Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Colleges Experimenting With Bulk-Buying E-Textbooks... And Forcing Students To Pay Up

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
Mike Masnick, in Techdirt, nails the problems with this one. "As book prices have continued to rise, apparently some universities are experimenting with bulk buying licenses to ebook textbooks and simply charging the students a fee.... First, it forces all the students to "buy" the books at full price. It wipes out the secondary market (which many students make use of in selling their books back), and even the case of the student who just checks the book out of the library. Also, we've seen in places like Canada how a simple mandatory student fee can start out low, and then suddenly jump massively. It's good that some universities want to lower book fees, and making use of ebooks is a possible solution, but mandatory fees seem ripe for abuse."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 05, 2024 04:26 a.m.

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