The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh’s College of Business is creating a new type of e-textbook that will give professors more control of their content while also saving students hundreds of dollars in the process.
The program, a result of a nearly $300,000 grant from U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, will commission professors to create texts personalized for specific classes and put them in a digital format that will bring textbook prices down from their average cost of $100 to a much more moderate $15.
While the idea of money-saving digital textbooks is not new, M. Ryan Haley, an associate professor of economics at the university, sees this program as an opportunity to alter just how these textbooks are created and utilized. Using a “core concepts” paradigm, Mr. Haley will write 80 percent of the first e-textbook in the program—a statistics book—leaving room for each professor to customize the book with his or her own appendices.
“Professors always have their own style of teaching, even if the general material is the same,” Mr. Haley said in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education. “So it doesn’t make sense for everyone to have the same exact texts. Some professors would be unsatisfied with the materials; some would be teaching the books in a goofy order, it would backfire.”
Mr. Haley also says that professors from other departments—departments that generally share students with statistics—will also provide content, allowing for more interdisciplinary learning and better “continuity” as students go from one subject to another.
The vice president of the student association, Alex Abendschein, said this new model of interconnected learning would be a great boon for students.
“It’s nice to know how content you learn in one class will come back to you in another,” Mr. Abendschein said to The Chronicle. “It really helps the material hit home.”
As for quality control, Mr. Haley said the standards would “compare just fine” to traditional textbooks. The process includes both internal and external review of all material, by professors and students alike.
Mr. Haley said he hoped to have the first book ready for use by the fall of 2010.
5 Responses to An E-Textbook Program Aims to Benefit Students and Professors
selfg - October 20, 2009 at 6:22 pm
This is a great step in the right direction, but will these books be available for folks who are not in the University system? I teach at a rural community college in Arizona and $100 for a book is as hard on my students as it is for the Oshkosh students!
mrvaughn - October 21, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Have a look at the statistics course (e-text) at the Open Learning Initiative (http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/). Is the Oshkosh effort duplicative?
ndevans - October 21, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I agree with your idea completely and have been working on an e-book for Introduction to Business that I hope to finish by August. $175 for the new edition of the text we use was the final straw. Ours will cost students about $15 too.
samueloulrey - October 21, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“$175 for the new edition of the text we use was the final straw. Ours will cost students about $15 too.”And the e-book will be well worth fifty cents.A nice dead-tree book can be kept in view on the shelf for decades, providing a memory tweak to al of its contents, and can be easily pulled down at the same time as a dozen others to examine portions in tandem, making new connections.e-books are only reliable for up to 10 years in e-storage. The displays torture eyes and forbid making spatial associations. The illustrations and text won’t even fit side-by-side or above-and-below, even on this relatively large, relatively high-res lap-top screen. e-books, like foreign teaching assistants, hamper learning.
buzzgarwood - October 23, 2009 at 5:17 pm
samueloulrey: Where did you pull that assertion that e-books are only reliable for up to ten years in e-storage? Data is stored as bits, so and as long as you make archive copies every few years, you’ll theoretically have a copy forever.Regarding side-by-side comparisons of material: No one ever said you can’t own two or three e-books and examine portions in tandem, making new connections. Imagine a whole classroom of students, all with an e-reader, all examining portions in tandem, making new connections. It can totally be done with an e-reader.The displays torture your eyes, but not everyone’s. Because some e-ink technology is very easy on my eyes.e-books don’t hamper my learning; I actually find I’m reading more (and learning more) because I have access to more books, more often, than before e-books came along. So, I’m not sure what you mean when you say they hamper learning. For who? The whole thing actually inspires me. I have a blog where I talk about this kind of stuff a lot: http://www.thisweekinedtech.com