Any students using electronic readers for classes?

[snipenekkid]

Originally Posted by starrigger

That's the mythology, all right. A shame it isn't true. Or certainly isn't universally true. My brother is the coauthor of a college psychology text. Every four or five years he works his butt off rewriting, reshaping, revamping his textbook according to what the publisher wants, what the teaching needs seem to be, and what the latest research shows. He would not take your characterization kindly at all.

On the e-side of the question, he reports his publisher (a major textbook publisher) to have no visible plan whatsoever for embracing e-publishing. He's not an ebook guy himself, so he doesn't worry about that very much. I keep suggesting that he, and they, ought to give it some thought.

wow, thought you were made of sterner stuff than to whine about this fact of life in college. What your single individual brother does has zero relevance to what every one of us who has attended more than the first week of college has experienced. Incremental updated editions of textbooks which offer zero substantial added information than the previous editions.

If you want to rail against anyone, rail against the publisher of the books which diminish your brother's hard work to actually provide new and improved editions. Those are always good for students, theoretically anyway as it's ultimately comes down to the prof not the book.

But come-on man, you have more than this in ya!

[jgray]

A few years ago, I took a couple of classes. I used a Fujitsu Tablet PC and MS OneNote. Not perfect, but it worked quite well. I managed to find two of the books I needed in e-format.

A lightweight, large screen tablet (an i, A or W variety) that lasts all day on a charge would be great for classes. Other than getting all your textbooks on it, you also need good software for annotations, taking notes and importing Powerpoints or PDFs.

[Lirael]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

Sorry - did I read that right? They put an expiration date on the etextbook? Face palm. Who publishes these things? GM? It sounds like planned failure of a product.

They figure, I think, that once you're done with the class you're not gonna read it again, so you may as well just rent it for the duration. Depending on the price of the e-textbook, it may be worth your while. For example, I had to take an econ course, even though I'm not an economics major and after that econ course was done there would be no way I'd ever need to look at that econ book again. My choices for the book were:

Buy it new for $100-something
Buy an old edition used for $70-something
Pay $30 in order to access the e-textbook for six months

Now, once class is done, I'm not going to use this book again.

If I have a paper book, I can:
1. Sell it back to the bookstore for $2. Yeah, no, not gonna happen.

2. I can try on my own to find someone to sell it to over the internet. However, I won't get back as much as I paid for it. I'm also likely to have trouble finding a buyer, as a new edition comes out fairly often, so my old edition will probably be a REALLY old edition by the time my course is done. In addition, I'll need to take the time to set up an account on whatever website I use, go to the post office to package and ship the book, and make sure the book *gets* there or deal with the customer if it doesn't.

3. Keep the book and let it gather dust on my shelf.

For me, the $30 textbook rental was the best option. Now, if they're charging more for e-book rental than for a paper copy of the book, that's just stupid...

[ficbot]

Mine was from Pearson Educational Media, and I would never get a book from that publisher again. The price was about $20 cheaper than the print book but a) you had to read it on your computer, you could not download to a device b) you could not copy and paste at all, not even one word at a time and c) it expired the day the class was done. It was completely ridiculous.

[Latebloomer]

Originally Posted by jessicalynn

If I could read textbooks on my ipad, I would be so, so happy. But nookstudy doesn't work on ipad and I haven't seen any other options for extextbooks on ipad.

Have you looked at Coursesmart.com? They seem to have a pretty comprehensive range of etextbooks and most of them give you the option of downloading to one computer or else using the online version that you can access from any device that can connect to the internet.

[Kiasmama]

what has kept me from buying e books for class (graduate) is that the ones I've had access to only let you "borrow" the book and not keep it. If it were remarkably cheaper I might go that route, but for only a savings of a few bucks...nah...I'll buy the book. *sigh*

[snipenekkid]

Originally Posted by Latebloomer

Have you looked at Coursesmart.com? They seem to have a pretty comprehensive range of etextbooks and most of them give you the option of downloading to one computer or else using the online version that you can access from any device that can connect to the internet.

And you never will thanks to Apple's 30% cut of all in-app content sales. And unless there is clarification the only way you will see textbooks on iOS devices is if the publisher prices their textbooks pretty much the same as the print editions in order to cover Apple's cut of the take.

[pagansoul]

I use my iPad at work. I loaded my working PDFs into Goodreader. Things like Policy Manuals and Compensation Plans. I also have Work Aids and a few Legal papers. Great for taking to meetings. Plus I take notes on it. I use Informant HD as my planner.

[Hellmark]

Speaking of the etextbooks being a pain, right now the McGraw Hill website is having issues, and will not load the portion of the site with classwork and the etextbooks properly. I am in class, and there is a exercise we need to do in the book. I am SOL since I cannot access the information.

They've done little to allow easy access to the information that they're being paid for. By having it be online only, the customer's access is entirely dependent on having a functional network connection, and the reliability of their own servers. If they had allowed for a downloadable format, many headaches could be avoided.

[guyanonymous]

It's sad. Those who pirated the text (either e-download/scan/photocopy) are enjoying it easily, while those who purchased it are SOL.

[bookfiend]

Not a student, but a lit professor, and I wish we'd had these around when I was in school! I also wish more of my students would try one out; I teach fairly old stuff, and all the basic texts are available for free, legally. Which, I think, beats getting robbed at the bookstore (these are foreign-language titles, and they're incredibly expensive sometimes).

This semester, I've kept the book purchasing way down, and provided links to the free versions for the rest (a good chunk of the course). Hopefully it will encourage them!

[TGS]

Academic books seem to be one of the justifications for darknet lurking. $120 book, university library has two copies but you can get it for nothing if you know where to look and you are not too ethically picky.

You know it makes sense.

[rcuadro]

Originally Posted by jessicalynn

If I could read textbooks on my ipad, I would be so, so happy. But nookstudy doesn't work on ipad and I haven't seen any other options for extextbooks on ipad.

Look for an app called CouseSmart... for the iPad and iPhone
http://www.coursesmart.com/

[Rich_D]

The e-lease works great for me. First, I'm taking all my classes online. In 3 semesters, I've spent about an hour at campus. I'm not getting books at campus and I have no intention of keeping the book after the class is complete. I won't go through the hassle of trying to resell the book and will eventually just toss it. The lease is cheaper than the other options even if it is a couple bucks and I don't have to lug anything around with me. Also, the terms are clearly spelled out when I pay for the book so there isn't any surprise.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by andrewRlong

It's 2011 and students are still lugging around back-breaking tonnages of dead-tree textbooks?

Actually the bit that really irritates me (here in Aus anyway) is if you are at Uni doing Tax/Accounting/Law all the legislations are available online from the relevant agencies for free, but Uni's wont allow electronic devices in exams, so you are forced to spend $100+ on a printed copy of each piece of legislation/standards you need for each class (something which is outdated come next calendar/financial year). These are thick, heavy and expensive.

So.....what can we do? Revolt? I'm afraid it is something to put up with.