then seniors, narrower with respect to the currently observed income gap?
It's these stupid elementary courses. Basic undergraduate things where professors who spend most of their time preparing material for their seniors and/or grad students don't want to have to sit down and plan out a semester for the class that has 20 different sections because EVERYONE has to take it. Take Trigonometry for example (calculus, algebra, physics, and a few others also fit this bill). The text I've seen used is $150. That includes a $70 access key. The access key works once. ONCE. The access key allows you to create an account on the publisher's website for that book. The account created lasts for 180 days, if I remember correctly. What it gives you access to is a digital copy of the book (in a web-browser only, not a PDF, they send you data page-by-page), and lacks all of the useful features a digital system should provide (the ability to search, the ability to tag notes inline, etc).
All this hassle for what? The publisher created a system that would automatically generate questions for each class, and would automatically grade the homework for you (no more professor/TA slaving over your papers).
The key itself is $70. You can buy the key alone. That's 180 days access to the book and the online course materials (generally required if the text is being used). Not only are these texts garbage on content, but a key to let you flip through pages in a book, do some e-homework assignments, and then lose access to the thing you paid for. Great. And what about the physical text book if you pay the $80 extra for it? Well.. it has less than a 1 star review on Amazon. Terrible text. Awful. It's also at edition 10, hilariously enough. Because elementary trigonometry is a cutting-edge and rapidly evolving field, right? And heaven forbid if you wanted to use edition 9 for your class that requires edition 10, because the access keys from versions before 10 DONT WORK ON THE COURSEWARE FOR VERSION 10. Holy shit. It's so abundantly clear at this point that these systems were designed to screw over students in the most obvious and terrible ways possible. At this rate, I expect in a few decades that all you'll have to do is pay, then wait a few years, and you'll be given your degree.
Fuck modern texts. You can probably find a classic text on the subject you're interested in, or find what you need in research papers you already have access to via your university. Classic texts are TIMELESS, resell at 90-95% (in good condition), and your library (university or muni) probably already has at least one copy. They're also WAY better, and they don't have 20 editions after 4 years of republication. These modern "textbook" things are a huge, huge scam. So is most of the higher education system. To quote Good Will Hunting:
See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!
A person who "learns" (it's more rote memorization of derivation and integration rules) calculus from a modern calculus text is woefully less capable than someone who can handle Apostol or Spivak. It's the difference between learning algorithms from some anemic cheat-sheet type Cliff's Notes reference and CLRS. It's dramatic and obvious. Spend your $200-1000 per credit and $150 on a text book that has no relevance outside of 4 months of your life if you wish, but when you want a real education, when you realize later on that you actually need to learn something, hopefully you'll better know where to find it.