U of W takes a digital test drive

“There's a lot to hate about traditional textbooks, so the University of Windsor became the first in Canada to strike a licensing deal with an open access digital publisher. ‘I see this deal as part of a broader trend,’ said Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. ‘It's part of a very clear shift toward more open approaches, open access, open licensing and increasingly, open educational materials.’ This fall, about 200 students in a course on management information systems will take the project for a test drive. The university has agreed to pay e-text company Flat World Knowledge $20 per student in exchange for access to a full range of digital materials supporting the course, including e-books and study aids. The fee will be passed along to the students, but it's much cheaper than buying traditional textbooks and course packs that can cost hundreds of dollars, and much easier than hunting around for a used copy that may be out of date. University of Windsor library dean Gwendolyn Ebbett said if everything goes well, about twice as many students will use Flat World Knowledge e-texts in the winter semester and even more after that, depending on faculty uptake... just like the rest of the print industry, textbook publishers are struggling with how to make money without selling their product on a pile of dead trees. ‘A lot of publishers are very reluctant to make their textbook content available digitally, because they're trying to find a pricing model and a cost model that would continue to be as lucrative as the one they currently have,’ Ebbett said... Besides being cheap and digital, the other feature of Flat World Knowledge's texts that sets them apart is the fact they're open access. Anyone can alter and annotate copies without changing the original, which means professors are free to delete chapters or add explanatory notes to chapters if that's what suits the needs of the course.”