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arvard Business School, the largest publisher of case studies in North America, is in the process of converting 3,500 of its files to tablet-enhanced formats during this school year and expects to finish converting its library of 17,000 titles by 2013.

The tablet medium also seems ideal for simulated cases, says Glenn Rowe, a professor at the Ivey school and author of nearly 40 case studies. In role-playing exercises, prices and other variables can change on the fly. Students may also be smacked with unexpected events, such as their biggest competitor slashing prices, or by their receiving a higher-than-expected counterbid after a merger proposal. Students choose what they would do, and the simulation immediately tells them the consequence of that action.

Students are also more inclined to use tablets for supplemental reading. (Assuming prices are the same, 86 percent of college students say they prefer a hard copy textbook to an e-textbook, according to the market research firm Student Monitor.)