The fact that you felt the need to ask the question perhaps provides the answer to the question. By making this offer, the publisher is in effect recruiting faculty to represent the company. The free book is not free, but is in fact a means for the company to compensate its representatives for services rendered. (If you were to dig around in the tax laws, my guess is that the value of the book should be included on tax returns. The publisher's accountants are likely to deduct the value of the book from its tax obligation.) The ethical dilemma this arrangements sets up is "serving two masters" or a conflict of interest. Is the individual before the class serving the publisher or serving the students? There is also an issue of disclosure. The publisher is aware that its agent is also working for the students, but the students are unaware of the teacher serving as the publisher's agent. Thus, to settle this inequity, the instructor would be obligated to inform the students (as well as the college or university) of his/her affiliation with the publisher prior to showing the publisher's promotional materials. An alternative approach would be to send a loud message to Allyn & Bacon (and any other publisher) for attempting to use faculty members as sandwich boards. A call for a general boycott of their books would likely be heard; at the least, the adoption of a text other than Berk's.
Paul D. Snider Postgraduate Research Student School of Psychology Murdoch University Murdoch, Western Australia 6150 Phone 61-8-9360-2390 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Nagelbush" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 2:35 AM Subject: Ethics(?) question > I received the following from the publisher of Berk's Child Development > text: > > Thank you for selecting an Allyn & Bacon/Longman textbook for your course. I > appreciate your adoption and look forward to hearing more about how the book > works for you and your students this fall! > I know you put a lot of time into selecting this text, so I'm sure you'll > agree that it's important that your students get the book and use it. Yet > the facts show that more and more students are not buying their required > books (new or used) unless their instructors stress the importance of the > book in class. I'm writing you now to ask you to agree to tell your students > about the importance of their required book and to offer you any help you > may need to deliver that message. > Our marketing department has put together a special "First Day of Class" > campaign for professors who are willing to participate in stressing the > importance of using the textbook. If you are willing to join our efforts, we > will send you a personalized flyer, transparency, or PowerPoint slide (your > choice) to use on the first day of class. > And to thank you for participating, we will let you choose a free book of > your choice from a terrific selection of 12 different titles published by > our sister company, Penguin/Putnam. The titles in this program, along with > further details about this initiative are found in the attached > participation form. Simply fill it out, and send it to me. I'll do the rest! > I hope to hear from you soon. > > > What bothered me about this is that I am supposed to agree to use their > material sight unseen. (I haven't asked them to let me see it first, so I > do not know if they will.) However, the other issue, related to a > discussion on this list earlier, is that the publisher will "reward" me for > using their material with a free book. I was wondering if any of you had > any reactions to this offer? > > Jeff Nagelbush > Ferris State University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
