01-20-2021, 08:20 PM
One of my pet peeves is the cost of text books, especially for Gen. Ed. courses. When I started at a B&M decades ago, your only option was to buy from the school bookstore, or luck out and buy from someone who'd taken the course. Next came the Internet. Yay! With just the ISBN, you could buy a textbook from anywhere!
Now, colleges have businesses create digital books for them, and they cannot be used for other schools. And don't buy a used one 'cause it may not have the "vital" lab access. Or a new edition comes out every few years. All of this is NOT for cutting edge classes, I'm talking about courses like Microeconomics. It seems like many of the PowerPoint presentation, quizzes, etc. are devised by these companies. What ARE the professor's doing/creating to add value to the course?
Why aren't more colleges using sites like OpenStax?
Now, colleges have businesses create digital books for them, and they cannot be used for other schools. And don't buy a used one 'cause it may not have the "vital" lab access. Or a new edition comes out every few years. All of this is NOT for cutting edge classes, I'm talking about courses like Microeconomics. It seems like many of the PowerPoint presentation, quizzes, etc. are devised by these companies. What ARE the professor's doing/creating to add value to the course?
Why aren't more colleges using sites like OpenStax?
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