Electronic Textbooks
E-books are being widely adopted as alternatives to traditional textbooks. Here you'll find articles detailing new developments in the area of e-book and e-textbook technologies, along with stories about institutions adopting them.
In an effort to boost textbook affordability for its students, North Park University is making all required course materials available through a new online bookstore that provides expanded options for low-cost textbooks.
Education technology company VitalSource has added a component to Bookshelf, its digital textbook platform, to generate practice activities. The new function, CoachMe, uses artificial intelligence to generate questions that are formed from the text and shown in the margins of the page.
Open educational resources publisher OpenStax has received funding from the U.S. Department of Education to address a gap in the OER textbook market.
Follett Corp. has sold book and digital content distributor Baker & Taylor, which will now operate as a separate, privately owned entity. The company was sold to a private investment group led by Amandeep Kochar, who previously served as general manager and executive vice president of Baker & Taylor.
Ed tech company Cengage has launched a new product that integrates digital course materials into an institution's learning management system.
Education technology company Cengage is adding more than 100 new employability modules within its Cengage Unlimited course materials subscription service.
SUNY Polytechnic Institute is launching a new online bookstore in an effort to reduce textbook costs and increase the accessibility of course content.
In 2020-2021, the majority of college students (58 percent) used digital course materials more than in the previous year, according to a survey from the National Association of College Stores.
Campus bookstores have a critical role to play in open educational resource efforts, according to a recent report from the Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success Collaborative. Yet there is room for improvement in the way stores list and fulfill learning materials and make OER options available to students.
Textbook publisher FlatWorld has introduced new capabilities for its homework and online reader platforms as well as 11 new and recently revised titles in its course materials catalog.
