A Question To Students
An interesting question posed to any students who happen to reach this blog. “Would You Use an E-book if the price was right?“.
So there is the question. University is the investment that seems to cost everyone who goes through its doors a fair wack of money; money which could understandable be spend perhaps playing and buying new Lacrosse or Riding equipment as deep down we all know that’s what you guys really want from life. OK, enough of my slightly biased non student friendly attitude.
In Washington DC in the last week the local universities grounds where temporarily covered with Tombstones which lined the many pathways, with headings crying “RIP Off” with pictures of the many textbooks which are seemingly vital to any students life.
The students at the University are campaigning for a change to be made in the monopoly that publishing companies seem to have of the fairly large student text book market. The alternative to hard copy forms of textbooks being the E-book (perhaps the one genius idea of the last few years which has never really taken off). Of course I hear the concerns of some that these books might not be ‘correct’ or easily edited with wrong information etc. However the E-book versions of the textbooks are peer reviewed and professionally edited and more importantly are free. Unfortunately Print Versions seem to be fairly expensive. Do I need to say that again? FREE!
University of Washington Freshman Justin McCarthy who is the leader of this intellectual movement for change said this.
Our main mission is basically just to raise awareness, letting professors know that there are other resources available. We certainly don’t want to reduce the quality of textbooks just because they’re free. But, we don’t think that the free textbooks and [high-quality textbooks] are necessarily mutually exclusive anymore.
In the last few weeks McCarthy accompanied by a band of willing and frankly slightly pissed volunteers ‘armed with information’, went to every professor at the University explaining the ‘dire’ need for more affordable textbooks. He then asked professors to sign a statement of intent to further explore the options and obviously the practicalities of using the E-book option.
The use of the E-book option would mean that a student could tailor his ‘textbook’ to better suit the lesson plans he/she has. Equally a Professor could then ‘customise’ the textbook to better suit his own teaching thus cutting the amount of time spent lesson planning, and spending more time actually teaching the students what is relevant to the course. From a personal note I remember having copious amounts of textbooks which I barely needed to use; generally only using a few chapters which actually was a waste of time and money. On average a student at Washington DC Uni will spend 13% of their tuition on buying text books.
Lewis Mandell a professor at the School of Business said this:
Most [textbook] publishers build in obsolescence by coming out with a new addition every three years, often with chapters slightly rearranged and with some cosmetic changes. This is not fair to students.
So the big question is – Would the savings that you would have by using the online alternative be actually worth it? I can’t see how this great idea has not been implemented world wide yet? I think you can all guess?
For the Full Article and more information about the plight of these hard up students please visit here
