Digital shift: e-books rising in popularity

The Indiana University eText initiative has saved 5,300 IU students as much as $100,000 by allowing professors to select eTexts instead of traditional textbooks to teach in class.

eTexts first became available for faculty to consider for classes in September 2011 but are now available for all classes to use this spring semester.

“I’m very encouraged by the adoption of the faculty and what we’ve heard from the students,” said Brad Wheeler, IU vice president for information technology. “I think the faculty and students are finding that the capability of working the text digitally is pretty remarkable.”

After the IU fee model was developed to charge each student who takes a class using eTexts, an agreement was issued between five publishers to supply eTexts to these  students.

The fee is really no different from how students are obligated to pay for the student technology fee, Wheeler said.  

“Essentially what we’ve done is negotiate a very favorable pricing for students where the publisher drops the price substantially if each student pays for it when he or she takes the course,” Wheeler said. “So if the textbook is originally $100, you would often see an eText fee of $30 to $40.”

The eText method was first developed to lower the cost of textbooks for students. Under the current model, students had an average savings of $25 per book or online supplement.

“Before, we saw a lot of things starting to happen in pricing that was not favorable for students,” Wheeler said. “If we had not worked out this deal, then students would be looking at paying retail prices for those things, which is one of the things that we are really trying to help.”

Students will know when they enroll in a course if its respective professor is using an eText. Once enrolled, they will find an eText fee added to their bursar bill.

“Once you enroll in a class and your digital materials show up in Oncourse you can then use them on an iPad, Droid (tablet) or just a PC with a web browser,” Wheeler said.  

eText materials can be used with any device that can access the internet. This means the texts can be read on computers, tablets and smartphones, which includes iPads, iPhones, Android-based tablets and phones and some Kindles.

Although IU is seeing an increase in the quantity of students using eTexts, bookstores like T.I.S. College Bookstore that also sell e-textbooks have not had the same experiences.

The e-books that T.I.S. and the IU Bookstore sell are different from the eTexts that are available through IU classes. When a professor decides to use eTexts through IU, students in that class are obligated to use an eText.

E-books at T.I.S and the bookstore are an optional choice for some classes.   

“They haven’t really taken off. Our sales have really not been terrific on them,” said Tim Lloyd, text manager at T.I.S. “A lot of students, given the choice, are still choosing to use a hard copy of the book.”

Junior Alley Murphy said she is glad that not all classes are requiring eTexts, even though none of her classes are offering them.

“I’m definitely more likely to use the textbook version,” Murphy said. “I process information better when it’s in writing, and it helps to be able to make notes or underline, and even though you technically can do that through a computer, it’s just not the same.”

Lloyd said he believes more students might starting using e-books in future years.

“Part of the thing with the e-book is that teaching from the e-book is partly going to come from people who learned via an e-book,” Lloyd said.

In January, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 29 percent of Americans own at least one tablet or e-book reader.

As reported by the Associated Press, the percentage of people who currently own a tablet device nearly doubled between mid-December and early January, rising from 10 percent to 19 percent.

Wheeler said there are currently five other universities that are also beginning to use the eTexts IU started using a few years ago.  

“These pretty key universities are essentially starting trials now for eTexts that are the same ones that we’ve been doing for the last couple years,” Wheeler said.

Lloyd said that, as a bookseller, he sells both hardcopy textbooks and e-books, but when students are choosing which to use, it depends on how vital a role the textbooks play in the class.

“The bottom line and the most important is, how do students learn?” Lloyd said. “Right now, I don’t think any of us have the answer to that.”