Dear President Jim Doti...

There is a problem with higher education in America. The cost of tuition has been compounded by the skyrocketing cost of textbooks. Traditional print text books have created a rigid system in our schools which place monetary stress on the students (about $900 dollars a year), inflexible and dated content as source materials for professors, and an unsustainable impact on the enviroment (4 billion trees a year).

Thankfully technology has caught up with our needs and a solution has arison to match this costly problem. e-books, or digital textbooks, are now readily available at lower cost to traditional texts and provide advanced and interative teaching tools limited only by the imagination of our professors.

Jim Doti, as president of our school lead us out of this costly and deeply flawed system. Act as a trailblazer in the field of education and establish Chapman University as a progessive and innovative institution which respects concerns of its student body and the world as a whole. Make the switch from a print based system and establish a digital based e-book system of textbooks.

This blog will explore the facets of this issue, while fleshing out the arguments I have just laid out with imperical data and adaptive tools to reach my goal of e-books for Chapman University.

Doti You Say You Want Chapman To Be An Ivy Leauge School of The West? Well Start Acting As Ivy Leagues Act

Princeton University is leading the way as far as e-book technology goes. This semester the University is giving Kindles out to students to use for different courses. Their goal: to signifigantly reduce the cost and impact of the paper used at the school. Research found that that the campus printers spit out 15 million pages last year, costing the school 5 million dollars.

About 60 people in all, students, faculty, and staff, will receive the $489 devices, and the participants will be questioned throughout the semester to determine whether they're an acceptable alternative to paper.

Amazon chief executive Jeffrey Bezos, a Princeton alum, unveiled the new Kindle earlier this week, calling it a better fit for students. At 9.7 inches across, it's more textbook-friendly than the smaller Kindle 2. It also can read PDF files.

Perhaps most importantly, in Bezos's view, students can annotate text, marking up passages and writing in the margins as they would on paper (video).

If the Kindle is the solution to the problem of textbooks, Princeton will be the first to know and the first to adapt the techology to best fit their educational purposes. If Chapman University wants to be a leading University it must take these bold strides towards the future.

A College Student

After filling this blog up with facts, statistics, and imperial evidence, I think its time to look at this issue from a personal level; and that person is me. My name is Austin and this is my fourth year at Chapman University. Tuition for Chapman is $33,760 this year, which is thankfully curbed somewhat by a scholarship and financial aid. However, outside tuition, the biggest cost of going to Chapman is Textbooks.

Although this was a lighter semester for textbooks, I did still pay $430 for all texts. My most expensive semester was about $800 dollars. I try to buy used textbooks but they are often not available because I need to buy the "new" edition which has not been used in classes yet. One of my problems with these overpriced books are the fact that the professors don't always used the entire text, even though I have to pay for the whole thing. This is the case especially with my French Textbook which we only work from page 231 on. I consider myself a responsible person when it comes to the environment (I recycle, ride my bike to school/ work)and this waste of paper every semester seems outrageous and unnecessary. To compound the problem when I try to sell back my books at the end of the semester, I rarely get over %10 of the initial cost back because my book has become "outdated" by some "new edition"

The most stand-out example I have experienced was for Bus-100: intro to business. I paid $139 for the textbook (new - there were no used available), "Business: Principles, Practices, and Guidelines". The professor used slides provided from the teacher edition of the textbook during lecture. Our tests were based on these slides, which were available on Blackboard for review. I never once opened my text, which was required to buy for the class. At the end of the semester the bookstore offered to buy it back for $8.

I could not believe how much of a ridiculous waste this was. I felt like my education was not respected by Chapman University for letting this happen. I felt the cost of my education was not respected by the Chapman University bookstore. This is not a sustainable system. Chapman should respect the students that make this university what it is and address this issue. Jim Doti, be the leader of this university you were appointed to be and stand up for your students, stand up for innovative and progressive education, and lead this university towards a more responsible and sustainable future.

Textbook Podcasts from iTunes U

Here are a couple of interesting college lectures dissecting the issues and potential solutions to our current textbook system at college. The following are all available as free downloads from iTunes' college lecture podcast series, iTunes U:

Professors Bokyoung Kim, Junghoon Leem, Munmu Yoo from Seattle Pacific University discuss the development of digital textbooks in Korea and appliciable aspects for use at U.S. universities. The lecture is from their course "Trends & Research in Global Education"
listen here

This lecture, from Ohio State University, is a discussion entitled "The Future of Textbooks"
listen here

This lecture, from University of California at Davis, is titled "Generation E: Teaching teachers how to navigate the e-enviroment". It discusses the changing relationship between students and technology and how educators can use this to make the education process more effective.
listen here

Enviromental Impact of Textbooks

Students spend, on average, $900 on textbooks each year but what is the cost of this system to our planet?

4 billion trees are cut down each year for paper production

According to the U.S. Toxic Release Inventory report published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pulp and paper mills are among the worst polluters to air, water and land of any industry in the country.

According to a report by National Wildlife Federation, USA, “Paper production ranks among the most resource-intensive and highly polluting of all manufacturing industries.” The report further considers paper industry as being “responsible for the release of persistent toxic pollutants like chlorine, mercury, lead and phosphorus into the environment, resulting in a number of health problems including cancers, nerve disorders, and fertility problems.”

Printing and writing paper accounts for almost 27,000 tons of wood pulp a year.

The planet is exposed to 250,000 metric tons of toxic pollutants from paper manufacturers each year.

In 2008, the U.S. book and newspaper industries combined resulted in the harvesting of 125 million trees, not to mention wastewater that was produced or its massive carbon footprint.

Solution:

The Cleantech Group forecasts that e-readers purchased from 2009 to 2012 could prevent 5.3 billion kg of carbon dioxide in 2012, or 9.9 billion kg during the four-year time period.

The same study finds that, on average, the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of a Kindle is fully offset after the first year of use.

Do New Editions of Textbooks Benefit The Student Or The Publisher?

College textbook prices have increased at nearly four times the rate of inflation for all finished goods since 1994 and textbook publishers engage in practices that artificially inflate textbook costs, according to a new study by the Student PIRGs. According to the study, students pay an average of $900 dollars a year on textbooks.

Here is what the study found on "new edition textbooks":

* The most widely purchased textbooks on college campuses have new editions published every three years, on average.

* New editions of the textbooks surveyed cost, on average, 45 percent more than used copies of the previous edition.

* When issuing new editions, most publishers raise the prices of their books. Of the textbooks surveyed, new textbook prices jumped 12 percent on average between the previous and current edition, almost twice the rate of inflation between 2000 and 2003 (6.8 percent).

* Three-fourths (76 percent) of the faculty surveyed in our 2004 report said that they found new editions justified only "half the time" or less.

more info

This system is clearly flawed and those who suffer under it are the students left with the burden of the cost and universities whose credibility is put in question when the quality of its educational supplies are undermined by publishers trying to make larger profits. Jim Doti, as president of Chapman University, an institution which am proud to call my own, be a leader and change this deeply flawed system; bring e-books to Chapman University.

A Look At Some Early Adapters

Hear what Abilene Christian University has to say about their experiences with utilizing digital technology in the classroom:

"ACU’s “Connected” initiative leverages mobility to create a more flexible, communal, and multivocal space for learning in the 21st century. A 1-to-1 program using iPhones and iPod touches, Connected seeks to break down the restrictions of many classroom models. With access to online information whenever and wherever they need it, a robust set of communication technologies, and rich media creation and playback tools, students in Connected classes become content creators and resources rather than merely serving as consumers of pre-developed information, and teachers move from content delivery to roles as guides, assessors, and moderators. Connected yields not merely a new form of active learning, but also a new form of active teaching.

With Connected, teachers and students have access to a robust set of academic, informational and social tools, all interlinked in a mobile portal. MyACU Mobile uses Web 2.0 technologies to provide single-sign-on access to campus information (maps, news and events, campus directories), city information (guides to restaurants, businesses, and services), and a robust set of teaching tools—including class blogs, rapid-deployment student-response tools, mobile file and dropbox access, podcasting, course calendaring, and class-management tools, all integrated with student- and course-information systems to increase engagement and community across campus."
More info

Although this next example is for high school education, the response to e-book technology is strong

Dear Professor...

E-books expand the possibilities of higher education and can revolutionize the education process with engaging and interactive tools which speak to this generation of scholars. Professors can pick and choose readings and interactive devices from many different sources without passing on the cost to the students and make them purchase all these sources. Numerous times over the last three years, I have bought a book only to find the professor uses a couple of chapters or worse never uses it at all. I believe e-books are a viable solution to this problem. By having textbooks on a digital medium, the information is more up to date and thus more relevant. No longer with e-books will we have to buy the "new edition", professors will be able to update their curriculum without waiting for a new cycle of publishing.

“What’s really terrific about e-books,” says Rik Kranenburg, president of McGraw-Hill’s Higher Education, Professional and International Group, “is that the technology lends itself to all kinds of new applications and learning formats—new ways that students learn, and instructors can use and integrate the technology to instruct.”

Plus Professor, our brains like e-books better...

Cost Efficiency of E-books

Some of the main issues I hear from critics of E-books is that it would be too expensive to switch from the current model and that e-books are not widely available to handle the switch. In the case for college education, both arguments no longer stand up.

To address cost first,McGraw-Hill, one of the largest publishers of college textbooks, claims that cost reduction from e-book would be drastic. Rik Kranenburg, president of McGraw-Hill’s Higher Education, points out that most McGraw-Hill e-textbooks sell for about 60 percent of the cost of their print versions. Not only is the myth of e-books being an expensive technological switch debunked, it is true that e-books could help curb the incessant and seemingly endless skyrocketing of college education costs.

The latter concern that e-books aren't widely available enough to match the varying demands that print technology satisfies is also false. Here are some statistics and industry insight on the expanding e-book market:

"The market for digital books … has been roughly doubling every 18 months,” says Andrew Savikas, O’Reilly Media’s vice president of digital initiatives.

Trade wholesale electronic-book revenue was more than $37 million in the second quarter of 2009, compared to just $11.6 million in Q2 2008, according to the International Digital Publishing Forum

More than 12 million e-books have been downloaded by the Stanza e-reader iPhone app, which turned one-year old in July.

HarperCollins: Ninety-five percent of the publisher’s titles are released in digital format, and same-month e-book sales have increased as much as 400 percent (June 2009 vs. June 2008).

Chapman University what are you waiting for? With the technology readily available and the student body agitated over the rising costs of tuition, there is no better time than now to stand up as a leader in higher education and make the switch to e-books.

Sustainable Alternative To Textbooks

After spending thousands of dollars on text books over the last 4 years of college and getting little in return for selling them back, I wonder if there may be a alternative to this costly (both fiscally and ecologically) system.

My problem revolves around the economic strain placed on students who are forced to overpay for “new” editions of textbooks which are updated all too frequently with little new content. This system of “new” editions profits publishers and authors but puts unnecessary strain on the education system without significant benefits. This system also has considerable ecological implications due to the massive amount of paper used to publish these books.

Some more progressive universities are adopting the usage of e-books such as the kindle to address this issue.While reading about Arizona State's experiment using the technology, I thought why can't Chapman University do the same.

Learn more about the Kindle