What will happen to the college textbook? Will students turn to a device or will they always use the traditional textbook?
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E-paper Forum » General Discussion » Textbooks?
Textbooks?
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Posted 1 year ago #
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I think they are going to turn to a e-reader devices. Out with the old, in with the new.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I agree with you. Everything changes rapidly now.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I think electronic text books are a great idea especially for students who do not live on campus. If you have two or three classes scheduled for a day it becomes quite cumbersome to cart all the class materials around with you.
The success of any university that makes the move to fully digital textbooks will hinge on the reader its self. The most promising that I have seen is the plastic logic reader. If the reader makes good on its promises it appears to be ideal for this application. Regardless of what reader is chosen it will need to be the same across the board for the entire university to be successful.
There are some shortcomings changing over to e-textbooks.
Pirating of the books; Collage students are among the most technologically adept groups. Any protected books would quickly be unlocked and distributed. Collage students generally do not have a lot of extra money so these “free” books would be very appealing.
Sharing of books; When I was in college I would routinely borrow books from classmates who had already taken the course. Electronic books would make this difficult.
Selling books back; Any textbooks that I did not see a need to keep I sold back. This is a common way to recoup some of the cost of the books. I foresee it being difficult to sell “used” digital media.
Open book tests; When I was in school, open book exams that allowed only the textbook were quite common. Ebook readers would allow the student to have an entire library at there fingertips. This may mean a change in testing methods but I’m sure it would be a hard sell.
Despite the problems I think it is only a mater of time before e-textbooks are the norm. The biggest factor will be the availability of a high quality, easy to used and inexpensive ebook readers.
Posted 1 year ago #
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