Apple Kills the Textbook with iBooks 2, iBooks Author

[caraher]

50. etextbooks still have a long way to go

A few months ago I attended a forum where several faculty at my university described their experiences with two ebook platforms (one was Nook Scholar which, ironically, does not work on the Nook device!). One of the biggest surprises was negative student feedback regarding things like eyestrain (for the most part, students read these on laptops). One big drawback was limited access - in one model you basically had to be connected to the internet, and I think with both you didn't have the book permanently, just for the semester.

There was a lot of hype about annotation capabilities, and the ability to share annotations among classmates. Some faculty felt this was a huge step backward, akin to reading a novel from the library somebody has already scribbled all over. For other purposes this might be handy. One can also track student reading to some extent, but the main system people used also allowed students to buy black and white hardcopies for something like $25, and it wasn't clear that students who didn't show as reading weren't simply using the paper copy instead. (For this package, purchase of the ebook was "mandatory" for all students; the paper copy was optional.)

Searchability is obviously a huge advantage over paper textbooks.

I can't wait to find ways to make books more affordable for my students; I already factor price into my adoption decisions. But I'm still not sure we're "there" yet. I think truth in advertising is lacking - if you only have access for the semester, it's really more of a rental or access fee, which is not at all the same as buying a book.