Internet2, a group of 221 colleges and universities which are aiming to collaborate on the implementation of new technologies to cut costs in higher education, announced Wednesday that five of its members would be piloting an e-textbook program this semester. The participant schools will each offer a number of classes which will use e-textbooks published by McGraw-Hill and a platform called Courseload which will enable students to read and annotate the texts on any HTML5-capable smartphone, tablet or computer.
The University is among the schools involved in the initiative, and its embrace of such an experiment is a welcome sign that faculty and administrators are serious about combatting the rapidly rising costs of college attendance. Although there is little the University can do to avoid tuition increases as state funding continues to decline, the success of this trial program could at least offer a way to reverse the trend of skyrocketing prices for course materials.
Publishers should support the widespread adoption of e-textbooks since they currently lose out on a large number of sales because of the used textbook market. Often, a student will buy a new textbook and then sell it back to his school's bookstore or another vendor at the end of the semester. When these vendors subsequently resell the books to other students, publishers receive none of the revenue.
The model being piloted by the University, however, ensures that publishers will receive money each time students in a course are assigned to use their textbooks. In exchange for this guarantee, schools can demand that publishers sell them the e-textbooks at substantially reduced per-unit prices.
To see how this would benefit both students and publishers, consider a current McGraw-Hill microeconomics textbook required for ECON 2010 at the University. A new copy retails for $180, but if the book is resold two times then McGraw-Hill only receives $60 per student use. Students who buy the book used, meanwhile, will pay $135 if they purchase from the bookstore.
An electronic copy of the same textbook, however, is sold through the bookstore for only $94.50. This is less than the net cost that many students would pay for a traditional copy of the textbook, even if they were to sell it back to the bookstore or another vendor at a wholesale price. Furthermore, McGraw-Hill will receive $94.50 per student use regardless of how many consecutive years its textbook is in use since students cannot sell back e-textbooks. Thus, students can save money and publishers can be assured of a more consistent revenue stream.
This outcome will only be achieved, though, if universities are willing to endure a period of trial and error with regard to the implementation of e-textbooks. Some faculty and students will be resistant to abandoning traditional textbooks, and they should not be forced to do so. Moreover, for those who do adopt the new technology there is often a steep learning curve.
Universities therefore must work to make the transition to e-textbooks as seamless as possible, which is why it is encouraging that the Internet2 pilot program is using an e-textbook platform which works on many different devices and will integrate with Collab, the University's learning-management platform. Yet although the process will have to be gradual, current and prospective students should appreciate the University's willingness to adopt e-textbooks since they offer one of the best possibilities to hold down the seemingly uncontrollable increase in the cost of attending college.
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