*Price comparison *
“Java Software Structures: Designing and Using Data Structures,” fourth edition
List price: $118-$123
Ball State cost: $50.40
Student payment, including Courseload and Ball State fee: $64.40
Amazon new print copy: $123.58
Amazon used print copy: $118.60
Amazon Kindle edition: $95.29
Amazon Rent: $48.67
Sources: Amazon.com and Yasemin Tunc, assistant vice president for academic solutions
• University program automatically charges students for e-textbook.
• Studies show students learn better with traditional books.
• Official says paper books offer “fundamental properties” for learning.
The e-textbook program Ball State officially adopted this semester to lower the cost of textbooks may not be the most efficient way to learn, according to some studies.
Courseload eContent Readiness Program allows professors to opt-in for an e-texbook versus a conventional textbook. Students are automatically charged for the book and the content is accessible on Blackboard.
The program gives students a discount of up to 65 percent off cover price and one publisher is offering a 70 percent discount this semester. For some classes, the cheapest option would be to rent a traditional book, but Courseload would allow students to have the content for longer.
The Ball State eTextbook Initiative says e-textbooks “enhance collaboration and improve learning.” However, students don’t learn as efficiently, said a James Madison University professor, who has conducted studies on e-books.
David Daniel, a psychology professor at James Madison, has conducted a number of studies concerning e-books.
“You can learn just as well by giving yourself more time,” Daniel said. “You can’t learn as efficiently. Anybody who tells you they are as good or better is wrong. The first goal is they have to be readable and that’s where they fall down. They are not as readable.”
He thinks the economic reasons are not great enough to push e-textbooks because “time is money.”
New interactive features may not be beneficial, either. Daniel said students usually bypass those extra features.
“They aren’t sticking to the fundamental property, which is how to make it more readable,” he said. “They are trying to pretend the computer is paper, but the computer is not paper. There is something about reading it on a screen versus paper that makes it harder for your eyes to fixate.”
Students have the option to purchase a printed version of the textbook in addition to the e-textbook for an additional fee through Courseload.
Yasemin Tunc, assistant vice president for academic solutions, said five more class sections are using the program this semester for a total of 73 sections.
She said this program is meant to give faculty an easy way to switch to e-textbooks for their classes.
“Electronic textbooks have been around for quite some time, and I encouraged them to use it because it was so much cheaper than the hard cover textbook,” she said.
The Student Government Association is looking to create legislation giving the university feedback in a response to student concerns this semester about the requirement.
“[We] found this important because a number of students currently enrolled have said they are more so accustomed to having a regular textbook than having an electronic one,” said James Wells, SGA academic affairs committee chairperson.
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