Ebooks at Liberal Arts Colleges

" American College of Education announces its partnership with Barnes & Noble to make the NOOK Color(TM) available for free to new students enrolling in its cohort of classes beginning October 17 and November 28, 2011. The distance learning college is also introducing four new master's degree concentrations for educators as part of its October schedule. "

"Abstract: A self-selected agile team of liaisons conducted a high level scan of e-textbook publishing and recent implementations of e-textbooks at selected institutions to address questions and concerns we anticipate will be raised soon at Brandeis, namely: Are there examples of successful, sustainable implementations of e-textbooks? What is the status of the technology? How well do e-textbooks meet the needs of faculty and students for teaching and learning? What is the nature of the available content and its functionality? Are publishers and vendors offering suitable sales or subscription models?"

Good work, and great to see from a liberal education institution. Maybe they'll rerun the study for 2012?

"E-books are beginning to emerge from their incunabula stage. While some may think of an e-book as just an electronic image of a paper product, others have used the electronic format to broaden the spectrum of publishing in the digital age. This paper examines three innovative examples that demonstrate the potential and challenges of electronic publications. The first is an online resource providing information on the U.S. health care system, descriptions of policy proposals, and an interactive microsimulation model that estimates the effects of commonly proposed policy changes. The second example is a digital novel utilizing text, sound, images, and gaming in storytelling. The third is a survey of efforts to create digital textbooks with online study resources. E"

"The new Student Monitor data are slightly more validating to the mobile computing trend, although the percentages of students who say they own Internet-enabled smartphones (56 percent) and those who say they own iPads (9 percent) are virtually unchanged from when the firm asked the same questions in May. Apple's tablet accounted for about half of overall wireless reading devices (17 percent); it was followed by Amazon's Kindle (4 percent) and a long tail of minor players."

Interesting to see how laptop/desktop-centric students remain.

"Last year, I took at look at the growth of e-readers (many equipped with Web browsers) and e-books. Less than 12 months later, it's clear digital books are taking over."

" Unfortunately, in the case of Mike Tracy, a highly-regarded animator who'd been teaching at the Art Institute of California-Orange County for the past 11 years, refusing to make students buy an e-book they don't need may have cost him his job."

I wonder where this occurs beyond the for-profit space.

"A group of graduate students at the Milledgeville, Ga.-based campus have used Apple's iBookstore to publish a video-and-image-laden eTextbook filled with information and advice for educators hoping to better incorporate technology in their everyday classroom lessons. The eBook, "Using Technology in Education," is a student-created textbook available for the iPad and available for free in the iBookstore, "

"When Georgia's need-based HOPE grant for technical college students stopped helping them pay for textbooks last year, administrators at South Georgia Technical College decided to take matters into their own hands. The college announced three weeks ago that starting this fall, it will provide students with free textbooks for each of their courses -- a program that President Sparky Reeves said he hopes will be paid for by tuition revenue brought in by additional students."

Very cool. Maybe a paradigmatic case.

And we need more college presidents named Sparky.

"Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University each pre-ordered bundles of iPads - sight unseen - with plans to experiment with how the tablet could change classroom learning. In interviews with Wired.com just prior to the iPad's launch last week, officials from each university saw the iPad as having potential to render printed textbooks obsolete."

JISC publication.

Back in 2007 there was very little known about how e-books were being used by students in universities and colleges across the UK and even worldwide. The lack of market research and the fear of the 'unknown' was holding back the market.

Compiles info on college e-book experiments

Mashable topic site on etextbooks

"A typical college student spends up to $1,000 per year on textbooks, and many students don't buy textbooks at all because they're too expensive. E-textbooks can cost up to 50 percent less than standard textbooks while providing the foundation for integration of multiple learning resources into a single delivery system. E-textbooks and their enhanced interactive learning resources also have the potential to accelerate student learning."

"digital book maker Kobo has created a social reading platform for the iPad that it says it will bring to all of its platforms. The platform allows readers to check in with characters and places on Facebook, earn badges and track reading traffics - sharing to social networks like Facebook at every step. No doubt there are many interesting directions Kno could take for approaching its social features from the basic app it launched on Wednesday."

Good analysis of what Amazon's September moves accomplish.

"Kno can do everything a physical textbook can do and more, with over 60 features that make reading, studying, note taking and organization a breeze."

"So where's the revolution in the e-textbook market? According to the National Association of College Stores (NACS), digital books currently account for less than 3 percent of textbook sales. NACS expects that percentage to reach 10 to 15 percent by 2012, while researchers at Simba Information predict that e-textbooks will account for more than 11 percent of textbook sales by 2013. But even this relatively swift growth rate represents a trickle compared to the flood of e-book sales on Amazon."

"Highlighter is a web application that creates a dynamic relationship between publishers and readers. With Highlighter, readers can share, save, and comment on words, sentences, paragraphs and even images. All of this data is passed back to the publisher in the form of powerful analytics."