Jan 10 2009
More about the high cost of textbooks
So… a couple of days ago I posted about the high costs of textbooks for university and college … and several people responded with ideas about mitigating those costs; thank you - I love it when people participate, and especially try to help others who are going back to school.
Today in our paper, the Toronto Star , there was a big article about one strategy that some students have been using to try to keep their costs down. Not a particularly good one though, I think …but I can certainly understand the temptation.
They are increasingly finding ways to get textbooks photocopied - for a whole lot less than it would cost them to buy the book. In at least one case, a shop actually has the books and sells photocopied and bound versions for a fraction of the cost of the text.
Not cool.
Of course it is not cool. But!
The article includes a bit from a publisher’s point of view, going on about how the additional resources that are provided to professors teaching from the textbook are part of the high costs of the book - sorry, but that struck me as a huge pile of malarky. Yes, there are a bunch of additional resources that are provided to me as an instructor - but honestly, they are pretty near useless to me. I have yet to teach using a textbook where the resources provided suited me in any way, really.
Even the solutions to the exercises in the textbooks I teach from are usually not helpful. The example syllabus they provide is invariably crap; the lecture notes are mere outlines that suit me not at all, and the online components that are offered to my students, while mildly useful and entertaining (we can do crossword puzzles, or play bastardized versions of popular tv game shows - hmmm… I wonder if they pay for that priviledge - or use flash cards to review concepts) - surely do not require - or justify - adding a huge mark up to the cost of each textbook.
They provide PowerPoints that are essentially crap - boring and, from one who also teaches PowerPoint, poorly done. And Blackboard cartridges that contain ~stuff~ like those PowerPoints that, if one makes the mistake of uploading them to an active course, take HOURS to fix and adjust to hide those components that you don’t want, and move things to where you want them, etc. I generally do upload them - to an inactive course shell - and then just move what I want from there to my active shells - but honestly, I rarely find anything much I want.
And the tests they provide! ACK! I teach computers - relational database, right now. The test banks they provide me with, at least right now, SUCK. I can not imagine a situation in which I would ever use them. You can not, in my opinion, test computer knowledge in any meaningful way, using multiple choice tests. And I refuse to waste my students’ time having to teach them 47 ways to do the same thing because in order to pass the multiple choice tests they need to know all 47 ways. As far as I’m concerned, hands on testing is the only reasonable way to evaluate their abilities - and even though it takes a heck of a lot more time and energy to develop and mark good hands on tests that relate directly to their particular field, it is worth it. My students either know their stuff when they do their tests - or they learn that they don’t know it and are motivated to fix that through those tests.
I could care less if they have memorized 47 ways to do a task. I want them to be able to sit down at a computer and solve their (or their employer’s) problem. With the help files, with their texts in front of them, and yes, even with Google.
Apparently, my particular publisher’s company is working on providing a way to do hands on testing in an online lab environment. I missed the preview session we were offered, as I was busy at Trent. But honestly, I very much doubt that it is going to work for my guys, as the likelihood that they are going to offer testing situations targeted to any particular field is slim to none. And if they do, they will use that to justify higher prices? I don’t think so. I consider test development and marking my job. Is that not why student’s pay tuition? So that they have teachers who can adjust the course to their field of study - and to each particular class if needed?
And sorry - but in addition to my role as a teacher and student, I have also done a whole lot of programming and web development - give me a BREAK! None of that stuff needs to cost the kind of money the article suggests it does - and if they are paying that much, they are SO getting ripped. Seriously.
Anyway - for students to take matters into their own hands and go photocopy the book rather than buying it is wrong …but when they can do that for under $50 as opposed to paying $300 or more for a text, can you really blame them?
What do you think?
I think the days where the textbook companies had the scholastic world at their mercy are long gone. I said the same thing about videos when movie companies were bomoaning the high cost of piracy. They dropped their prices (drastically!), and still made a huge profit and piracy became almost a nonissue as a result.
In this electronic world, the publishers are going to have to get with the times and offer something of value at a reasonable price or pay the consequences. Not that I condone illegal activities, just acknowledge reality.
piracy of movies is anything but a non-issue here… it’s HUGE…
and it put all of the wee video stores like us out of business … and a lot of the bigger chains are only still in because they are carrying phones, etc
I personally think what greatly reduced the video piracy (at least in the US) is the same thing that killed video rental. Why pay $3 for a rental when I can buy it for $8-$10? I forget to bring it back in time, the fees can add up to more than the movie.When movies cost $100 a pop, a rental store made a lot of sense. Now, with movies at $5-10 apiece and such conveniences as Netflix and streaming downloadables on-line (not to mention the wealth of movies readily available on cable), the incentive to brave the elements for the privlege of renting a movie are hard to justify.
Textbooks are different in that the use of them is not discretionary. Students are at the mercy of teachers, institutions and textbook publishers. My point was just that, with media options as varied and serve-yourself as they are today, continually taking advantage of students is bound to backfire as it once did for the movie industry.
dvds here are most often bought illegally from black market kiosks - 5 or more for $20.
so a whole lot of money ain’t going towards the movie industry at all any more
Canada is, apparently, second only to China for movie piracy
Wow. Unbelievable. I’m sure there’s piracy here, too, but you hardly see it (or at least, I hardly see it) except with some stuff of Disney’s that’s no longer available. And I only knew it was pirated (didn’t know it when I bought it) because of the Kanji menu. I didn’t mean to get it pirated and, fortunately, Disney put it back out shortly thereafter so I’m all legal now.
Anything else I’ve bought, man, it has the studio’s stickers all over it.
flit, you said apparently Canada is second to China on piracy? I thought Malaysia was #2! The government supposedly cracked down on the industry, but it’s still going strong, it just went more underground is all…!
to your question about the overpriced books: it’s illegal and a violation of copyright to photocopy a book *and* sell it. I wouldn’t be a party to that. Thankfully back when I was a student, I was also on a scholarship and had a book allowance, so buying the textbooks wasn’t too big an issue.
The real issue was my not selling them back at the end of the semester. I was, and still am, a book lover to the extreme - it’s only 2 years ago that I finally got rid of most of these university text books (i graduated almost 14 years ago!) . They had been bought in Illinois, sent to Malaysia’s east coast, traveled back with me to Kuala Lumpur, stored in the apartment “attic” for years, then moved to the house I never moved into myself, then finally stored in my parents’ “beach house” for a short while before i finally went through all the boxes, hardened my heart, and got rid of all except those with extreme sentimental value :p
I still own some of my textbooks. And use ‘em.