[John] E-publishing! The cost of textbooks is really a ridiculous profit mill. Make it all downloadable and you'd save thousands per student. My eldest daughter in college says there is some movement in this direction already.
[Arlo] She is right, there is a big push for this. There are problems though, that amplify the dangers of "textbooks" in general. The foremost being that the publishing content, rather than providing a book used in class, instead provides an entire e-courseware area that the teacher has less and less control over about following. In short, it has the potential to really make e-textbook publishers the content-syllabus determiners for these classes. There is also a risk that this masks the slow grabbing of e-publishing by the same publishing companies that in a few years will simply charge the same amount (or more) for its e-versions as it does now for paper. One thing I read not too long ago was that e-variants would be charged to the university per student registered, which would eliminate potential sharing or doubling-up on materials. The Academy registers 25 students for History 101, then it pays the e-cost and passes that cost to each student as an unavoidable part of their tuition. [John] Yeah! Just the man to get it done. What about it Arlo? E-publishing! [Arlo] I am cautious, but I think this is the way we will eventually go. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
