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Jennifer Parsons

California universities to produce 50 open-source textbooks | Ars Technica - 1 views

arstechnica.com/...oduce-50-open-source-textbooks

Professional Development Creative Commons california textbooks ebooks libraries

shared by Jennifer Parsons on 28 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • He signed two bills, one to create the textbooks and the other to establish a California Digital Open Source Library to host them, at a meeting with students in Sacramento.
  • The law specifies that the textbooks must be placed under a Creative Commons license, allowing professors at universities outside of California to use the textbooks in their own classrooms.
  • Jennifer Parsons on 28 Sep 12
     
    Interesting.  I wonder what an open-source textbook will be like, or what can be done with it.  Also, the article seems to assume that the information in the textbooks is under the same license.
Donna Bacon

New Partnership of Barnes & Noble and Microsoft Will Promote Digital Textbooks - chroni... - 5 views

www.readability.com/read

shared by Donna Bacon on 01 May 12 - No Cached
  • Donna Bacon on 01 May 12
     
    College students still don't want e-textbooks!  Wonder if this partnership will help students change their minds.....
  • ...3 more comments...
  • anonymous on 02 May 12
     
    Are you serious? They LOVE e-textbooks... you can pirate them instead of spending $160 on a dead tree...
  • Donna Bacon on 02 May 12
     
    Did you read the article???? It says e-textbooks are just not taking off....they seem to like the dead trees....
  • Sharla Lair on 02 May 12
     
    While getting my MLIS, I was often given the option of buying the textbook or the e-textbook. The highest priority for me was $$$$$. eTextbooks often cost more than the el cheapos in the bookstore, AND you don't even get to keep the e version. I was usually given access to the etextbook for only 4 months. To remedy this issue all together I got my books through MOBIUS! That way I didn't have to pay anything and I didn't have to store the book after the semester was over. For students to adopt e-texts, the model has to be changed. Make them pay a flat fee with their tuition. Call it a library fee or information fee. Then give them access to the required texts while they are enrolled in a course at no additional cost. Make the texts collaborative so digital notes can be taken perhaps Diigo style so they can be shared and commented on. There is a cool tool called Citelighter http://www.citelighter.com/. Citelighter is a virtual highlighter that automates the research and paper writing process. It allows the user to find and capture unique facts online, automatically generate citations, and write better quality papers in less time. They just launched a pro version in a partnership with Cengage. Citelighter Pro users are able to add to their experience with materials from Cengage Learning. If you make it affordable, accessible, and social, college students will dig it!
  • anonymous on 02 May 12
     
    @donna I skimmed it. They are cheaper in some cases than the book new - while buying a used book ten selling it back is cheaper in the long run. Also currently ebooks don't have any really compelling features over the paper ones. Still, I'm saying that the point of view that they "aren't taking off" just means the companies selling them haven't figured out how to make money off of them. I know from talking to friends that ebooks are fairly popular, but when people pirate them these companies can't track them. On the whole I agree with Sharla - if they made the product better and keep it affordable they will see sales. If I were going to college today I'd pirate every book I need. No way am I carrying all those heavy things, but I can't afford to pay for them. It's like with music and movies. I quit pirating that stuff because Netflix/Hulu/Spotify got good and cheap. If the ebooks improve, people will pay for the same reason - it's easier.
  • Jennifer Parsons on 02 May 12
     
    I think the reason why the print versions are preferred is here: ""Most e-textbooks are slightly glorified PDF's of the print version, although that's changing," [a National College Stores Association rep] said. "Digital e-books sell for about 60 percent of the cost of a new printed copy. Since students can go to their college store and rent a print copy for between 33 and 55 percent of the cost of a new book, the e-book really needs to have more functionality to make the higher price worth their while."" Add to that what Sharla pointed out-- you can't even keep the ebooks because you're really just leasing them-- and it's no wonder nobody's interested. It's a shame, too, because I'd love to be able to do things like textbook exercises in an ebook on a tablet, or make notes in the electronic text to export and read later.
Scott Peterson

As textbook costs skyrocket, cheaper rental options surge - 0 views

www.jsonline.com/...tion-b9987329z1-222114771.html

Professional Development

shared by Scott Peterson on 13 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Scott Peterson on 13 Sep 13
     
    Textbook prices have increased several times more than inflation, and it's been an issue for years about new textbooks being required every year with little or no difference. This initiative is largely happening from university bookstores that are trying to stem costs by letting students rent textbooks for large enrollment classes. While a good idea, it seems to only be fighting a flood of costs, in particular as publishers move to electronic textbooks that have the access controlled by them.
Scott Peterson

Education Chief Wants Textbooks To Go Digital - 0 views

www.npr.org/...story.php

Professional Development

shared by Scott Peterson on 04 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Scott Peterson on 04 Oct 12
     
    Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants the U.S. to begin adopting all digital textbooks, taking as a model South Korea which expects to become fully digital by 2015. Proponents argue digital textbooks are an improvement as they are more immerse and can include multimedia components to help with learning.
Scott Peterson

With 'Access Codes,' Textbook Pricing Gets More Complicated Than Ever - 0 views

chronicle.com/...134048

Professional Development

shared by Scott Peterson on 13 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Scott Peterson on 13 Sep 12
     
    A fairly concerning article about how a student taking a course with his wife didn't see the need to buy a second textbook for the class. However, with the textbook came a mandatory access code for supplementary materials and also to get access to the online discussion board and homework submission system. The student was unable to purchase the access code itself. This highlights an ongoing problem with software and digital access; publishers may legally be in their rights that every user is only granted access to a work and then to only one person, but users expect to be able to buy used books, old software, and so on. By essentially and artificially eliminating the secondary market of used/older materials publishers may increase their revenue per user but also increase user dissatisfaction and distrust.
Megan Durham

Georgia College Produces Student-Written E-Textbook -- Campus Technology - 0 views

campustechnology.com/...student-written-etextbook.aspx

Professional Development library ebooks libraries

shared by Megan Durham on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Megan Durham on 16 Aug 12
     
    E-Textbooks | News Georgia College Produces Student-Written E-Textbook Nine graduate students in an Advanced Technology for Teachers course at Georgia College have published their own e-textbook, Using Technology in Education, through Apple's iBookstore. The free, downloadable textbook is available on the iPad via iBooks.
anonymous

3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up - Wired Campus - The Chronicle ... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...en-education-textbook-start-up

publishers higher education open education

shared by anonymous on 10 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • The publishers’ complaint takes issue with the way the upstart produces its open-education textbooks, which Boundless bills as free substitutes for expensive printed material. To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material “alignment”—a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers’ copyrights.
Sharla Lair

Bulk-Purchasing E-Textbook Experiment Expands to More Colleges - Wired Campus - The Chr... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...39598

Professional Development e-textbooks experiment

shared by Sharla Lair on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Sharla Lair on 06 Sep 12
     
    I wonder if any MOBIUS members will be interested in participating in this pilot project.
Megan Durham

EDUCAUSE, Internet2 Expand Etextbook Pilot - 1 views

www.thedigitalshift.com/...ternet2-expand-etextbook-pilot

ebooks professional Professional Development Development

shared by Megan Durham on 05 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Megan Durham on 05 Sep 12
     
    This seems like a really cool concept (almost makes me want to go back to school . . .almost). The only problems I saw with this article was that the textbooks can be accessed through Blackboard, which is a great tool if professors know how to use it or it can be a nightmare for students if they have a professor who doesn't know how. Also I think its really funny that they stated "periodically" a revised edition of a textbooks come out, but I think most of my undergrad professors only assigned newest editions just so you couldn't buy used textbooks! But I digress. Anyways really neat concept and I'm anxious to see how it all works out.
Scott Peterson

Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril - 0 views

www.marketwatch.com/...n-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04

Professional Development

shared by Scott Peterson on 11 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Scott Peterson on 11 Oct 12
     
    I would say this article is focusing more on headlines and making noise than something actually about to happen. The story is about a case going to the Supreme Court where a student from Thailand was studying at Cornell University and found that his textbooks made by Wiley were substantially cheaper in his home country. He began buying books there and reselling them in the U.S. on Ebay, making over $1.2 million. Wiley accused him of copyright infringement, and the student responded this was protected under the first sale doctrine. What is at stake is how this doctrine may be redefined; what is unique is not that the goods were made in foreign country, but owned and marketed by a U.S. company who sought to restrict sales of those items in the U.S.
Scott Peterson

Interactive books for iPad, iPhone, and the web - 0 views

www.inkling.com

Professional Development

shared by Scott Peterson on 02 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Scott Peterson on 02 Aug 13
     
    An interesting web vendor that is offering interactive textbooks, which is in some ways the repackaging of the original "multimedia" CD-ROM's of the early 1990's, but now offered as a "book." They claim to be partnered with McGraw-Hill and Pearson, and it looks like a user needs to have a perpetual account to use their material although offline access is allowed. Some features such as streaming video and music are separate from the book so they are not true stand alone files, and purchasing a book as an app is currently only for a handful of titles. The list price of several of the books is very steep, and my main concern is how well the multimedia is integrated with the text and if there is any ability to share or transfer a license, which I can't find listed in their website FAQ.
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