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"Given an expectation of digital literacy among students, why should we worry about student perceptions of CMS tools? For the same reason exemplary instructors stay aware of their students' general learning style preferences-to evolve their teaching styles to meet diverse preferences and maximize learning while also attempting to develop and enhance students' abilities to learn in different ways. Likewise, knowing the CMS tools that students find most effective establishes an important baseline for understanding student needs that can be addressed not only in a CMS but also through other online systems and services. The University of Florida (UF) conducted a survey investigating that question in spring 2009, during the university's most recent CMS evaluation and adoption decision to replace the existing CMS. This research bulletin presents the survey results to help inform other institutions with their own evaluation and adoption processes. The information will also benefit instructors looking to maximize their own use of a local CMS and/or to choose tools that enable personal learning environments, as well as specific tools for learning. "

Insights on student perceptions of the LMS.

"Of the 1,140 respondents, 92% reported they found the system very useful, useful, or somewhat useful, providing further evidence of the mission-critical nature of CMSs. [...] Responses identified their top choices as the ability to see their grades, course announcements, syllabus, assignment submission, online quizzes and tests, discussions, and calendar." (p. 4) "Students most frequently cited the need for a better user interface." (p. 5) "The most repeated suggestions fell into the areas of: - Improving ease of use of the e-learning system - Requesting specific tools or features - Requesting --perhaps requiring-- instructors to use the CMS" (p. 6) "Students most value tools that support self-monitoring: tracking progress, self-assessment, grade book views, and the like." (p. 8)

"Higher education is facing a variety of conflicting challenges. National and state competitiveness depend on a citizenry with postsecondary education. Large segments of the population traditionally have not had equal access to higher education, and this is particularly true for minorities and the economically disadvantaged, two groups that also suffer disproportionally from another of higher education's challenges-students coming to higher education without adequate preparation. This bulletin describes an analytics system that Bowie State University (BSU) has implemented and is enhancing in order to improve the retention and success of at-risk students. While BSU has a substantial population of such students, the approaches taken are broadly applicable since many institutions have students in this category."

I believe there are 3 needs in modern literacy that we cannot ignore as educators. Digital literacy is not an "option" anymore. Most of the texts that we read each day appear on a screen, complete with embedded media, advertisements, and hyperlinks. Navigating these spaces is required to function successfully in modern society. We should immerse our students in these mediums, and provide them guidance to maximize their learning. Digital texts foster curation and recall. When I read texts in hard copy, I often annotate using words and images. This helps me to make meaning of the text in the moment that I'm reading it. However, when I read digital texts, my annotations and sketches are automatically added to my intellectual database in Evernote. My database is fully searchable by content and tag. Therefore, when I need citations, information, or ideas to guide my writing, I most often return to the digital sources, ideas, and phrases captured in my database. In short, texts in hard copy make an impact, but digital texts shape my thinking and writing more often. Teachers need to teach students to digital and hard copy texts equally. Existing resources coupled with teacher comfort levels often reduce the amount of instruction that students receive regarding digital texts. In fact, a teacher recently told me that "you just can't get the same experience from a Kindle as you can from a hardback book." Really? We need to get comfortable with digital texts ourselves and share the process meaningfully with students.

Interestingly, the center found that students in hybrid classes - those that blended online instruction with a face-to-face component - performed as well academically as those in traditional classes. But hybrid courses are rare, and teaching professors how to manage them is costly and time-consuming. Colleges need to improve online courses before they deploy them widely. Moreover, schools with high numbers of students needing remedial education should consider requiring at least some students to demonstrate success in traditional classes before allowing them to take online courses.

"The university even hosts D2L training for instructors. There is no excuse for not knowing how to use D2L. Students who want to check their grades are instantly at a disadvantage. It also puts visually impaired students at a severe disadvantage."

Student newspaper article about forcing faculty to use the LMS.

In this session, we'll briefly describe Indiana University's e-text agreements with five publishers and with Courseload, the provider of the e-text e-reader software. These agreements are resulting in substantial cost savings for students and providing them with new tools for teaching and learning. The IU agreements evolved from two years of pilot testing and in response to substantial input from students, faculty, textbook publishers, and authors. We will also discuss how these agreements can be extended to other institutions through short- and long-term pilot programs, which will allow them to gather valuable data about student and faculty use of e-texts.

"White said that UD faculty have three basic options for dealing with such situations: Faculty members can contact the UD General Counsel's Office and request assistance in sending a "take-down notice" to the offending website; Faculty members can send a take-down notice on their own; or Faculty members can include in their syllabi a notice to the effect that their lectures and other course materials are copyright protected and that students are not authorized to commercialize the notes they take down in class, the test questions they answer or any other course related materials. Students violating this rule would be subject to discipline under the code of conduct in UD's Student Guide to University Policies."

According to the report, students said e-textbooks "somewhat" became part of their learning routine but didn't help them interact more with classmates or the professor, largely because most people didn't use the collaborative features. Mr. Wheeler noted that the students of professors who did annotate their e-textbooks reported having a better experience, since "these capabilities make the electronic text much more than just an alternative to a physical book."

"STEPP was launched by the Alternative Media Access Center, in partnership with CourseSmart and the AccessText Network, through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DoEd), Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). This program is designed to meet the textbook rental needs of any postsecondary student and aims to help improve low-cost access to higher education textbooks for all students, including those with print-related disabilities. "

"the best chance to make an immediate and meaningful impact on the price of textbooks is to facilitate the merging of traditional and free content, allowing instructors to include exactly what is necessary, and freeing students from the rigid and expensive traditional offerings from academic publishers. In this model, "book" costs are lowered regardless of output format. If we are cognizant of ways of merging different types of content in order to get the biggest academic bang for the buck, we must also be mindful of methods to access this content; to break it apart, to "disaggregate" it from the traditional bounds of textbooks and to present it to students in an effective manner."

Warning: This is a vendor perspective...

"A number of experiments are using new kinds of data - such as how many times a student has clicked on an e-textbook or logged in to a class Web page - to measure and guide learning in new ways. That could improve the student experience, but it could also end up dumbing down college, argues Gardner Campbell, director of professional development and innovative initiatives at Virginia Tech."

"In that model, the institution negotiates a deep discount off the list price of the textbook in order to have access to an e-text edition. In return for the discount, the university guarantees that every single student in the course will buy the e-text, which is charged like a lab fee. This is a definite change from the current textbook model, in which each student is personally responsible for showing up to class armed with the textbook, either in printed or digital form."

""We were shocked to discover that among our majors, there is considerable resistance to this idea," Frechie said. "It began as our faculty thinking how can we keep pace with this new, emerging, younger and more technologically-literate population of students that we're working with today." The administration at Cabrini is also taking into consideration that there are many conditions to look at before making any move toward a digital transition. It is likely that some upperclassmen at Cabrini wouldn't get to experience a digital classroom experience."

Why don't students like electronic textbooks if they like ebooks? The two differ. Ebooks typically often have a narrative structure,  they are usually pretty easy to read, and we read them for pleasure. Textbooks in contrast, have a hierarchical structure, the material is difficult and unfamiliar, and we read them for learning and retention. Students likely interact with textbooks differently than books they read for pleasure.

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"The third thing we think is exciting is our analytics platform, which lets students and teachers track what's occurring on an individual level to be able to see everything from how a student is performing overall in math, to how they're performing specifically within algebra and within linear equations, to how they're doing on specific problems. "

"A new service at Purdue, however, called BoilerBackpack, will give students, faculty and staff 100 gigabytes of personal storage, so everyone at Purdue will have a large amount of space to store their digital stuff. And that's just the first step in a new partnership between Purdue and storage giant EMC Corp."

The majority of students in the Udacity and Coursera courses analyzed were professionals in the software industry - hardly the target audience for those seeking a change in how we educate postsecondary students. The current MOOCs provide a nice proof-of-concept, but hardly solve significant educational problems.

Coursera's leaders say they are actively pursuing only two of the moneymaking ideas on the list: charging students who pass the courses a small fee for a certificate, and serving as a matchmaker between students looking for jobs and companies seeking qualified employees.

"MindTap is well beyond an eBook, a homework solution or digital supplement, a resource center website, a course delivery platform or a Learning Management System. More than 70% of students surveyed said it was unlike anything they have seen before. MindTap is a new personal learning experience that combines all your digital assets - readings, multimedia, activities, and assessments- into a singular learning path to improve student outcomes."