Most Americans Still Read Print Books

A new study from the Pew Research Center showed that the number of adults who read an e-book rose from 23% at the end 2012 to 28% by the end of 2013. It also reported that 69% of Americans read a tradition book in the past year, up from 65% in 2012.

More than 1,000 adults, 18 years of age or older, were surveyed between Jan. 2-5, 2014, for the study.

“Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits,” the authors of the report wrote. “Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% are ‘e-book only.’”

Those statistics could soon begin to change. The survey also found that in the final four months of 2013, ownership of tablet computers rose from 34% to 42%, while adults who own dedicated e-readers jumped from 24% to 32%.

The report indicated reading on e-readers has risen from 41% to 57% since 2011, while reading on tablets went from 23% to 55%. Cellphone reading rose from 28% to 32%, but reading on computers fell from 42% to 29% over the same period.

Textbook Cost-Cutting Tests Tempers

Many colleges and universities are looking for ways to shrink the out-of-pocket expense of course materials in response to pressure from students, parents, policymakers, and legislators. However, as campus administrators investigate possible solutions, they’re sometimes coming under fire from faculty.

For example, at Alamo Colleges in Texas, faculty were not at all happy with the chancellor’s recent proposal to cut textbook costs by requiring each course section to use the same materials, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Alamo comprises five community colleges, with a number of the same courses taught by different faculty at different campuses.

Faculty viewed the proposal as infringing on their academic right to assign whatever course materials they deem most suitable for the class. The chancellor saw it as the means to negotiate bulk purchases of textbooks or license digital materials to secure a lower per-unit cost.

For at least some courses, only a digital version of the textbook would be available to students, which also raised a red flag for faculty. They expressed concerns about students without Internet access at home.

The University of Utah is trying to avoid that kind of conflict. The UU Academic Senate appointed a committee to come up with ways to snip as much as $500 annually from each student’s textbook tab, according to The Daily Utah Chronicle. The committee has representatives from faculty, staff (including the bookstore), and students, who will work together to develop recommendations.

E-Learning Caucus Educating Congress

Perhaps it comes as no surprise, but members of Congress really don’t have a firm grasp on what online education is. In fact, a 2011 survey of representatives found that many thought distance learning was basically correspondence classes. That led to the formation of an e-learning caucus.

The primary goal of the caucus is to educate elected representatives about online learning. The group has plenty of work to do since members still fail to understand just how much online learning has advanced or who the classes target.

“There’s this thought that most participants are just coming for one or two classes, that online education is just used for shorter-term certificate programs,” Julie Peller, director of federal policy at the Lumina Foundation, told eCampus News. “The number of students taking online courses, either completely or as part of a brick-and-mortar program, is not widely known or discussed.”

That can be a problem when 14% of the college population in the United States is taking courses entirely online, according to a study from Learning House Inc. and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. A Sloan Consortium survey also found that 30% of the student population took at least one online course in 2012.

“The goal has been to increase awareness of e-learning, online education, and the issues that affect it,” said Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), who created the caucus with Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD). “We plan to continue to have a good schedule of briefings to bring these issues to the broadest audience of policymakers.”

More Kids are Reading Electronically

At a CAMEX 2011 education session in Houston, TX, Don Newton, executive director, CCSF Bookstore Auxiliary, City College of San Francisco, told attendees he believed digital content would not gain widespread acceptance until school-aged children began using it regularly. That day is getting much closer, according to a study from PlayCollective and Digital Book World.

The survey of 900 parents found that 67% of children age 2-13 now read e-books, up 54% from a similar report from 2012. It also found that many of the kids who read e-books said they read them every day, with nearly 92% reading an e-book at least once a week.

Use of digital reading in the classroom was cited as one of the main reasons for the increase in e-reading over the past year.

“In the last year, based on this research, the kids’ e-reading has reached and passed a tipping point,” said Paul Levine, co-CEO of PlayCollective, in a report in Digital Book World. “This is becoming a normal part of their lives and becoming habitual.”

Brave New World on Campus

Technology is forcing higher education to change. Some experts predict that disruptive forces will lead to the end of the campus-life experience for students as institutions move to new ways of delivering content.

A recent Wall Street Journal article even suggested the university of the future may just use the campus for its amenities and not bother with hiring faculty since massive open online courses would provide instruction.

“It’s a business model that just might work, especially in geographic locations students favor,” the author wrote. “Grand Cayman is awfully nice this time of year.”

A strategy to reimage college buildings is already underway, according to Anthony Flint, author and fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He cited an experiment at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts where dormitory space is being used for lectures and a “tinkering space” being tested by the University of Utah as two examples in an article for The Atlantic.

“It’s a fascinating rethinking of the historic model of institutions cloistered behind ivy-covered walls,” Flint wrote. “What seems to be equally true is that all the tiers of higher education—elite privates, publics, community colleges—seem to be looking at this reboot. MIT, Princeton, Caltech, Chicago, all are reassessing the composition of the physical campus, trying to anticipate the brave new world.”

Learning Registry Ready for Educators

The U.S. Department of Education has been working on a network aimed at organizing online academic content for educators. The DOE recently finished the computer code for its Learning Registry, a free tool that will connect educators with vetted resources.

DOE officials are trying to increase participation in the system, according to a report in Education Week, and have created a video to introduce the project.

MOOC Providers Making Changes

It seems as if only yesterday massive open online courses (MOOCs) were all the rage. The New York Times proclaimed 2012 as “The Year of the MOOC” because they gave students an alternative to traditional classroom education, providing free online courses (for no credit) from some of the most elite institutions in the world.

In 2013, reality set in. Statistics started showing that while many enrolled, few completed the courses despite little or no cost. Then, late last year, one of the pioneers of the movement came out and said MOOCs were “a lousy product.”

“I think that’s just honest, and I think we should have an honest discourse about what we do,” Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of MOOC provider Udacity, told Fast Company. “Online education that leaves almost everybody behind except for highly motivated students, to me, can’t be a viable path to education. We look back at our early work and realize it wasn’t quite as good as it should have been.”

Thrun and other providers in the industry have decided to change course a bit, putting more emphasis on employee job-training classes for corporations, according to a report from National Public Radio. The updated platforms are being designed to include more human support for students, such as the “learning hubs” Coursera is developing that will provide a weekly in-person instructor.

“We have people almost 24/7 that help you when you get stuck,” Thrun said. “We also added a lot of projects that require human feedback and human grading. And the human element—surprise, surprise—makes a huge difference in the student experience and the learning outcomes.”

MOOCs Not Dead Yet

While the initial burst of enthusiasm over massive open online courses (MOOCs) may have expired, a wrapup report on a MOOC tied to a TV show about zombies reveals there may still be some life in the format.

As previously recounted on The CITE, Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walking Dead was offered last fall at no charge on Instructure’s Canvas Network platform, taught by a multidisciplinary panel of professors from the University of California at Irvine with some involvement from the show’s cast and crew.

Some 65,000 people worldwide signed up for the eight-week course. One of its chief aims was to determine whether more students would persist to completion if instructors applied the scientific concepts to an apocalypic survival scenario, albeit a fictional one. According to Instructure’s new report, that goal was achieved.

Instructure doesn’t say how many students remained at the end, but about 12,000 filled out an exit survey, suggesting a much higher percentage finished than in the usual MOOC. About 59% had never taken any type of online course before and 83.6% had never taken a MOOC. But, 83% said they spent at least an hour a week on course assignments, not including watching that week’s new episode.

Not all of the enrollees were fans of the show, some indicating instead they were intrigued by the multidisciplinary approach and its application. More than half of the survey respondents said they’d be more apt to take another MOOC with multidisciplinary content than a single-topic course.

And that may reveal the real key to student success in MOOCs and any other educational format: When the course content and course materials are brought to life in an interesting way, more students remain engaged in the topic and make it through the course.

Lynn Turns to iTunes U

Many colleges and universities offer online content through iTunes U, but use other providers for their learning management system (LMS) because the Apple software doesn’t provide features such as analytics, attendance tracking, and gradebooks. Lynn University, Boca Raton, FL, is going the other direction, phasing out Blackboard Learn in favor of iTunes U.

Lynn is already a committed Apple campus, piloting a program that replaced textbooks with iPad minis in January 2013. That program was expanded last fall to include all freshmen, transfer students, and upperclassmen enrolled in core classes. The university plans to issue minis to more than 2,000 students next fall.

The move to iTunes U makes sense for Lynn because its pilot program showed that students using the iPad earned better grades than those who didn’t use the device. In addition, the study found that three-quarters of the students preferred using the iBook created for the course over a traditional textbook.

“Since we are moving forward with content and making sure that a device is available for every kid, we wanted to make sure they had a mobile environment,” said Chris Boniforti, chief information officer at Lynn.

Lynn will probably use iTunes to host content and assignments and will have to develop its own system to track those analytical features not offered through iTunes, according to the report in Inside Higher Ed. But the move does provide Lynn students with a mobile-first LMS that doesn’t require them to switch between systems to use.

A survey of Lynn students enrolled in core courses in fall 2013 found that 94% felt the tablet contributed to their learning experience and 90% still used the device in classes that didn’t require it. Sixty-one percent of the students added that getting an iPad mini helped them decide to attend Lynn.

All Lynn courses will use iTunes U to host content and assignments by this fall, but only about a third will feature free iBooks created by Lynn faculty members. The rest will use traditional textbooks. Moving a course to the iTunes U system only requires knowing where to upload content and which boxes to use for text for those faculty members unwilling to create their own iBooks.

“The next thing for me is to make sure that this is better than the way we’ve been doing it,” said Michael P. Petroski, who manages faculty development for the tablet initiative. “That sort of keeps me up at night: to make sure it’s not a cool gimmick.”

Public Universities Lead the Way Online

The new year has just begun, but two reports have already come out that show public nonprofit universities are well ahead of private institutions when its comes to online education, according to a piece in eCampus News.

Public universities dominate the online education categories in the 2014 U.S. News and World Report college ranking, while a study done by Learning House Inc. and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) found that 14% of American college students responding to the survey take online courses only, but just 20% of those take online courses at private nonprofit schools. The report also said that nearly half of online college students study at public nonprofit universities, with a third receiving an online education at for-profit colleges.

In the study Online Learning at Private Colleges and Universities, 59% of the responding chief academic officers reported that faculty time and effort were key barriers to online education at private institutions.

“Technology has enabled students and faculty members to learn and teach online,” wrote authors of the AASCU report. “Faculty members have learned how to use the technology and how to adapt their courses to online delivery; librarians, bookstore managers, tutors, and advisors have learned how to provide services to remote students who never come to campus; and chairs, deans, and provosts have learned how to develop and market online programs and how to lead faculty members who live elsewhere.

“Private colleges and universities have each responded differently to this technology. Some have rejected it as contrary to their mission to provide personalized, intimate learning environments, while others have embraced the technology with an entrepreneurial spirit.”

Tablets Still at the Center of CES

Four years ago, e-book readers and tablets were the hot stars of the famed ConsumerElectronics Show. At this year’s CES, underway Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas, standalone e-readers aren’t even lukewarm but a new generation of tablets still occupies the spotlight.

A host of new tablet models, representing a variety of features and forms, are on display at the show, according to C/net. Manufacturers seem to be trying to figure out just what consumers want in a tablet. Do they need one with a stylus, a larger screen (up to 12.2 in.), mini versions with cellphone capabilities, or a stripped-down model with a cheaper pricetag? How about a hybrid laptop/tablet that can boot up both Windows 8.1 and Android operating systems?

Tablets will almost certainly gain ground with college students, who would rather tote something lighter than a laptop around campus, especially if all they want to do is take notes and go online.

Wired.com’s CES coverage also highlighted a new higher-end tablet that might work well for professors doing field research or campus retailers handling off-site sales at the stadium. The Panasonic Toughpad can be dropped without damage from a normal standing or desk height, resists dust and water, and comes with ports for a payment-card reader, bar-code reader, GPS unit, or extra battery.

For the first time, a section of the CES floor was devoted to showcasing new developments produced by higher-education incubators. The Academia TechTechZone features innovations from seven institutions.

Caltech Implements Open-Access Policy

Faculty at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) decided on a policy that requires them to grant open-access rights to their scholarly papers. The move will make their work more readily available and help simplify the copyright process, according to a report in Campus Technology.

Copyright issues are a big reason for the new policy because it prevents publishers of the many journals in which Caltech research appears from suing authors who post their content to their own online sites or the institute’s online repository. It also complies with a directive from the United States Office of Science and Technology that requires federally funded research be made available for free within a year of publication.

Caltech faculty will continue to publish in academic journals and can still grant exclusive rights to their work; they just need to request a waiver from the policy.

“Ideas are most powerful when they are free to move, not held behind a screen until they are purchased from a vendor,” said Brenda Fultz, professor or material science and applied physics at Caltech. “The new open-access policy at Caltech increases the impact of our ideas by better connecting them to the information society around us.”

Struggling SNHU Saves Itself Online

In just five years, Southern New Hampshire University has gone from a struggling 2,000-student private school to become the “Amazon.com of higher education” with an enrollment of 34,000. University President Paul LeBlanc recognized that the university’s online division had the potential for rapid growth and could produce new revenues.

“The business models implicit in higher education are broken,” LeBlanc said in an article in Slate magazine. “Public institutions will not see increasing state funding and private colleges will not see ever-rising tuition.”

The problem, according to LeBlanc, was an immersive educational system designed to accommodate 18-year-olds instead of students who are working adults with schedules that rarely fit into academic schedules. The commitment to the SNHU online division produced a web site that offers 180 programs and full-time admissions counselors who will call prospective students within minutes after they click on a program.

The online courses run for eight weeks and combine readings, problems, and videos, with weekly assignments and a final project. Instructors use predictive analytics to keep an eye on students’ progress and identify those who are having trouble.

Critics say it’s a cookie-cutter approach and question exactly what kind of education the university is delivering. Faculty complain the television advertising is too slick and worry their jobs may be in jeopardy, but SNHU enrollment figures suggest it certainly seems to be working.

The university has already started to expand the program, offering degrees requiring students to master different competencies instead of working through courses and with faculty. One term costs $1,250 and students who complete 120 competencies earn an associate’s degree.

“We are super-focused on customer service, which is a phrase that most universities can’t even use,” LeBlanc said.

Efficiencies Lowering Quality of Education?

Colleges and universities are facing increasing pressure to graduate more students quicker and for less money. Policymakers at some institutions have responded by reducing the number of required credits, cutting certain major fields of study, and giving credit for life experiences.

Now, some professors are asking if this push for efficiency is leading to lower-quality education.  A group of faculty members plan to meet later this month in New York to discuss the issue.

“There are a whole bunch of policies—like getting students through more quickly—most of which don’t pay attention to what they are learning,” Debra Humphreys, vice president, Association  of American Colleges and University, told The Atlantic. “It could be making a bad situation worse if we don’t look at the impact of not only how many students but what they learn.”

One area of concern is policies that include performance-based funding. While critics contend that a U.S. graduation rate of 56% is unacceptable, too little is known on how such policies affect the quality of what is being taught.

Humphreys added, “Getting students through more efficiently, more quickly, and with the learning they need, we need to pay attention to all three. Otherwise, at least one will suffer.”

New App for Teams to Create Online Courses

Teams of educators now have a way to create online courses. The open-publishing platform Versal is beta-testing its Versal for Teams application that provides instructors with a platform to build courses that include text, video, quizzes, and customizable interactive simulations that can be published and shared with learners through a web site or blog.

The tool is set up for nonprogrammers, allowing them to drag and drop items into the course. The team edition provides a dashboard for managing author activity, course progress, and learner success tracking.

“We instantly started hearing feedback from companies and universities that they loved the ability to create and publish courses, but needed tools to manage everything internally. This is only our first step in building out a platform that is flexible for anyone—individual instructors and organizations alike,” Versal founders and CEO Gregor Freund told Campus Technology.

The base program is free and includes one gigabyte of storage for the development of three courses that can be accessed by up to 100 people. Prices range from $250 to $5,000 per month for teams needing the bandwidth to create more courses.

Predictive Analytics Help Students Succeed

The most well-known application of predictive analytics software is credit scoring, providing financial institutions with a ranking of the likelihood a customer will make future credit payments on time. The technology is also finding its way onto college campuses as a tool to help students improve grades and stay in school.

Four schools in Tennessee found that students using Degree Compass software created by Desire2Learn to select courses had a much higher rate of success than peers who chose courses on their own. The average number of credit hours passed by students using the technology for 12 credit hours was 10.66, compared to just two credit hours passed for students who didn’t use Degree Compass at one school.

The software compares information from a student’s transcript with data from thousands of other students to generate individualized course suggestions ranked on a five-star scale.

“I am very excited about the latest data that shows more and more clearly how students of all abilities succeed when they follow the recommendations from Degree Compass,” Tristan Denley, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Tennessee Board of Regents, said in a report in eCampus News.

Tough Year Ahead for E-Reading

2013 wasn’t a great year for e-readers. Sales of the devices continued to decline and a study released in December found that 60% of the consumers who downloaded e-books never read them. Michael Kozlowski, editor of the blog goodereader.com, is predicting more of the same in 2014.

First, E Ink will start moving away from e-reader technology. The e-reader business has been losing ground to tablet technology for more than a year and Kozlowski wrote that expansion into the digital signage market will be its next move.

The E Ink shift away from e-reader technology may be helped along if Kozlowski is right about Barnes and Noble. He predicted that since B&N makes more money on digital content sales, it will decide to give up on the Nook. He also expects Sony to give up on its e-reading devices to focus more on tablet and multimedia-based experiences.

He also predicted declines in both reading on tablet devices and e-books in general.

Reading on tablets will decline because manufacturers will move away from producing as many tablets in favor of more smartphones in 2014, which should produce more smartphone readers. Or maybe, with e-book sales flat or in decline throughout 2013, people will just head back to hardcover and paperback books.

“With the way things have gone in 2013 in the e-reader and tablet sector, some people may be optimistic about the future,” Kozlowski wrote. “I, for one, am not.”

Must Have Gadgets for 2014

While Playstation 4 and Xbox One are already on the market, only time will tell if any of these gadgets will live up to the hype. But it’s fun to speculate. 

Happy New Year's from all of us at the National Association of College Stores.

Study Shows iPads Help Learning

The iPad has been touted as a better way to learn since the tablet computer was introduced by Apple founder Steve Jobs in 2010. Now, there is research that shows the claim to be correct.

The new study found that learning on tablets tap into neurocognitive skills that help students understand difficult concepts. The students used in the research saw gains in their learning from just 20 minutes of study on an iPad, with an even more pronounced improvement with guidance from an instructor.

“The bottom line is that these iPads and similar tools actually do make a difference,” said Matthew Schneps, founding member of science education department at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in an article in National Geographic.

Researchers compared test results given to thousands of high school astronomy students across the nation. The study was able to define how students performed on the test and how use of the tablets changed test results.

The results of the study also suggest that using tablets to study makes it easier to grasp difficult scientific concepts. In addition, being able to use the technology may be critical in future career training, according to Schneps.

“They’re not going to be doing things in their jobs the same way that previous generations did, so if kids can learn in school today using the same tools that they will use in their careers later on, that’s a good thing,” he said.

Report: MOOCs Deserve a Break

A report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recommends massive open online education (MOOCs) should be given a break from the federal government and the accreditors. The PCAST report suggests the bar for course accreditation has been set too high and could discourage innovation.

“The Federal Government (and in particular, the U.S. Department of Education) should continue to encourage regional accrediting bodies to be flexible in recognizing that many standards normally required for an accredited degree should be modified in the online arena,” wrote the authors of the report. “If the bar for accreditation is set too high, the infant industry developing MOOC and related technology platforms may struggle to realize its full potential.”

The report also recommends the government should let market forces decide how online education should move forward. PCAST suggested that grant programs should be created to encourage research on MOOCs and online education, with that information available to all through a national exchange.

“It would also be premature to impose standards and regulations that might impair the power of competitive market forces to motivate innovation,” the report stated. “The Federal Government can best encourage innovation in this critical sector by letting the market work.”

Needless to say, accreditors were less-than-thrilled with the idea that they may be biased against anything except traditional classroom instruction.

“There seems to be some worry about MOOCs, but I have not heard of a single MOOC that has suffered at the hands of accreditation,” said Sylvia Manning, president of the higher learning commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, in an article for Inside Higher Education. “Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that ‘innovative’ and ‘good’ are not necessarily synonyms, and innovation cannot serve as a cloak of immunity to criticism” Accreditors must reserve the right to call out poor quality whether it be innovative of stodgy.”

Some Trends on Fire in '14, Others Sputter

T.H.E. Journal tapped five experts in instructional technology for their predictions, guesses, expectations, and wild conjectures on the status of 10 trending topics affecting all levels of education in the coming year.

According to this panel, topics that are likely to heat up in the next 12 months—or remain hot if already in the red zone—include the bring-your-own-device scenario, using social media as a tool for teaching and learning, and deploying iPads and other tablets in education. Also, the temperature is rising on learning analytics, as schools come under greater pressure to prove student success.

Topics deemed lukewarm (although possibly still hot for some) include game-based learning, digital badges, learning management systems, and, maybe surprisingly, open educational resources (OER). The panel thinks OER will cool off for higher education as more people realize how much time and cost go into finding and prepping materials for students. Learning management systems are too widespread to be hot anymore. Games and digital badges, panelists agree, are good ideas but difficult for schools to implement and integrate appropriately.

Two once-hot topics are losing steam. Desktop computers are being overtaken by mobile devices in the classroom. E-portfolios (online repositories providing a record of what individual students mastered and produced) were popular for a time until schools began to encounter technical hurdles in hosting them. Some schools are also inconsistent in how information and materials are preserved in students’ e-portfolios.

Do you agree with the panel’s assessment of these topics? Are there any other educational topics that may turn red-hot in 2014?

Bigger is Better, Say Mobile Shoppers

Given the choice, many people would rather view a full-sized e-commerce site on their smartphone or tablet than a mobile-optimized version scaled to the smaller screen.

Bill Siwicki, a managing editor at Internet Retailer, comments that he discovered this bit of counterintuitive intelligence by chance. He was browsing an e-commerce site on his phone when a pop-up offered to switch to the mobile site. His response: “Of course I want your mobile commerce web site on my iPhone. I don’t want to have to pinch and zoom and swipe like mad to try to make sense of the huge desktop site on my small smartphone screen. Are you crazy?”

That’s not the response most users give, however. Siwicki found that a new study conducted last October by Retail Systems Research shows more than half of consumers bypass mobile e-commerce sites to view the full site on their mobile device. The study didn’t specifically ask consumers why they do this, but an analyst with the research company told Siwicki that it’s probably because too many mobile sites have been overly simplified, leaving out too many features and content that visitors want to access.

Another reason may be that some consumers are more familiar with the full site and know just where to go with minimal zooming and swiping on a mobile device.

Either way, it indicates that many online retailers “who believe they have great mobile sites actually have more work to do to make shopping mobile-optimized sites on smartphones more appealing,” Siwicki writes.

The Campus Bookstore Is Where It's At

In this TV news report, the Fox Business channel takes a look at how textbook rentals are ramping up in campus bookstores, the latest move by stores to help bring down the cost of course materials for students. The report features an interview with Alan Martin, CEO of CampusBookRentals, one of several companies that provide rental stock and technical support to college stores.

Martin explains why his company chose to work through campus stores rather than go direct to students. The bookstore, he says, sits at the “epicenter” of campus life and “holds the competency to serve students better than anyone else.”

Report Compares Online and On-Campus Data

In the ongoing debate over whether online-only courses are just as good as on-campus ones, a new report shows that in-person campus courses still have the edge.

The report, compiled by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Cooperative for Educational Technologies (known as WCET), surveyed college institutions providing solely online programs as well as institutions offering a mix of online and on-campus courses.

According to Campus Technology, WCET’s report touts the finding that the online schools’ courses boasted an 89% completion rate, not bad when compared to the 94% rate for face-to-face classes. But then WCET immediately backed away from that statistic, noting just four of 10 online-only schools provided data—presumably the others had less impressive completion stats—and the rate might not represent a true average.

It’s easy to understand how busy adults might be more apt to drop an online course than one where they’ve already put in a live appearance, especially if they’re not motivated to take the course to earn a specific degree, to meet an employer’s requirement, or to keep parents off their back for not having a job.

Other results from the WCET survey, however, reveal a gap in student support services between online and on-campus programs, which might make some difference in whether students persist to completion. For example, only 59% of responding schools make tutoring available for online students. Just 30% furnish 24-hour technical support for online students, even though they’re more likely to be studying at odd hours.

Some schools don’t provide any help for disabled students taking online courses and a few institutions have no library resources available to online students.

Printed Books Not Dead Yet

E-books have gotten plenty of press over the last few years, but new research doesn’t back up the headlines. A study on IT strategies by Ricoh Americas Corp. and the University of Colorado found that 70% of consumers felt it was unlikely they would give up their printed books by 2016 and 60% of downloaded e-books are never read.

The Evolution of the Book Industry: Implications for U.S. Book Manufacturers and Printers reported that the top three reasons people chose printed books were the lack of eyestrain when reading paper, the look and feel of paper, and the ability to add the title to a library or bookshelf. It also reaffirmed other studies that have shown college students prefer printed textbooks.

“To borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, the reports of the printed book’s death are greatly exaggerated,” said George Promis, vice president of continuous forms of production solutions and technology alliances at Ricoh. “Print is alive, well, and sought after in today’s book market.”

The research also found that publishers produced more than 10% of all printed book pages in the United States since 2012 on production inkjet systems, allowing them to test titles before ordering larger runs. In addition, offering e-titles isn’t a guarantee of more income or cost savings because even the largest publishers reported revenues of no more than 20%-30% from e-book sales.

Coursera Launches Mobile App

Coursera, the massive open online course (MOOC) provider, introduced an iPhone app that will bring its free courses to mobile iOS 7 devices. The app puts Coursera ahead of its competition in the effort to reach students on their smartphones or those in emerging nations, according to a report in VentureBeat.

The app provides all the features of the Coursera website. Students can use their iPhone or iPad to browse and enroll in courses, watch video lectures, or take quizzes over cellular connections or by downloading them to the device from the app.

The app is free in Apple App Store, but the device must run iOS 7.0 or later and students have to sign up for a Coursera account to access the material.

“The app doesn’t differ all that much from the web experiences that you may be used to,” noted tech writer Christina Farr. “However, much of the content is still under development, which is frustrating. Many of the courses are listed on the app as ‘coming soon.’”

Cellphone Usage Linked to Lower Grades

The old adage that statistics can prove almost anything appears to be true when it comes to college students and mobile devices. While a Wakefield Research project last summer found that students would be more likely to study if content could be accessed from their smartphone, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that 90% of the students in his study were distracted by their device, using it in class for something other than schoolwork.

Now, medical researchers at Kent State University, Kent, OH, have linked cellphone usage to lower grades and diminished levels of happiness. The study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, surveyed more than 500 students, comparing how much time they spent on their phones to their cumulative grade-point averages.

The analysis found that the more students used their cellphones, the lower their GPA and the higher their anxiety. The researchers added that they could not show for certain that cellphone usage led to poorer grades and higher stress, but that it was worth noting because college students are also the most likely to adopt the technology.

“While it is plausible that spending a lot of time calling and texting affects academic performance, it could equally be argued that these results suggest students who are more anxious, perform less well in class, and are more unhappy are more likely to use cellphones,” wrote Catherine Paddock, for Medical News Today.

Wearable Tech, Tablets Trending

It’s that time of year when Top 10 lists flourish. Juniper Research just released its top tech trends for 2014, predicting we’ll see more wearable tech on the streets and more tablet computers in the classroom.

Devices such as Google Glass and smartwatches from Samsung and Pebble have already established a foothold for wearable tech, but since there appear to be many more devices on the horizon, Juniper is predicting (No. 3 on its list) that 2014 will be a “watershed year” for the devices. The use of mobile fitness gadgets will grow (No. 5), which should also help to drive the wearable-tech trend.

Tablets have already found their way into education, but that trend is only going to get bigger as the devices become more affordable, according to Juniper (No. 4). 3-D printing will also become even bigger in 2014 (No. 10) as more tech companies begin to manufacture the devices.

“Most of Juniper’s predictions make a lot of sense and you can see the budding trends right now,” said John Koetsier, technology writer for Venture Beat.

Phablets Look Like the Next Big Thing

Manufacturers will ship more than 220 million tablet computers by the end of 2013, up 53% over 2012 figures. The research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) predicts that trend will slow over the next four years as more people start buying phablets.

A phablet is a mobile device with a screen larger than most smartphones, but not as large as the average tablet computer. Phablets normally have a screen that’s between 5 in. and 7 in., such as the Samsung Galaxy Note, an Android smartphone with a 5.7-in. screen.

IDC based its prediction on the fact that there’s not enough difference between a 6-in. smartphone screen and a 7-in. tablet to convince consumers to pay more for the tablet, according to a report in Information Week.

“In some markets, consumers are already making the choice to buy a large smartphone rather than buying a small tablet, and as a result, we’ve lowered our long-term forecast,” said Tom Mainelli, research director, tablets, at IDC. “Meanwhile, in mature markets like the U.S., where tablets have been shipping in large volumes since 2010 and are already well established, we’re less concerned about big phones cannibalizing shipments and more worried about market saturation.”

As it stands, Android and iOS will continue to be the top tablet operating systems for years to come, but IDC predicts both will lose ground over the next four years. The IDC forecast calls for the market share for the Android system from Google to dip from nearly 61% in 2013 to 59% in 2017, while Apple iOS will slip from 35% to around 30%.

Are Smart Tattoos Next for Wearable Tech?

It seems like there’s something new every day on the wearable tech front. Smartwatches and Google Glass has given way to news about smarty rings and lingerie, which is supposed to help women curb bad eating habits.

The latest is a patent for a smart tattoo from Google.

Flipped Classrooms Help Raise Test Scores

Flipped classrooms, where students view video lectures online at home and use class time to discuss the content with the instructor, are growing in popularity on college campuses. New research indicates that the model is much more than a passing educational fad.

The study from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill reported that students performed 5% better on a final exam than their peers who didn’t learn in a flipped-classroom setting. The three-year study surveyed more than 300 students taking a pharmacy course taught by Russell Mumper, who helped write the report published in the journal Academic Medicine.

It took Mumper 60 hours to record 25 videos using lecture-capture technology from Echo360. The effort allowed him to spend the majority of classroom time discussing the material and dispensing career advice.

“When we asked students before the course, 75% said they preferred a traditional method,” Mumper eCampus News. “At the end of the course, 86% said they now preferred the flipped format. We flipped their preference.”

Nine out of 10 students in the survey said their learning was enhanced and 93% said their understanding of key concepts improved. In addition, nearly all respondents reported the model helped them develop skills that would be used in their careers.

“The main event in education is still, and will continue to be, in the classroom,” said Fred Singer, CEO of Echo360. “With the flipped model, we’re seeing excitement return to the classroom as students and their teachers are both engaging in more active learning that demands everyone’s full-time attention.”

Students Help Create Online Study Guides

At exam time, students often pool their notes and study together. Now, an online study platform offers a way to collect such information and turn it into an online study guide.

StudyBlue already creates items such as electronic flashcards and practice quizzes for students. The content for the new study guides comes directly from students. It’s then uploaded and accessed through the StudyBlue platform.

The guides can be updated throughout the semester with students receiving notifications on their mobile devices when fresh content has been added. The guides also feature a pop-up window that lets students set their social media status to alert friends when they are busy studying.

The platform is available as a free Android or iOS app, but the study guides cost $5 each. StudyBlue founder Chris Klundt reports that the company is already creating 40,000 guides a day.

“With four million students and 175 million pieces of content, we were seeing a network effect happening,” Klundt told eCampus News. “Students input their classes into the system with their classmates, create this content, and we can put it all together in a study guide, ordering it by quality and popularity.”

Academic Libraries Seek LMS Integration

Campus libraries are still popular places where students can go to study and work on papers while mixing in a little socializing. One thing most of those students won’t do during a trip to the library is open a library book. They’ll do that later—online.

As Campus Technology notes, academic libraries are experiencing a shift in how they provide materials to students for research and course readings. More students (and also faculty) are accessing the library’s collection through e-reserves.

Students may not be all that crazy about studying from a digital textbook, but they do find it much more convenient to go online from the comfort of their own laptops to tap into the library’s materials to gather information for a project or to read something their professor has placed on reserve for the class. For research, in particular, print books are too cumbersome.

From the perspective of librarians, though, there is one major hurdle: learning management systems. Far from being dismayed at the move from print to digital usage, campus libraries are eager to accommodate students online. They’d like to be able to integrate their e-reserves with the school’s LMS to create a one-stop-shopping location, so to speak, for student reading materials. At the very least, libraries want their catalog to be incorporated in the LMS search function to show students and faculty what’s available through the library.

However, library systems and learning management systems are not always fully compatible. Some schools required extensive customization to get both systems to work together, while others created an LMS from scratch in order to build in access to the library. Still others opted to develop library guides that could be placed within the LMS.

Students Turn to Smartphones to Study

A new survey of 500 students by McGraw-Hill found that nearly 40% used their smartphones to study, while just 22% turned to their tablet or computer. The results were similar to a Wakefield Research report from last summer that showed 53% of respondents would be more likely to complete a reading assignment if it were available on a mobile device and 83% used a mobile device for last-minute studying.

“Studying effectively—and with the right type of technology—is one of the best ways to ensure that students succeed in class,” said Brian Kibby, president of McGraw-Hill Education, in a report by eCampus News. “But focus is the key.”

It can also be a problem since there are just as many studies that show smartphones are a distraction, and that students know it. Nearly half of the students in the McGraw-Hill research admitted using their phones to text friends while studying. A similar number admitted to switching between schoolwork and nonstudy activities while on their tablet or laptop.

At the same time, nearly 70% of the students reported that the tools available through their mobile devices can save them up to five hours each week when studying.

App Lets Students Study Offline

Plans to assemble a mobile app with offline study capabilities hit a snag over the summer when three universities pulled out of the partnership that would have created the courses necessary for the mobile app program. That work is now back on track and the educational technology firm 2U will soon make the app available to the 10,000 students already using the service.

The app provides students with an “offline mode” that allows them to watch videos and lectures and complete online reading assignments while disconnected from the Internet.

“We have a student taking courses on an oil rig 150 miles from the closest coast,” James Keinigberg, chief technology officer for 2U, told eCampus News. “There are students who need to fit in coursework while commuting underground in New York City. There are students in all sorts of remote locations or situations where they can’t be online and they would like to take some of this content on the go.”

The app also allows students to interact with the content offline. That interaction automatically syncs with the app’s platform when it is reconnected to the Internet.

Bill to Expand Use of Open Textbooks

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) introduced legislation that would create a grant program for colleges and universities to create and expand the use of open-access  textbooks. The Affordable College Textbook Act would give the public the right to access, customize, and distribute the online content in an effort to curb the rising costs of supplies and course materials.

Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Al Franken (D-MN) have introduced similar legislation in the Senate.

If passed, the law would establish a grant program to support efforts to create and expand the use of open-access textbooks with priority placed on those pilots that achieve the highest savings. It would also guarantee that open educational material would be easily accessible and require institutions to report on the effectiveness of any funded program.

“Simply put, this is about making college more accessible and more affordable for students who are eager to earn their college degree,” Hinojosa wrote in a guest column for a South Texas newspaper.

But Will Wearable Tech Sell?

Wearable technology appears to be the next wave of innovation. There are frequent announcements on the latest smartwatch, while some reports suggest tech-savvy Millennials are lining up to give Google Glass a try.

Now, a study has found that all that excitement may not translate into sales.

The study from the cloud-services company Citrix reported 60% of 1,000 adults polled felt wearable tech would continue to grow as a trend, but 61% had no intention of actually buying a device. In addition, 73% of the group that would consider a wearable tech purchase said they wanted a device that would blend in with their clothing.

The survey also found that, if given a choice, millennials would like to suit up in the full-body armor worn by Tony Stark in Iron Man, while their parents would pick up a Starfleet wrist communicator used by Capt. James Kirk in Star Trek.

Degree Programs Are Going Mobile

Using a mobile device to earn a college degree may sound a bit farfetched, yet a quarter of the 4,000 students in the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering will complete work on their degrees online.

The USC program allows students to stream live lectures and join live class discussions via chat or phone, according to a report in eCampus News.

This move to mobile follows a survey last summer that found 53% of students were more likely to complete required assigned reading on time if it was available digitally or could be read on a mobile device. The Wakefield Research study also revealed that 83% of the responding students used a mobile device to cram for an exam, a jump of 10% over the number of students who admitted last-minute mobile studying in 2012.

“The results of this survey underscore just how much students have embraced mobile devices and digital course materials to enhance their productivity, efficiency, and performance, all of which impact students’ educational success and financial prospects in this highly competitive, globally connected world,” said CourseSmart CEO Sean Devine when the Wakefield results were announced.

Young Adults Not So Web-Wary

Here is more evidence that young adults have difficulty distinguishing between valid web sites and bogus ones: A survey commissioned by the citizens watchdog group Digital Citizens Alliance showed that 18- to 24-year-olds are much more likely to get stiffed when buying merchandise online, usually because they’re less able to spot a shady web seller.

The survey was conducted Nov. 14 by Zogby Analytics and specifically asked respondents about online shopping for gifts. The results, though, showed that a whopping 35% of the youngest adult group had not received at least one online gift order (compared to just 18% for all age groups). Of those, almost 60% also didn’t get a refund for the no-show order.

Why young adults are more apt to be victimized becomes clearer when you look at their shopping habits. More than 80% of all shoppers make sure they’re ordering from secure web sites, but only 60% of young adults bother to do so. More young adults are drawn to shop at sites offering super-cheap prices—which too often are sites run by scammers. While older shoppers balk at great deals that seem too good to be true or when the seller is unknown, younger adults haven’t yet developed that sort of radar.

This survey correlates to other studies on how college students conduct online research for schoolwork and papers. Students, especially those in their first year, are less able to discern whether online information sources are knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Younger adults may spend a lot of time online, both studying and shopping, but they apparently need instruction in separating the bad sites from the good.