Augustana College experiments with Kindle Fire rental program to deliver e-textbook, according to this article. The college is charging $35 a term to rent a Kindle Fire, and the cost of purchasing the books they'll need is about $18. The print versions of the books cost about $40. This will be an interesting study to follow since not many schools with e-textbook pilots have included tablet rentals as part of the program, although a number of campuses have given away devices as part of the pilot programs.
This pilot is somewhat reminiscent of earlier e-reader device pilots on campus. A number of those pilots ended in response to challenges that the devices did not meet accessibility requirements for course materials in the classroom.
