My A.T. Still University Experience : textbooks

Are Electronic Textbooks Worth It?

SteveFoerster — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:31:00 GMT

“Today convenience is the success factor of just about every type of product and service that is showing steady growth.” — Charles G. Mortimer

While the concept isn't new, I've been reading a lot of buzz lately about electronic textbooks. I keep hearing how they're becoming more and more popular with online programs, and even being used with classroom-based learning. Interestingly, in all my years as a student, I have never been assigned an electronic textbook. I finished my Bachelor's online, then did a Master's almost entirely online — in educational technology no less, and now am doing a doctoral program online, but no e-textbook has been part of my experience.

The thing is that I'm not sure I'm sorry about that. There are good and bad aspects to e-textbooks. Not everything about them is great. One drawback is that they can be difficult to read for those of us who would rather go through long stretches of text on actual paper rather than by clicking through screen after screen of text. I suppose I might just be an old fuddy-duddy here, though, as I understand some people are just fine reading forever on a screen. Put another way, my dad used to print out email to read it, and my kids won't print anything, so maybe I'm just in between them.

Besides, I realize that there are a lot of conveniences that go along with electronic textbooks. It's possible to search for a word or phrase and instantly find it anywhere in the book. It doesn't take up any space on your shelf. Some of the newer ones can grade their own quizzes to help you study. And assuming you're already taking your laptop or other e-book reader with you, there's no more weight to carry. Try doing any of that with books make from paper!

But what ought to be the best part of electronic textbooks should be the price. Many times a digital version costs less than the same book in printed form. But even then, are we as students paying too much? Textbooks are obscenely overpriced to begin with, and getting a small discount doesn't make up for that. But sometimes we don't even get that. One school recently announced the option for students to buy their textbooks as digital copies rather than printed ones, and the incentive was that for the digital versions there was no shipping charge. That's it? What about the cost savings from not having to print a big bulky book? Fellow student, you and I do not see the savings.

What's even more interesting is that it might not hurt publishers' bottom lines even if they gave the electronic version of their textbooks away for free. A recent bit in the Chronicle of Higher Education talked about research that shows that even when publishers make the electronic textbooks freely available, sales of the print versions of the same book stay strong.

So how about it publishers? If you're getting your thirty pieces of silver, can't you cut us some kind of a break?

Image courtesy of pmccormi

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Report on the First Semester

SteveFoerster — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:03:00 GMT

“A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.” – Max von Sydow

So I finally managed not only to finish my first term, but also to catch up on all the stuff in my life that got put on the back burner waiting for me to reach that point. And now classes start again for my second term next week. So this is my week to breathe! Because of A.T. Still University's unusual schedule, I'm off at the same time that most people on a more traditional semester system are in the middle of their first term of the year. Since I work for a university, that means I'm taking a break while watching students busily running around. Ah, but don't worry little students, the tables will turn soon enough....

But as long as I'm taking a break, I'll go ahead and look back on the part of the trail I've already covered. This first term I took two courses. One was the first of two courses on Finance in Higher Education, which I really enjoyed, so much so that I'm glad there will be another one next year. The other was a Research course in which I put together the problem statement for my overall research project, its subproblems, a short review of the literature, and an initial draft of my research proposal. As I've mentioned, I also recruited my two external reviewers for my committee, and was lucky to find high quality people willing to take me on.

One thing I haven't yet said is that I finally have a dissertation chair: Patricia Sexton. Dr. Sexton has an impressive array of qualifications to be my dissertation chair, including that she has a doctorate in health education of her own, she's Director of Research at the School of Health Management, and she's an instructor of nutrition courses for ATSU's medical school. This last one is particularly exciting, as I knew that my chair would have an Education background, but I wasn't expecting that she'd also be able to point me in the right direction when it comes to being a subject matter expert. So I'm pretty happy with the university for assigning her to me. And with her, my committee is complete.

I should also report on my attempt to get out of buying textbooks by checking them out of the library. This actually more or less worked, and where it didn't work well it was mainly through my own foolishness – e.g., not checking the edition number before requesting the book. I did run into a situation where a book I was using was recalled, which means I had no choice but to return it or pay a very steep daily fine. Fortunately this was late enough in the term that returning it wasn't a big problem. This was the book for Finance, which had an overall project rather than a final exam, so I was able to part with the book a little before the end without too much ado. I suppose the bottom line is that I plan to use this same tactic again; one of my upcoming courses requires a textbook and I have just ordered it through the library consortium. It wasn't available used any more cheaply than new, so I'll save forty more dollars this way.

Finally, I was wrong about something important. I tried to set up a weekly schedule that included time on Friday nights to watch my favorite show on TV. That ended up not happening the way I'd intended, partly from continuing struggling against my arch-nemesis of procrastination, and I'm too far behind in the show to pick it back up now. No problem; I'll marathon it once it comes out on DVD, or at least during the first semester break that happens afterward!

Anyway, so now I've completed the first of eight semesters. I'm looking at that as a healthy 12.5%, as the glass being one eighth full. Next up will be a follow up Q & A on the past semester.

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Day One: The First Setbacks

SteveFoerster — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:13:00 GMT

“If it didn’t suck, it wouldn’t be grad school.” – C.Nothing

So yesterday was Day One. So far everything I’ve said about my A.T. Still University experience has been all sunshine and daffodils. I know from previous experience as an eLearner, however, that there’s no road in higher education (or anything else meaningful) that doesn’t have a few potholes in it.

So in the last few days I’ve had two. The first is that I have the wrong edition of textbook. I wrote earlier about saving money by checking my textbooks out of the library of the university where I work rather than buying them new or even used. This worked perfectly for my book on finance in higher education, but as for my research methods book, I got the earlier edition. Now, sometimes instructors don’t mind if you have an older edition of a book, the material is often nearly the same, and only the page numbers are off. But in this case I got a book several editions old, so I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought the right edition used off Amazon. I’m still saving a lot of money over buying it new, but so much for the idea of being on time!

The second thing was that my financial aid hadn’t yet come through. They still have to receive my Student Aid Report from the Department of Education so that I can go through “entry counseling” and receive my student loans. It should only take about two weeks for the funds to be available to them, but they told me, nope, can’t wait, if I wanted to start now I had to make a payment to them of this term’s tuition, then get reimbursed once my aid comes in. This is three grand, which as it happens I don’t actually have lying around. Since they wouldn’t budge on it, I had to canvass some relatives to arrange for a bridge loan the old fashioned way.

It would have been better had they said, hey two weeks, sure, we can work with you. But unfortunately that’s not the case. I understand that a school can’t do its business unless it gets paid, but considering the short timeframe, this strikes me as pretty inflexible, especially since not everyone would be in the same position I was to find the cash, even on a short term basis.

Next up, is there a doctor in the house?

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A Cheapskate’s Approach to Textbooks

SteveFoerster — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:13:00 GMT

“I can think of ten good reasons to never let go of a dime.” – Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob SquarePants

I want to be a better student than I have been in the past, and one way is not to wait too long to get my textbooks. The problem is that they’re expensive, and it just drives me up the wall to have to spend all that money. I know that I have to have the book, and I know the money’s going out sooner or later, but parting with it, well, it’s like a phobia. Don’t believe me? Ask my wife.

So this time around I thought I’d just bite the bullet and order them in time actually to have them on hand at the start of class for a change. I know, I know, it’s a revolution. So I logged into the A.T. Still University student portal to find out what the required books are, and then went to their online bookstore to see about buying them.

They want how much? Oh, heck no! The two books together were something like one hundred sixty dollars. That’s just not what I have in mind when I think about what to do with that kind of money, so I started thinking about ways to get my hands on them without shelling out that kind of cash.

My first thought was to see about finding them used. That’s the common advice, right? So I copied the ISBN and checked it out on Amazon to see who would sell me a used copy cheaply. Turns out I could save some money that way, but I was still going to have to say goodbye to Mr. Franklin to get what I needed.

That still wasn’t good enough. So then I thought that maybe I should think about the unique resource I have right over my head. See, I work at a university, and not only that, but my office is in the same building as the library. I doubted that the specific books I needed would be in our stacks, but perhaps I’d be able to get them through the consortium of universities in the Washington, D.C. area, and perhaps the rules on that would be such that I could keep the books on hand long enough to get through my whole ten week term.

So with the philosophy of “you don’t ask, you don’t get” I went upstairs to speak to the ladies at the Circulation Desk. I explained my situation, and it turns out that yes, I can check out books from consortium members and have them sent to me, and I can renew them twice, meaning I can hold them for up to twelve weeks. Perfect!

Armed with that knowledge, I went back to my office and looked at the library web site, and sure enough both of the books are available through that system. I reserved them, and look forward to getting them on hand probably the day before Thanksgiving. By the time they’re due to be returned, by courses will have just ended.

Now, I do recognize that I may actually want to keep some of these textbooks on hand, you know, that they’re required for good reason. And if I wanted to save money at all costs I definitely wouldn’t be in grad school. But if this turns out to be a sustainable way for me to get required textbooks, at least I can find out which ones are truly worth keeping before I make that kind of investment.

Next up, I travel down a road not taken -- how I considered Liberty University and why I didn't choose them.

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