Digital Publishing: Imperfect, but Improving

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Digital Publishing: Imperfect, but Improving

12/27/2006

By Judith V. Boettcher

What do students think about when they weigh the pros and cons of conventional textbooks against digital versions? And just how 'edgy' is digital getting, anyway?

eLearning ONCE UPON A TIME there was a student named Jason. Jason was studying physics remotely, although he was not sure why he was studying physics. (What he really wanted to do was build some gaming simulations.) But physics was a required course and the new term was just starting. So, after playing the video of his faculty introducing the course and the study of physics, Jason got down to arranging for access to the course materials.

He pondered his options, but didn’t really want to buy the physical copy of the textbook. He knew from the online description that the book weighed 5.6 pounds—as much as all of his technology tools combined. (He had to admit, though, that carrying around the book might be good for his strength training.) He also knew that purchasing the tome would carve a huge chunk out of the amount he had budgeted for his course materials. Besides, the book (mostly text and photographs) was static and difficult to use, even with the addition of the CD-ROM. It was a “dead” object, thought Jason: It wasn’t connected to anything else, was not context-aware, and couldn’t be upgraded. Just as bad, it was difficult to find—or relocate—information in it, and it had no search engine and few audio or video resources for use on his iPod. The content was dense and the writing style was difficult to follow, and there weren’t even built-in assistants to help!

What Jason really wanted to do was buy the digital version of the textbook, but it was quite costly as well—only 30 percent less expensive than the physical textbook. What’s more, the interface was unwieldy and confusing, and the restrictions on printing and access were overwhelming, hard to decipher, and frustrating. Finally, the digital version employed a proprietary software format, which made it incompatible with Jason’s other eBooks. And, apparently, access to the content expired after six months!

There were other considerations, too. Reading for any length of time on the computer or on his small iPod screen was a challenge, but the upside was that he would always have the content with him, so he could make use of shorter snippets of time, for learning. And he wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting the text, or the weight of carrying it. He could even listen to the audio parts of the podcasts while driving or commuting, and he could watch the video podcasts while waiting— after all, he was frequently waiting somewhere for something. His friend Raoul told him that the audio and video podcasts really helped with difficult new concepts and physics vocabulary; he said he often used the interviews with experts to think through some of the physics problems.

Jason also realized that with a digital textbook, he could annotate the content just by “talking” to it; he could even customize his personal automated learning assistant (ALA) to fit his own current knowledge of physics (which was pretty abysmal, he admitted). “Hey!” he thought, “my ALA will be able to recommend useful or helpful resources when I’m stuck or having trouble with a problem!” Jason even decided to call his as-yet-created ALA “Boots.”

Jason’s friend Raoul had also noted that the digital version of the textbook made it easier to generate and post content to the class wiki and blog spaces for team projects and collaboration (although the capability was still somewhat impeded by restrictions on the copying and printing functions). And Raoul had pointed out that the problem simulations (with infi- nite variations) really helped him develop confidence in analyzing physics problems. Raoul confided that many of the simulations reminded him of the simulations on the Holodeck of Star Trek. That final point did it, prodding Jason toward the purchase of the digital version. Still, he found himself dreaming of the day when some publisher somewhere would create an iTunes-like service for textbooks.