Ebooks at Liberal Arts Colleges

Addresses concerns about long term access to ebooks. Suggests ePUB as the least bad option, although DRM is an issue.

Very nice discussion. I'm glad he understands how segmented the market is.

5 publishers involved in Indiana's etextbook initiative: "Here's how it works: Students in a select group of courses are required to pay a materials fee, which gets them access to the assigned electronic textbooks or other readings for the course. The university essentially becomes the broker of the textbook sales, and because it is buying in bulk and guaranteeing a high volume, officials say they can score better prices than can the campus bookstore or other retailers."

"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?

Joseph Esposito looks at different textbook reform strategies, including cutting costs via "industrial engineering" (FlatWorld), crowdsourcing, multimedia, gaming, platform, and social network. Suggests that innovation will occur at community colleges and for-profits, where faculty has less power in choosing textbook.

"as they walk the paths of Hamilton College, a poster-perfect liberal arts school in this upstate village, students are still hauling around bulky, old-fashioned textbooks - and loving it. "