Group items tagged

the law’s four factors for analysis:

often requires knowledge of unavailable facts (such as the effect on the market of the work, which is nearly impossible for those outside of the company to guess at).

these findings were for those works that could be purchased digitally.

Rejecting the 10 percent or one chapter bright-line rule, the appellate court wrote that “the District Court should have performed this analysis on a work-by-work basis, taking into account whether the amount taken -- qualitatively and quantitatively -- was reasonable in light of the pedagogical purpose of the use and the threat of market substitution.”

the decision is a poor one for those who look to the future. As content becomes more available in varying formats, and our faculty, staff and students are faced with myriad opportunities to pay for content, make fair use, or violate copyrights of authors and creators, the presence of clear standards and easily digestible rules provided higher education with a fighting chance to educate our academic community and encourage proper balancing and fair (but not inappropriate) use of content.

our instructors simply do not have the time to conduct an exhaustive analysis of each use, even if they did take the time to learn all the permutations of the fair use analysis. This isn’t to say that they can’t, but to state the reality that they won’t.

even those who steep themselves in the details of fair use can disagree on whether a certain use is fair or violative.

When intellectual property law experts cannot agree, we should not expect our history and math faculty to do justice to the fair use analysis each time. 

Instead, faculty will divide into two camps.  One group will “throw caution to the wind” and use whatever content they wish in whatever form they desire, hoping never to raise the ire of the publishing companies.  The other, out of an abundance of caution, will self-censor, and fail to make fair use of content for fear that they might step over a line they cannot possibly identify, and can never be certain of until a judge rules one way or the other.  Either way, our students and the publishers lose out.

California has also launched an open textbook program for K-12 students, with the objective of ultimately eliminating the state’s $400 million annual textbook budget. Utah, Florida, Maine and Washington State have begun similar initiatives.

A sale on the institutional level would mean that 30 out of 30 students would get the digital textbook, bringing back into the marketplace fully two-thirds of the prospective customers.  You can lower your price on individual units if you can make it up in volume

To have textbooks come pre-installed, college publishers now approach institutions directly, not through the individual instructor.  Not all institutions can or will play this game; I think it unlikely that elite institutions will insist that instructors use an approved text.  But this model has already become the norm in commercial schools and is climbing up the tree, stopping at community colleges and  financially-constrained state colleges, and slowly getting attention at some universities.   Over time this marketing method will transform college publishing.

The benefits to this method are many. First, these sales are made directly to institutions, which finance the purchases in various ways, increases to student fees among them.  This cuts out the bookstore, saving 20%-50% of the selling price.  Second, the books are digital, which saves more money.  And then–bonanza!–the colleges make the books available to all enrolled students, ending the trend of students working without texts.  This strategy effectively puts an end to the used-book market.

it is not hard to envision a time when faculty has the same status within a university as an employee has in a corporation.

a whittling away at the prerogatives of individual instructors.

acknowledged that educators’ use of copyrighted material would be unlikely to harm publishers financially when schools aren’t offered the chance to license excerpts of copyrighted work.

higher education MUST reform itself on this matter. 

Take a look at the extraordinary expansive scope, terms and damages of copyright before micromanaging fair use.  And give not-for-profit higher education more weight on the scales of copyright justice.

We think it’s time to focus on how this cycle impacts student outcomes and drives up the cost of education, particularly with regard to attrition.

How is this cycle burdening schools with unintended costs from poorly prepared and under-performing students who don’t persist to completion?

If it is possible to provide complete availability of course materials, a robust used and rental marketplace, and access to free teaching materials like Open Educational Resources, then why are college administrators not more engaged in exploring alternatives to stocking textbooks in their physical stores?

In the end, we see the conversation about textbook costs as moving into a broader circle, involving the college CFO, provost, and president. College presidents have not been fully engaged in considering how schools meet this critical student need more efficiently. But since they are also under enormous pressure to cut costs and improve educational outcomes, the day when college presidents turn their attention to this key piece of student performance is surely close at hand.

textbook delivery and bookstore services are only now becoming a prominent issue for CFOs

charging students exorbitant mark-ups on course materials to help fund school initiatives is becoming an increasingly questionable practice in higher education.

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), between 25% and 33% of students reported not even buying required textbooks.

Cost is the biggest issue chasing students away

Access to high-quality, low-cost textbooks is the most important service schools can provide

Used books are the most important resource to the future of schools’ bookstores

Financial aid, designed to assist financially-challenged students, is actually leading them to the most expensive options for textbooks

In the face of competition, schools still believe they will be in the business of selling textbooks out of a brick-and-mortar in the coming years This might be the most surprising outcome of the survey

What Can You Do? Best Practices Bookstore Services Audit If you wish to further examine the issue of textbook affordability at your school, what can you do? We recommend starting with an audit of your bookstore practices, taking into consideration how the economic model is changing as well as how student preparedness affects overall student academic performance. We have put together the Akademos Textbook Affordability Best Practices Audit to assist you with evaluating both the health and the mission of your textbook practices. As always, you can also reach out to us directly to have a conversation about your textbook delivery mission and practices.

From the perspectives of affordability and pedagogical flexibility, when faculty make course materials adoption decisions they should chose OER first, all other things being equal. When it is impossible to choose OER, faculty should choose library resources. Students should be required to individually purchase commercial materials only when OER and library resources are impossible to use.

This process begins by making a special effort to resist the temptation to throw our hands up and retreat back to commercial materials when we realize one of our learning outcomes is in the “not yet” zone.

Use the power of academic promotion and tenure to reward academic colleagues who invest time, intellect, and effort into writing, editing, and peer reviewing open-access textbooks rather than writing textbooks on behalf of for-profit publishers.

Take advantage of the growing number of library-based programs that provide grants to instructors who adopt open-access course texts.

Make use of the growing corpus of open-access, peer-reviewed course materials

Fully exercise the right of fair use to make as much course material as possible digitally available to students via course-management or library systems.

Quit assigning over-priced textbooks,