How the Textbook Industry Tries to Hook Professors | Hacker News Reader

How the Textbook Industry Tries to Hook Professors

wired.com

28 pointsademarre11 comments

This fails to mentions some of the best "hooks" they've got: tools to reduce lecture prep time, assignment prep, and grading.

I've seen textbooks whose online content for instructors include a full deck of (extremely uninspired) powerpoint slides. And I've seen lazy profs use them.

Web-based assignments with automated grading are also powerful hooks. Like the prepared slides, they discourage instructors from engaging with the material, providing any unique insights from their own experience, or actually working with students to achieve understanding.

if you are paid an adjunct salary and have basically no time to prep for classes because you have to teach several just to put bread on the table, you might not have a choice but to use these "uninspired" slides.

I would be wary of calling a teacher "lazy" in these post-tenure days. Not saying lazy teachers don't exist but these days I would definitely give them more the benefit of the doubt.

I've done the adjunct thing, and I'm sympathetic to your point. The current state of post-tenure higher ed is just not sustainable. What exactly is the point of having an overworked person (pulling 60 hours weeks at below minimum wage, as some adjuncts I know do) stand up in front of a group of students and read slides to them that just summarize the textbook chapter that they've all supposedly just read? Luckily for the administrators who've created this situation, most students care so little about actually getting an education that they fail to notice how badly they're being ripped off.

Thats not teaching, its basically just being present while people teach themselves.

I remember my school had used some automated grading tool provided by the textbook publisher for differential equations. The nasty thing about it was you could pay an exorbitant amount of money just to access the homework site (you were required to buy in because it was part of the grade), and for a little bit more money it would include access to the electronic textbook for the duration of the course. And new textbooks included one-time vouchers (and of course the used textbooks didn't come with any voucher). Given the cost of the voucher, you might as well just buy the new textbook every time.

Unfortunately, the textbook author was also the instructor of the course who claimed not to have received any benefit from this arrangement.

I once asked a professor - why you don't tell the students that they can get older version of the text book that's 90% cheaper, and the content is essentially the same - to which he replied, he isn't allowed to say it in the class because of the deal their school has with the university book store and the publisher.

But he also said, he drops hints about it in the first class. On the syllabus it says 'X book or other versions'. It's up-to the student to figure our what it means.

It's especially heartbreaking when you find someone struggling to buy $200 book just to get the online access code, or he will fail the course. He didn't even pay that much to sign up for the class.

That's why initiatives like openstax(by Bill and Melinda gates foundation) and wiki books makes me so happy.

I actually told my bookstore that students this fall could use either the 2nd or 3rd edition of a book (Sipser, which for the record is breathtakingly expensive, but the 3rd edition is nearly identical to the 2nd, right down to the typesetting), not really expecting them to follow through. To my surprise, they did---the bookstore website lists both editions and says either is acceptable.

...but if you buy or rent them at the college bookstore, they cost about the same. D'oh. On the open market, used copies of the 2nd edition go for less than a third the price of used copies of the 3rd.

(So I sent my students an email apprising them of the situation and suggesting they get their orders in before the thousands of other CS students buying their fall textbooks. :)

Thank you Sir. You are my hero.

I think this touches on a core problem. When you add a middleman between the product and the consumer you get a painful market. The consumer doesn't get to choose his product thus the product gets to market to the middleman and gradually increase it's cost to the consumer because the middleman won't notice a dollar here and a dollar there, whereas the consumer absolutely would.

Our startup is working to fix the mainstream textbook problem. Specifically, I think the biggest ripoffs are the textbooks for first-year students; they're totally full of bullshit, so our mission is to replace them with more concise, and more affordable books.

So far we have two titles: one on precalc+mech+calc (3 in 1 for the win), and a second on linear algebra (see my profile for links). We're currently looking for authors to write the No bullshit guide to biology, and No bullshit guide to chemistry. If you have teaching or tutoring experience with these subjects, please get in touch.

Between the excellent OER books that available, and independent publishers like us, I think we can fix the textbook cartels. I give them 2-3 more years, then they're history.

I had a really good survey of automata professor tell us that we could buy the textbook if we wanted, but if we read the slides and/or reviewed taped lectures, the textbook would be completely optional.

I think the sign of a good educator is when the teacher provides materials that are decoupled from the textbook. I like the idea of making the textbook optional. Of course, this means more work for the instructor (need to develop homework, lectures, supplemental reading/slides). And a lot of instructors in university didn't care to do this work.

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