Thursday, August 20, 2009

Digital Textbooks: 3 Reasons Students Aren’t Ready

Mashable / August 17 2009 / Josh Catone

[snip] Among the theoretical benefits of digital textbooks is the possibility of significant cost savings due to lower overhead costs — bits are cheaper than printed pages, after all. Unfortunately, students shouldn’t chuck their backpacks any time soon; there still exist some major hurdles that digital textbooks must overcome before they widely replace traditional, printed textbooks on college (and high school) campuses.

The benefits of digital textbooks are numerous: they’re potentially cheaper, they’re better for the environment ... , they weigh less, they can be updated more easily, and they’re more easily searched. But for all that, a number of hurdles still exist.

1. Cost Savings Must be Greater

In theory, digital textbooks should cost a lot less than their printed counterparts. Textbook publishers will always have overhead costs ... but the costs associated with physically printing, binding, warehousing, and shipping the book are eliminated when going digital. Further, many textbook publishers already publish electronic editions of their books. McGraw-Hill, for example, which is one of the largest textbook publishers in the United States, publishes nearly 95% of its books electronically.

In practice, though, the cost savings for electronic textbooks are miniscule. “Human Biology,” a textbook published by Pearson imprint Benjamin Cummings, for example, costs about $50 used, and about $80 new in its printed/hard copy form (according to Via electronic textbook publisher CourseSmart, the digital version costs just over $70, a savings of about 12.5% over the printed version. However, the printed version can be kept forever or sold back at the end of the semester to mitigate costs, while the electronic version is automatically deleted after 180 days, and requires additional equipment, such as an ebook reader or a laptop computer. As a student, which of these options makes more sense?

“At the moment, there’s not a lot of [cost savings],” Tom Rosenthal, the senior manager of electronic product sales at textbook publisher Academic Press ... . Those cost savings will have to become more significant for students to start opting for electronic texts over printed ones.

2. A Standard Format is Needed

When Amazon announced the larger format Kindle DX in May, and along with it a pilot digital textbook program at several major US universities to be launched this fall — including Princeton, UVA, Case Western, Arizona State, and Reed College — we called it “a game changer.” But it also raises a very important question about formats and ebook compatibility issues.

There are many different competing ebook formats and a huge number of textbook publishers that don’t all use the same format. [snip] What that means for students in a practical sense is that vendor lock-in might prohibit them from going print-free even if they wanted to, because not all of their required course materials may be available for the reader or software they invested in. Because buying an ebook reader is a significant initial cost outlay, it’s hard to expect students to make that investment without assurances that all, or at least nearly all, of their required books will be available in that format.


3. Questions of Ownership

One of the most important stumbling points for the adoption of digital texts is the question of who actually owns the books. CourseSmart’s books, for example, generally only last for 180 days before being automatically deleted, which means that students are essentially renting them for a set period of time. That’s not a consideration students need to make when purchasing a hard copy book from a bookstore, where the answer to question of ownership is very clear. [snip]

[snip] If students feel that they don’t actually own the textbooks they purchase, or that their books might be taken away before they are done with them (or that their notes might be damaged), they’re unlikely to embrace electronic textbooks.


Digital textbooks are indeed a potential game changer, and they are likely going to be a major part of the future of academia. A year from now, the National Associated of College Stores estimates that digital textbooks could account for 15% of all textbook sales. However, for that to happen, textbook publishers, ebook reader manufacturers, and schools must first address some of the major hurdles that are making students wary of electronic books.

Further, in addition to the problems that exist with the digital books themselves, electronic textbook publishers also need to overcome deeply ingrained student behavior. For many students, the idea of reading words on a screen is not as appealing as on a printed page. [snip]

“We may have actually made enough progress for this to be a landmark device, but the caveat that humans have proven is that they are resistant to change,” said Andrew Dillon, Dean of the University of Texas School of Information about the Kindle DX device. “Fighting 700 years of human familiarity with paper is a huge challenge.”

Image courtesy of
iStockphoto / gibsonff





    one giant, steaming scoop of 'FAIL' for Benjamin Cummings over there. on me.

    ...Cummings had better not blame the technology when *that* one falls on its face.

  2. 1. Other college level biology texbooks cost SIGNIFICANTLY more--as do textbooks in other disciplines (some paperbacks only 1/2" thick cost over $80.00)
    2. Some textbooks are written to cover both
    beginning and intermediate level course work. Therefore the print version of the book has a longer class life than others.
    3. Is that a flat 180 days after purchase, or is that 180 days after the semester? This appears to be more of a book rental than a book purchase. It should be up to the person who pays the cash to delete the book, not the publisher; sheesh.
    4. I am an academic librarian, and mother of college students. I personally want the advantage of electronic books for the economics of it. I watch my kids and a whole slew of others struggling with the outrageous, over-inflated costs of textbooks.
    5. The print costs could be reduced if they bound those books the way they bind popular books; using standard paper instead of glossy paper, and lessening the heavy duty binding; both of which add to the cost and weight of the books.
    6. Electronic books is the wave of the future. The publishing business (which frankly tends to have its head up a particular hole anyway) needs to join the 21st century and get over itself.

