Textbook Alternatives

Two economics professors explore the issue.
Carbaugh, R., & Ghosh, K. (2005). Are college textbooks priced fairly? Challenge,
48(5), 95-112.

This organization does regular surveys of Florida college students on the effects of expensive textbooks.

Attack of the wallet killers: Students cannot afford exorbitantly-priced coursepacks, (February 18, 2005). Harvard Crimson. Retrieved from http://www.thecrimson.com/

Marini Davis, L. & Usry M. (2011). Faculty selling desk copies—the textbook industry, the law and the ethics, Journal of Academic Ethics, 9(1), 19-31.
Link for non-EMU users.

Senack, E. & U.S.PIRG. (2014). Fixing the Broken Textbook Market: How Students Respond to High Textbook Costs and Demand Alternatives, Center for Public Interest Research. Retrieved from http://uspirg.org

A survey on college textbook affordability during COVID-19

Del Valle, G. (March 6, 2019). The high cost of college textbooks, explained, Vox

Grinberg, E. (April 18, 2014). How some colleges are offering free textbooks, CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com

Stone, J. (September 19, 2014) Pirate Bay goes to college: Free textbook torrent downloads soar amid rising costs, International Business Times. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com

Cushing, T. (Sep 23 2014). Study Indicates College Textbook Piracy Is On The Rise, But Fails To Call Out Publishers For Skyrocketing Prices (blog post), TechDirt. Retrieved from https://www.techdirt.com/

D'Agostino, S. & Kosegarten, J. (September-October 2015) A textbook case of questionable ethics [Faculty Forum]. Academe, p. 47.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. (May 9, 2014). Textbook publisher in U.S. insists students cannot keep or resell books. Retrieved from http://www.ifex.org/united_states/2014/05/09/first_sale/

Weissmann, J. (3 Jan 2013). Why are college textbooks so absurdly expensive?, The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com

Ward, D. (September 8, 2015). Why you ought to think twice before assigning a pricey textbook, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/

Assoication of College and Research Libraries, 2023.

InclusiveAccess.org is a community-driven initiative to raise awareness of the facts about automatic textbook billing.

Ridlington, E. & Xie, D. (2024). Automatic Textbook Billing: Limited Choice, Uncertain Savings. Student PIRGs

Vitez, K. (2020). Automatic Textbook Billing: An Offer Students Can't Refuse? U.S. PIRG Education Fund.

Wiley, D. (January 26, 2017). Of OER and platforms: Five years later, EdSurge News. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/

Student PIRGS. (2016). ACCESS DENIED: The New Face of the Textbook Monopoly.

Young, J. R. (September 3, 2012). With 'access codes,' textbook pricing gets more complicated than ever. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/

This July 2017 article from PC magazine provides info on the many new ways to get e-texts from publishers, including different platform options.

Meinke, B. (March 22, 2018). Student data harvested by education publishers: they haz more than u think. Blog post retrieved from https://medium.com/@billymeinke/

Bowers, P. (Feb 1, 2019). Textbook ‘scam’ alleged in federal lawsuit against SC’s biggest technical college, Post and Courier. Retrieved from https://www.postandcourier.com

Lederman, Doug. (April 29, 2019) The publishers' move to capture campus data, Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/04/29/report-gauges-potential-risks-scholars-and-universities-if

Douglas-Gabriel, D. (April 14, 2018). Battle over college course material is a textbook example of technological change, Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com

Who is best suited to control textbooks: the faculty or the publishers? There are ways to make sure it is the faculty. Editorial in AAUP's Academe.
Moxley, J. (2013). Open textbook publishing. Academe, 99 (5). http://www.aaup.org/reports-and-publications/academe

American Mathematical Society Editorial Board. (2013). What we are doing about the high cost of textbooks, Notices of the AMS 60 (7). Retrieved from http://www.ams.org/

U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Student PIRGs. (7 April 2014). Affordable Textbooks: A Policy Guide. http://uspirg.org/reports/usp/affordable-textbooks-policy-guide

Austin D., et al. (December 2013/January 2014). The AIM Open Textbook Initiative, MAA Focus, p. 35. Retrieved from http://www.maa.org/

D. Nicholas, I. Rowlands, & H.R. Jamali. (2010). "E-textbook use, information seeking behaviour and
its impact: Case study business and management," Journal of Information Science, 36 (2), 263-280.

Morris-Babb, M. & Henderson, S. (2012). An experiment in open-access textbook publishing: changing the world one textbook at a time, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 43(2), 148-155. doi: 10.3138/jsp.43.2.148
Link for non-EMU users: article at Project Muse

Gatti, R. & Mierowsky, M. (2016). Funding open access monographs: a coalition of libraries and publishers, College & Research Libraries News, 77 (9), 456-459.

Wexler, E. (February 9, 2017). A growing (but controversial) idea in open-access textbooks: let students help write them, EdSurge News. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/

Schaffhauser, Dian (March 9, 2016). How to go textbook free, Campus Technology. Retrieved from https://campustechnology.com

Fischer, L., Hilton, J., Robinson, J. & Wiley, D.A. (2015). A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary students.” Journal of Computing in Higher Education 27(3), 159–172.

Carey, K. (20 Dec 2012). Never pay sticker price for a textbook again: The open educational resources movement that’s terrifying publishers. Slate.com. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com

A national survey of faculty.

Petrides, L., Jimes, C., Middleton‐Detzner, C., Walling, J. & Weiss, S. (2011). Open textbook adoption and use: implications for teachers and learners. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 2 (1). doi: /10.1080/02680513.2011.538563

Senack, E. (2015). Open textbooks: the billion dollar solution. Washington, DC: Center for Public Interest Research. Retrieved from http://www.studentpirgs.org/

a dissertation

Sawchuk, S. (August 24, 2017). Can an 'Open' Math Curriculum Compete With Commercial Publishers?,
About OER in K-12 education:
.EdWeek. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org.

Survey on adoption of OER in higher ed.

Hilton, J. L. III, Robinson, T.J., Wiley, D. & Ackerman, J. D. (2014). Cost-savings achieved in two semesters through the adoption of open educational resources, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 15(2), 67-84. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/

Nusbaum, A. T. & Cutter, C. (2020). Hidden impacts of OER: Effects of OER on instructor ratings and course selection. Fontiers in Education, 5 (72). doi: 10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3118

Colvard, N., Watson, E., and Park, H. (2018). “The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Open Oregon discusses ways to measure savings to students from use of free resources.

Pittsley, K. (2016) Making a Dent in the Textbook Problem: Library E-Books for Course Readings: A Collaboration Between Department Faculty and the EMU Library, Final Report EMU Women in Philanthropy Grant.

Fischer, L., Hilton III, J., Robinson, T. J., & Wiley, D. A. (2015). A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary students. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. doi:10.1007/s12528-015-9101-x

Staben, C. (February 13, 2019). A new way to motivate faculty adoption of OER, Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com

This large scale project showed that students earned more credits when a college offered many courses using OER. All students benefit, and it makes the biggest difference for Pell Grant students. The financial benefit to the College from increased credits was expected to exceed costs of the program.

Hilton, J. & Laman, C. (2012). One college’s use of an open psychology textbook. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and eLearning, 27(3). doi: 10.1080/02680513.2012.716657

Hilton, J. (2016). Open educational resources and college textbook choices: A review of research on efficacy and perceptions. Educational Technology Research and Development, 64(4), 573-590.

Profs at the University of British Columbia describe how and why they use open textbooks--saving students money isn't the only benefit.

Anderson, R. (July 7, 2016). Academic libraries and the textbook taboo: time to get over it?, The Scholarly Kitchen, [web log post]. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/

K. Pittsley (2014). The EMU Library tackles the textbook problem, FacultyConnections@EMULibrary, 2 (1). Retrieved from https://guides.emich.edu/facconnect

Ratto, B. G., & Lynch, A. (2012). The embedded textbook: Collaborating with faculty to employ library subscription E-books as core course text. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 24(1), 1-16.

Werner, R. (2014). Let’s burn them all: a librarian’s view, Journal of Management Education, 38(5), 759-763. doi: 10.1177/1052562914522233

Chant, I. (April 2014). OSU Libraries offer open access e-textboooks to students, Library Journal. Retrieved from http://lj.libraryjournal.com/

Lyons, C. & , Hendrix, D. (2014) Textbook affordability: Is there a role
for the library?, The Serials Librarian 66 (1-4). 262-267, doi: 10.1080/0361526X.2014.877282

Massis, B. E. (2013). Textbook affordability: The library's role. New Library World, 114(3), 179-183. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03074801311304087

Raschke, G. & Shanks, S. (2011) Water on a hot skillet: textbooks, open educational resources, and the role of the library. Library Technology Reports 47(8), 52+.

Yano, B. (2017). Connect OER Annual Report, 2016-2017. Washington, DC: SPARC.

Young, J.R. (Jan 4, 2018). As campuses move to embrace OER, college libraries become key players,
EdSurge News. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/

Rosen, J. (Nov 25, 2016). The college bookstore, disrupted, Publisher's Weekly. Retrieved from http://www.publishersweekly.com

Berry, T., Cook, L., Hill, N. & Stevens, K. (2010). An exploratory analysis of textbook usage and study habits: misperceptions and barriers to success, College Teaching, 59(1), 31-39. doi: 10.1080/87567555.2010.509376

Karaganis, J. (FEBRUARY 18, 2016). How a ‘Syllabus Commons’ could change higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/

Snyder, R. (2014). Let's burn them all: reflections on the learning-inhibitory nature of Introduction to Management and Introduction to Organizational Behavior textbooks, Journal of Management Education, 38(5), 733-758. doi: 10.1177/1052562913502481

More interesting reading than you might expect from government paperwork.

Williams, C. (January 21, 2017) Pearson fights for its future as investors consider a break-up, The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

And Follet responds.

Koenig, R. (September 5, 2014). Rise of online booksellers brings complaints from campus bookstores, Chronicle of Higher Education.

Vassallo, N. (April 28, 2015). Student attitudes toward content in higher education (slides), BISG's Higher Ed Conference, New York, NY.

Czerniewicz, L. (2016). Student practices in copyright culture: accessing learning resources, Learning, Media And Technology. doi: 10.1080/17439884.2016.1160928

McMahan, C. (2013). Theory and evidence of switching costs in the market for college textbooks (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://scholar.colorado.edu

Feldstein, M. (November 19, 2014). Blog post on eLiterate. http://mfeldstein.com/

Hurley, P. M. (2011). Book vouchers: an exploratory analysis of their use and effectiveness," Journal of Student Financial Aid, 41 (3). Retrieved from http://publications.nasfaa.org/jsfa/

O'Malley, S. (August 16, 2017). Which is better reading in print or on screen? ‘There’s no easy answer.’ Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com

Publisher's Weekly

Johnson, S. (April 12, 2018). Can a for-profit, venture-backed company keep OER free—and be financially sustainable?, EdSurge News. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/

Johnson, Steven. (April 21, 2019) The fall, and rise, of reading, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com

Association of Research Libraries. ARL Views blog. September 28, 2021

This video of a 2017 keynote presentation at Lansing Community Colleges is one of the best talks on OER that I've seen.

Dr. Cable Green is the Director of Open Education at Creative Commons. Don't let the initial focus on community colleges deter you, this is very relevant for universities too.

This ongoing review project "provides a summary of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption."

Rebus.Community is a collaborative platform for creating Open Textbooks.

"a network of academic and research librarians interested in open educational resources (OER)"

Publishes research reports, lobbies for legislation, provides organizing materials for students.

Enacted.

"provides policy recommendations for state legislators interested in tackling college affordability through OER"

Lists current state bills related to OER.