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[Forums Moderator]

With the rise of distance education and online course materials, publishers seem to be betting that students will soon prefer electronic textbooks too. But consumer advocates say that the e-textbooks are no bargain because of the many limits placed on their use. And students do not appear to be jumping to buy them. Is this trend merely temporary, or are there inherent problems with learning from e-textbooks? Would you use e-books or recommend them to your students? Read more...

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[chemist]

I would love to use online textbooks, but the limits placed on them make them an unsavory option.  The page limit option makes these books undesirable for science, where many students have to flip back and forth within a book to get a concept (not just read through once for each part of the semester, as suggested).  The download and access limits used to limit copying make it harder to use the books realistically.  For students that don't have their own computer, online textbooks are virtually useless, since they cannot control when a computer will be available.  Currently, I would never require an online textbook, but I might suggest an online version for students with a computer, preferably a laptop (allows them to take the book with them).  I would personally use an online textbook (as a student) if it were a class outside of chemistry, but I love to hold onto those chemistry books.  It's ridiculous that you can't access a book you purchased after one year.  That's more like renting a book, and if I wanted to do that, I'd find a student that would rent me their old text for a fraction of the price.

[Grad Student]

I can think of a number of reasons why students wouldn't want e-books.  I personally don't like reading anything too long online.

Possible Reasons:
1.  Fear of losing the e-book file.  If you've ever had a virus crash your entire comp and you don't have a cd burner (or a good cd burner) then you have a good chance of losing your e-book. If you have a hard copy your less likely to have it dissapear

2. It's annoying to read things online for extended periods of time.  After about 30 pages or so in a pdf or any electronic document, my eyes start to hurt and sometimes I get a headache.  It's much easier for me to read a hard copy.

3.  Sometimes it is easier to search through a paper copy. (though this depends on the search tools that are available within the program that is being used to view the e-book).

[C. Balch, LSU/Grad Student]

I agree with the comments above.  In addition, faculty who might be inclined to consider Ebooks are probably already finding *free* alternative resources on the net.  Ebooks do little if anything to bring down the ridiculously high cost of textbooks.  Frankly, I get angry when I see the cost without anything I can effectively use.  

Ebook security also tends to reduce or eliminate searching which is one the best features of computerized content.  Particularly with recent improvements in Desktop Search Engines, the ability to search or "google" my content.

[lecturer]

A simple adjustment that maybe Adobe can make is adapt the pdf format so that the mouse wheel can be used to scroll down. Right now you have to click to scroll down. Using the mouse wheel is a lot easier on the hands and wrists.

[A Reader]

...or in the bathtub, then I don't want it.  I hated studying in the library when the sculpture garden was right outside.  I would even take my text and climb a tree when I was studying.  (Luckily I went to school in So Cal.)  I wrote in the margins, underlined in three different colors and although I graduated from college 2 decades ago, I still refer to my textbooks.  And I'm not even a professor.

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[Dan Dyer]

In the article titled: "Online Textbooks Fail to Make the Grade," the author, Scott Carlson, presents a solution that addresses most of the issues currently raised in this "Why e-books aren't good" forum.

A "different business model: a hybrid of ink and bytes" solution that combines a hardcopy version with an online version, for half the traditional cost of a text book.

Excerpt:
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"Atomic Dog Publishing, a small textbook company that published the marketing textbook used in Ms. Atwood's class, has a different business model: a hybrid of ink and bytes. Every paper textbook published by Atomic Dog -- which costs about half as much as comparable titles from major publishers -- comes with access to a free online version as a supplement. "

If we blind ourselves to simply one or the other (Hardcopy OR Online) then there are problems on both sides.

If we open our eyes to hybrid solutions (Hardcopy AND Online) most, if not all, of the problems go away.

[Nick Carbone]

The dissatisfaction with ebooks is temporary. We're still not sure what they're best used for, pedagogically and they're still not convenient to "read."

Ultimately, we still have to wait till the right hardware comes along – a portable, ligthweight, long-battery-life, no-eye-strain-inducing, can read in any light, reading device. Think killer hardware for reading digitally, sort of like the iPod was for music.  (Speaking of the iPod, audio books are popular, and that might be what an ebook is for books meant to be "read.")

A book meant to be studied or used as  a textbook is different. Until there's a good device that offer some of the benefits of print -- light weight enough, readable at the beach, those kinds of things -- what are digital formats good for?

If an ebook is just text, then maybe that's not a good ebook. Maybe the book should be a series of questions or problems or quests, and you learn by engaging and interacting, where reading comes in after that engagement. So you begin not by reading three chapters on a topic, but by engaging a learning scenario, or game, or set of questions that get you thinking about issues and concepts and ideas a traditional textbook might tell you about. You engage and get some telling or further engagement to learn the concepts, but you don't necessarily do it by full bore reading of one word after another.

The weakness of ebooks -- PDF is the classic example-- might be trying to put text on screen and mimicing a printed page. Why try to do what print does so well, so much so that a user's impulse is to hit the print command. In that model, the ebook is just a delivery system, but not a rethinking of what a book is or might do in a digital as opposed to hardcopy setting.

[Jeffrey D. Senese]

I would definately use e-books if they were of equal quality to print versions.  They are not of equal quality at this point in time give there isn't a good technology in place to read them.  The Rocketbook was ok (I have one) and now I have a tablet notebook with reader software that's also just adequate.  We need a reader that is thin, easy to use as an IPod, with long battery life and a bright screen.  Until then there is no utility in e-books.  Personally, I like the ability to read digital versions of books given they would take up less space, we would have to kill fewer trees to produce them and there are various technological advantages.  The other challenge, I think, is getting faculty on board.  Once a high quality reader is designed, faculty would need to be comfortable with it, before they would use it and recommend texts for their students.  It seems to me given the rapid development of technology over the past few years that such a device would be possible, profitable for its producer and would be welcomed by faculty and students alike.

[John Pugh]

I'm of two minds with this.  I use a pda for practically everything- notetaking, writing, some reading, etc, and would like to have the ebook file available as an additional option.

On the other hand, I would never assign an ebook as the only option.  Hard drives die, information gets lost, and other real world issues get in the way of using this model.

Additionally, an ebook should be significantly less expensive than the printed text for this model to fly.  Until they reach that point, ebooks are going to occupy a very small niche, if any.

[Gavin Moodie, Griffith Univ]

This discussion demonstrates nicely that technologies are socially constructed: we have e-book technology available, but can't yet use it effectively because we have not reconstructed the related learning-teaching technologies of libraries, studying and reading that were constructed by mass printed textbooks.

Similar difficulties confronted schools and universities when the printing press was invented.  Mass produced books clearly had potential, but how could they be used in a largely oral teaching-learning technology based on hand copied manuscripts, dictation, memory and recapitulation?  

It took educators 200 years to reconstruct learning-teaching to take advantage of mass produced texts, so we shouldn't be too anxious if it takes us another decade or more to work out how to incorporate e-books into our learning-teaching.

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[Saab]

My students don't like ebooks.  The University  of Phoenix charges students approximately $70 extra for classes with ebook access.  However,  students can only download selected chapters of the books.  These selected chapters are chosen by the Phoenix Arizona office with no input from instructors who facilitate the courses, nationwide.  The full book is not available, nor is the table of context or index.  Not even instructors' have access to the "entire" ebook.  This is a real disadadvantage

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[yippy]

The majority of students at the University of Phoenix really NEED a hard copy of their text book.  Most want the convenience of carry their textbook with them to work, appointments, etc.  Many of the students don't have their own computer but use their employers' computer.  If they do oooown their own computer equipment, they do not have the printer capability to print large volumes of paper.  However, they have no other option through the university other than ebooks.  At additional expense then can chose to go to the Internet and purchase the book if it is avalable.  However, many of the textbooks are versions specifically designed for the University of Phoenix.

[Kay Grastie, Research Consulta]

Have institutioins surveryed their students about their preferences?  If so, I would like to know how to obtain the resuls and format used.  And, also, any information on other formal studies done by sources other than textbook companies themselves.  Thank you.

[Keith W Drahn, Messiah College]

Carlson's article is interesting and probably represents the majority opinion among students I've spoken with at this institution. However, there is another population that may well welcome an alternative form of textbook. About 50 students on this campus have either a reading disability or a significant attention defict, both of which virtually guarantee that students will never have time to read their books. The format being marketed by publishers would seem to appeal to these students, if not the general student population. I can only wish that publishers would try as hard to offer digital formats for all their texts as they appear willing to work to market this highly-restrictive alternative to hard copy. I would suggest that publishers try to find solutions to the lack of portability by design. When students are able to download a textbook into their own computers or PDAs, they may be more willing to purchase their "books" in this format.
We've discovered here that students with disabilities value the auditory "reading" of books because it allows them to stay focused and actually keep up a comfortable reading pace. Surprisingly, we've just learned from our own research that students are not using the on-screen text with highlighting, but are unanimously choosing to just listen to the text being read, or at times following along in their own print copies. The lack of portability is also a concern for these students. As a result, we are working on a project where in place of a CD-ROM version of the text, we will offer to convert the textbooks to MP3 format so a student can have their text available in audio, and capture the portability of a real book. Oh, in case the reader wonders about copyright issues, Congress modified the copyright laws to allow conversion of print materials to alternate forms for students with disabilities. Students are required to confirm that they have purchased a print copy of the text, and in some cases, student copies are the ones that are actually used for the scanning and text-conversion process. There is indeed a market for electronic textbooks, but it may not be in the format now being marketed among the general student populations. Publishers would do well to consider this alternative group and perhaps find ways of extending the value of e-text to others.

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