In addition to offering OER options I think there are some economic benefits of putting the text selection onto the students which also increases the competition and defeats the current flawed economics of the textbook spaces.
It's been a while since I've visited them but I'd bet the ideas are still valid in today's market:
My reference to $100 was intended to apply to a single book. It was my understanding that the buyback price was 50% and the resale price was 75%. The bookstore would only buy back books that were to be assigned again. At UND the University bookstore had competition from student organizations such as the Vets club running a parallel service. Faculty were encouraged to make a commitment to the same texts if teaching the same course in consecutive semesters. I know book reps push the latest options for a given course as this is where the profits were. The book reps would emphasize the most current info their company made available. As national booksellers became an option for students things got much more complicated and books rentals became a counter strategy.
The money ploy was something I wrote to indicate the cost to students needed to be understood within the context of the used book market. It was intended to be funny, but there was also an effort to explain that the issue was more complicated than the cost of new textbooks.
There are multiple textbook questions. The traditional textbook as a product of commercial providers is one issue. How educators use or don't use textbooks is related, but different. My personal background working in a program focused on Instructional Design has shaped some of my thoughts. I am not formally trained as an instructional designer, but my association with this program, its faculty, and students has resulted in my having some different ideas. I now prompt some of my thinking with the question - Are most educators instructional designers? This perspective is useful once one gets beyond textbooks (commercial or otherwise) and gets to the role for educators and educational resources and to what impacts to we expect for each. I have been working on a perspective related to educational resources I describe as layering. This perspective considers how elements (questions, prompts of various types, recommended or required activities) are added to information sources to produce educational resources. I am most interested in tech services that allow educators to expand upon previously existing online content (web pages and videos) to make these resources more beneficial to students, but this is just my take on basic design principles applied to tools I find interesting and what I believe is a growing interest in educators at all levels using information resources (you might even describe these as primary sources) more frequently.
I agree. This is part of why I'm calling this section "Open Ed" and not "Zero Textbook Cost". I think there's a lot to talk about beyond the simple issue of how much a student paid for textbooks. But I also think that's a relevant starting point. And for what its worth, the level of energy being put into this might be much different is commercial publishers had made different choices.
I been interested in the issue of textbook costs for some time and my original interest was in considering the actual cost that would be reasonable. Some of my thoughts considered whether the cost issue was overhyped. Here is a post I wrote to be humorous about this issue more than a decade ago. I titled the post - The beer money ploy. https://www.learningaloud.com/curmudgeonspeaks/2013/12/19/beer-money-ploy-repurposed/
The differential between what the bookstore will sell you a textbook for (even used) and what it will offer you at the end of the semester is certainly a thing. I'll provide some statistics soon. The expense has been approaching $1,000 rather than $100 for many and there seems to be some credible evidence that at least some students are choosing between buying food and books rather than beer.
Are you aware of any academic who instead of exploring alternatives to commercial textbooks has proposed changes commercial content providers could make to offer better products? How much is about cost and how much is about value?
In addition to offering OER options I think there are some economic benefits of putting the text selection onto the students which also increases the competition and defeats the current flawed economics of the textbook spaces.
It's been a while since I've visited them but I'd bet the ideas are still valid in today's market:
- https://boffosocko.com/2015/08/24/to-purchase-rent-or-pirate-the-broken-economics-of-textbooks-in-the-digital-age/
- https://boffosocko.com/2011/07/30/on-choosing-your-own-textbooks/
If you haven't printed your syllabi yet, you could experiment...
My reference to $100 was intended to apply to a single book. It was my understanding that the buyback price was 50% and the resale price was 75%. The bookstore would only buy back books that were to be assigned again. At UND the University bookstore had competition from student organizations such as the Vets club running a parallel service. Faculty were encouraged to make a commitment to the same texts if teaching the same course in consecutive semesters. I know book reps push the latest options for a given course as this is where the profits were. The book reps would emphasize the most current info their company made available. As national booksellers became an option for students things got much more complicated and books rentals became a counter strategy.
The money ploy was something I wrote to indicate the cost to students needed to be understood within the context of the used book market. It was intended to be funny, but there was also an effort to explain that the issue was more complicated than the cost of new textbooks.
There are multiple textbook questions. The traditional textbook as a product of commercial providers is one issue. How educators use or don't use textbooks is related, but different. My personal background working in a program focused on Instructional Design has shaped some of my thoughts. I am not formally trained as an instructional designer, but my association with this program, its faculty, and students has resulted in my having some different ideas. I now prompt some of my thinking with the question - Are most educators instructional designers? This perspective is useful once one gets beyond textbooks (commercial or otherwise) and gets to the role for educators and educational resources and to what impacts to we expect for each. I have been working on a perspective related to educational resources I describe as layering. This perspective considers how elements (questions, prompts of various types, recommended or required activities) are added to information sources to produce educational resources. I am most interested in tech services that allow educators to expand upon previously existing online content (web pages and videos) to make these resources more beneficial to students, but this is just my take on basic design principles applied to tools I find interesting and what I believe is a growing interest in educators at all levels using information resources (you might even describe these as primary sources) more frequently.
I agree. This is part of why I'm calling this section "Open Ed" and not "Zero Textbook Cost". I think there's a lot to talk about beyond the simple issue of how much a student paid for textbooks. But I also think that's a relevant starting point. And for what its worth, the level of energy being put into this might be much different is commercial publishers had made different choices.
I been interested in the issue of textbook costs for some time and my original interest was in considering the actual cost that would be reasonable. Some of my thoughts considered whether the cost issue was overhyped. Here is a post I wrote to be humorous about this issue more than a decade ago. I titled the post - The beer money ploy. https://www.learningaloud.com/curmudgeonspeaks/2013/12/19/beer-money-ploy-repurposed/
The differential between what the bookstore will sell you a textbook for (even used) and what it will offer you at the end of the semester is certainly a thing. I'll provide some statistics soon. The expense has been approaching $1,000 rather than $100 for many and there seems to be some credible evidence that at least some students are choosing between buying food and books rather than beer.
Are you aware of any academic who instead of exploring alternatives to commercial textbooks has proposed changes commercial content providers could make to offer better products? How much is about cost and how much is about value?