Don McCubbrey's Blog

MOOCs - An Eye-opener

So I somehow heard about a MOOC being offered by the folks behind Hybrid Pedagogy. It's called MOOC MOOC (a MOOC about MOOCs).  I signed up and sort of got started today.  

Holy Moley, are my eyes being opened!  The MOOC ecosphere has been around a lot longer and is much more varied than I had imagined.  I can't come close to explaining the scope of what I'm beginning to glimpse as well as Sean Michael Morris does in one of his blog posts:  "Broadcast Education: a Response to Coursera".  It was a reading for the one week course, which began today.  Take a look and your eyes will be opened too.  

At this moment, I feel like a "stranger in a strange land".  More to come. 

 

MOOCs

I'm back.  It was a busy spring and I've slowly geared down and am now gearing back up. 

I've been following MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) and as someone who has been following electronic commerce for almost twenty years I think I know a disruptive technology when I see one.

The following article from FastCompany explains MOOCs pretty well, but basically they are free courses offered on line to massive audiences, often over 100,000 students at a time.   They have not only taken OER (Open Educational Resources) to new heights, they will change the way teaching is done in conventional classrooms.  The side benefit of MOOCs, as explained in the article, is that they support the concept of the "flipped classroom".  Traditional university classrooms, particularly for introductory courses, have lectures in class with the students doing homework assignments outside of class.  The flipped classroom has them watching and listening to lectures outside of class and applying what they have learned and clearing up their understanding in the classroom, often in small groups, under the guidance of their professor.  The advantages are obvious and the article points them out so I won't repeat them.  Take a look:

Fast Company article on MOOCs

There's some other stuff you should read and I'll share it in the coming days and weeks ahead.

 

 

 

 

Should Textbook Authors Keep Royalties from Books Sold to Their Own Students?

Well, maybe.  But according to this article by Jack Stripling from Inside Higher Ed on April 7, 2010, a number of universities say it's an ethical breach or at least a conflict of interest. Here's a link to the full article:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/07/textbook

Here's a quote from the opening paragraph:  "No one likes rising textbook prices, but the bills may be even more painful to pay when it looks like a professor is cashing in on students. That's the sentiment at George Mason University, where students are grumbling about a professor who requires students to buy a book she helped to write, highlighting an ongoing debate about faculty profiting off their pupils".

Some university administrations  ban the practice altogether.  In other cases faculty senates have banned or strongly discouraged faculty from profiting directly from their students.  At least one author in the article was quoted as saying such practices were "ridiculous".

"Ridiculous or not", the article goes on to say, "some universities have adopted far-reaching policies in recent years that are designed to ensure conflicts of interest don’t arise from textbook assignments. At the University of Kansas, for instance, professors are required to donate any royalties made off their students to their departments, schools, scholarship funds or other nonprofit groups. It is up to faculty, however, to calculate the royalties they believe came from their classes and make the requisite donations.

"Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Faculty Senate president at Kansas, said the textbook policy strikes the right balance between encouraging ethical behavior and not being heavy-handed with faculty who are encouraged to publish.

“I think this is sort of the most honorable way to do it,” said Wolf-Wendel, a professor of higher education. “There’s sort of an ethic to it that feels right to me. It’s an on-your-honor thing, so you decide how much profit you get back.”

I agree.

The Kindle has certain shortcomings for textbooks (in my opinion)

Amazon announced its new version of the Kindle today.  Bigger screen (9.7 inches).  More expensive ($489).  Touted to be the salvation of newspapers and textbooks.  Maybe newspapers (but doubtful).  And textbooks?  I don't think so. 

Amazon wants to sell students textbooks for the Kindle, but has not yet disclosed the pricing.  If they are going to be priced in line with current online versions, they'll be half the price of a new hard-cover, or around $80 or so.  Not as attractive as a free textbook downloaded from the Global Text library to a Sony Reader, a pdf on the student's laptop, or a printed copy for around $15 from Lulu Press.

Here's the story from today's WSJ: 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124162110396691937.html

Sorry, Jeff.

Another Way to Lower Textbook Costs - Rent Them

Today's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article by Peter King, entitled "A Textbook Case of Renting Books".  I'd heard of similar schemes before, but most were offered by some of the major textbook publishers.  This article compares four independent sites where university students can rent textbooks for the amount of time they need them and return them to the company when they're finished.  The savings can be high.  For example, the third edition of an advanced accounting text, "Fraud Accounting", costs $177.95 new, but can be rented for as little as $52.54 for 55 days, or $41.12 for 90 days from one the sites which employs a guaranteed buy-back model.

The four sites analyzed in the article are:

http://bookrenter.com

http://campusbookrentals.com

http://chegg.com, and

http://textbooks.com

The last one is the site employing a guaranteed buy-back model.

Progress, but still, free is better:  http://globaltext.org

Cost of Textbooks Covered in Higher Education Act

The Higher Education Act was passed in both houses of the US Congress and is expected to be signed into law today.  It includes several provisions related to help reduce the cost of textbooks.  They are covered in an analysis on the maketextbooksaffordable site and are similar in many respects to state laws we have discussed in previous posts. Here's a summary from maketextbooksaffordable:

"The textbooks section has three main provisions:
1. Requires publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty
2. Requires publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials “unbundled” (separately)
3. Asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks (incl. ISBNs and prices) for each
course when students are registering for classes".

Each of the three provisions are analyzed in detail in the document.  Have a look.  It's worth a read.  Progress!

Article on Open Textbooks from USA Today

USA Today published an article on Friday, July 11, entitled "Online "open" textbooks save students cash".  Written by Svetlana Shkolnikova, it's a pretty good overview of the problem and some of the ways it's being addressed.  For example, the article says: "Textbook prices have outpaced inflation 2-to-1 in the past two decades, says a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. They account for 26% of tuition and fees at four-year public universities and nearly three-quarters of costs at community colleges, the GAO says".  It goes on to discuss a few initiatives in the open education space, some of whom we've had contacts with, like Foothill Community College and maketextbooksaffordable.com

Two authors who contributed books to the Global Text library are mentioned:  Bob Beezer and Rob Stewart.  It's a good overview and another indication that the problem of ever-more-costly textbooks is getting more attention and that solutions like Global Text can make a real contribution.

 - Don

"As Textbooks are Customized, Students Pay"

That's the title of an article in the Wall Street Journal on July 10th.  Here's the way the article, by John Hechinger, begins:

"College students, already struggling with soaring tuition bills and expenses, are encountering yet another financial hit: Publishers and schools are working together to produce "custom" textbooks that can limit students' use of the money-saving trade in used books. And in a controversial twist, some academic departments are sharing in the profits from these texts.

"The University of Alabama, for instance, requires freshman composition students at its main campus to buy a $59.35 writing textbook titled "A Writer's Reference," by Diana Hacker.

"The spiral-bound book is nearly identical to the same "A Writer's Reference" that goes for $30 in the used-book market and costs about $54 new. The only difference in the Alabama version: a 32-page section describing the school's writing program -- which is available for free on the university's Web site. This version also has the University of Alabama's name printed across the top of the front cover, and a notice on the back that reads: "This book may not be bought or sold used."

"Custom textbooks like this one are proliferating on U.S. college campuses, guaranteeing hefty sales for publishers -- and payments to colleges that are generally undisclosed to students."

The entire article is worth a read.  The writer is well-informed on the issues, including legislative actions being taken by some 34 states in the US to reduce the cost of textbooks.  He also questions the ethics of this growing cozy accommodation between universities and publishers by noting that "The book-royalty arrangements resemble a practice exposed during last year's student-loan scandal, when some universities steered students to particular lending firms and received a secret cut of the loans.

Gotta shake your head. 

Textbook Cost Controls Are Now the Law in Colorado

Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 73 into law on Tuesday, April 8.  Sponsored by Senator Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, and Representative John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, it is patterned after similar laws either enacted or under consideration in several other states.  According to an item on the Denver Business Journal website, "Senate Bill 73 requires textbook publishers doing business with Colorado public colleges to provide faculty members with book-price information.

"It also forces them to reveal the extent of any revisions in updated text editions so professors can decide whether it's worth ordering the update. Keeping an older edition in use can make it easier for students to buy cheaper, used copies"  As you may already know, publishers often do not do this.  This can result in a student paying $145 for a textbook in September and selling it back to the bookstore for $5 in November. (See my post of November 29, 2006).  New editions are often not really necessary, but are published to undercut the used book market, a market in which publishers do not participate.  They make their money by selling new books, and new book sales drop when students can buy used books at much lower costs.  Also, according to the article, "The measure also makes it harder for publishers to require students to buy textbooks bundled with other items, such as multimedia discs or supplementary workbooks".  What the article failed to note is that in many cases, the profs don't use the extra materials.

Colorado Student Concerns Over the Cost of Textbooks

As those of you who have been following this blog for awhile know, the two overriding themes have been the Global Text Project and IT systems foul-ups by the State of Colorado.  The Global Text Project is focused on the cost of textbooks in developing economies where the problem is much more acute than it is in the US.  We recently had some great publicity in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  (If you go to the In the News page on the site, you'll find a link to the article.  There's also a link on the November 18 post here, right below this post).

Still, the cost of textbooks in the US is of increasing concern to many students and some faculty.  For examples of comments here in the past, please see posts dated October 18, 2007, September 27, 2007, September 24, 2007, and July 5, 2007 as examples.  There are more.  There's another article in the Denver Post this morning, entitled "Collegians' book, tuition concerns on same page" with Allison Sherry's byline.  While there has been a lot of activity around this issue for quite awhile (e.g. maketextbooksaffordable), it looks like the issue is gathering some momentum.

So, with the new administration in the State of Colorado looking like they're getting serious about cleaning up the messes that arose during the previous administration and avoiding more messes in the future, I think I'll focus more on the Global text Project and related issues as well as "who knows what else" topics.