Campus Store Weights In on Rental Debate

In an opinion piece earlier this month in Inside Higher Ed, a University of North Dakota professor claimed that rental textbooks limited student access to course materials and stifled critical thinking and conversation. Jason Katzman, CCR, assistant director for academic resource support, CU Book Store, University of Colorado Boulder, says he understands the prof’s points but argues rentals are a symptom rather than a cause.

“Twenty years ago, a student bought a book, sold it back at the end of the semester, and maybe received something close to half (although probably not) of what they had paid if the book was being used again the next semester,” Katzman wrote in his Inside Higher Ed rebuttal. “Of course, professors complained then that the buyback process devalued the educational experience by encouraging students to part with important materials they might need for another class or later in life as a reference. Then, along came the Internet and Amazon, and the model that traditional collegiate textbook retailers had been using for years was upended. For many stores, renting textbooks is a way to compete while remaining financially viable.”

Market forces determine where students decide to get their course materials. Selling a textbook for $400 has become unthinkable, so rental has become a way for bookstores to remain relevant and viable. The current trend of providing students low-cost digital course materials as part of tuition or course fees is another solution that helps publishers and bookstores stay in business while driving prices down for students.

“If the higher-education community wants to spend large amounts of energy working on the high cost of course materials, they should. It’s important,” Katzman wrote. “However, we’re being shortsighted. In addition to course materials delivery, another model that’s broken is higher education itself. What happens when Amazon or somebody else finds a way to offer a bachelor’s degree for 75% of its current cost?”

New E-Textbooks Take Aim at Affordability

Another new entrant to textbook publishing hopes to make course materials more affordable by focusing on an online platform. Lead Winds, of Newnan, GA, provides device-agnostic online, chapter-by-chapter access to its textbook, an audiobook version of the title, and study notes for each chapter, as well as video tutorials and videos of students sharing tips on the content.

The cost is $35 per student, although if an institution opts for inclusive access as part of tuition, that price tag can be even lower. The company has two titles ready for the summer and fall 2018 terms, The Exceptional Writer (English composition) and The Exceptional Speaker (public speaking), with more in the pipeline for release in 2019.

“This product is designed to meet students’ needs academically and financially,” says co-founder Brent Mayes. “It fits visual, aural, verbal, logical, and solitary learning styles. And it is accessible on all devices, so the materials travel with the students and are present when needed.”

Pros and Cons of Inclusive Access

More colleges and universities are offering inclusive-access programs for course materials because they see the model as ensuring wins for many involved.

Students get their course materials at discounted prices on the first day of class, making instructors happy. Publishers are guaranteed 100% sell-through for offering significant discounts on the content, which provides institutions with a way to show they are keeping costs in check. There’s also a role for the campus store because they have established relationships with all the parties involved—faculty, publishers, and students—and have the means to handle the transactions.

However, not everyone sees it as the best or only option.

Proponents of open educational resources view inclusive access as a model that just replicates the same publishing structures that led to rising textbook prices in the first place. Some faculty members also see inclusive access as an academic-freedom issue, limiting their choices on content to just one publisher.

“I do think it is likely that traditionally published content will continue to be used at colleges and universities, although whether or not it is through inclusive access remains to be seen,” said Nicole Allen, director of open education for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. “Textbook publishers have been through many iterations of models for proprietary digital content—it is hard to know how long any one will last.”

The 2017 Textbook Affordability Conference is Nov. 10-12 at Georgia Tech. Updates from the conference will be posted on Twitter using the hashtag #TAC2017Ignite.

Textbook Costs on Schools' Radars This Fall

A number of colleges and universities have kicked off the new academic year with announcements of initiatives intended to save students on their course materials expenses. Here are a few:

The board of governors for Florida’s state university system approved a $656,000 program to develop a catalog of lower-cost digital course materials. The catalog will list open educational resources (OER) available free online, along with digital versions of traditional textbooks available at a reduced price negotiated with the publishers. The catalog will be ready in time for the fall 2018 term.

Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS, launched several projects through its Open Textbook Grant Program this fall. The program, administered by the campus library with funding from the FHSU Foundation, provided grants to several faculty to create or adapt open books or supplemental materials for their courses.

The Colorado Legislature appointed a 14-member Open Educational Resources Council to recommend how public institutions could boost the use of OER. The council has also been charged with developing a repository of digital OER.

Madison Area Technical College, Eau Claire, WI, approved a new policy to standardize the adoption of textbooks for classes, with a view toward cutting costs for students. Academic programs and departments are expected to adopt books for at least three academic years, where feasible, and to submit book selections on time in order to increase the availability of rentals and used books at the campus bookstore.

The University of Missouri and Northwest Missouri State University have agreed to explore ways they could share open educational resources that their respective faculties have developed or discovered online.

The impact of programs like these, as well as other ideas for helping to lower the cost of course materials, will be discussed at the Textbook Affordability Conference Nov. 10-12 at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

A Focus on Course Materials Issues, Trends

Since the format and delivery of course materials are evolving faster than almost any other aspects of higher education, course materials specialists at campus bookstores must stay on their toes if they expect to help faculty and students. The first Course Materials eXperience (CM-X) on March 3-5 will give specialists an opportunity to network and learn more about trends and innovative practices involving textbooks and other course content.

To be held in Salt Lake City, UT, in conjunction with NACS’ annual Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) and Conference, the CM-X program will kick off with a discussion of issues surrounding textbook affordability and student access.

The second day of specialized educational sessions will explore inclusive access programs, textbook rentals, how to analyze course materials sales to determine student purchase patterns and cost savings, and advanced strategies in sourcing and dynamic pricing. In addition, a panel of publishing executives will discuss trends emerging now and on the horizon. Over lunch, participants will delve into performance data and talk about what practices work best.

On day three, CM-X moves to the Course Materials Theater on the CAMEX trade-show floor for a series of presentations on new programs and formats now available for textbooks.

Networking events for course materials specialists are also built into the three-day schedule.

For more details on the schedule and registration, go to Course Materials eXperience.

Students Wait to Get Books, or Don't at All

Most college students aren’t fully prepared to dig into their coursework on the first day of class. In a new survey of 500 students, 72% said they held off on acquiring some course materials until after the course was underway and 27% never bothered to get materials at all for at least one course.

The majority of students indicated cost was the reason for not obtaining their course materials before classes started. The survey was conducted in May by Wakefield Research for VitalSource Technologies, a provider of digital textbooks.

NACS’ latest Student Watch survey, conducted in spring 2016, found very similar results in a study of almost 17,000 college students. In both surveys, students said they resorted to a variety of strategies in order to afford their materials, including sharing them with others taking the same class, which can create complications for effective studying and doing assignments.

In the Wakefield study, respondents also liked the idea of folding the cost of course materials into tuition, with 77% overall showing support for the concept.