New Model Lets Students Rent Textbooks on Pay-as-You-Go Basis
A
new service allows college students to rent
digital textbooks only for the time they need them, perhaps the first
pay-as-you-go model for college materials.
Once
students register with iFlipd, they can rent
digital textbooks for as little as a week. Once they finish using a
book, they
can move it back into the digital catalogue, making it available to
other
students. There is a loyalty program that gives points toward free
rentals.
iFlipd is also integrated with Datalogics and
its interactive Active Textbook e-book system so that students have
sharing
capabilities. They can share notes on the texts through the platform
and access
notes made by previous users of the same textbooks. The note-sharing
platform
allows for highlighting, annotations, audio, video and search.
New
users can receive a free one-week rental when
they sign
up. iFlipd representatives said the cost of college textbooks has
increased
tenfold over the past 30 years and now students spend an average of
$1,200 each
year.
"It's
no secret that the cost of textbooks can be
a huge financial burden for students everywhere," said iFlipd CEO and
founder
Kati Radziwon. "iFlipd offers an alternative solution providing
students
greater financial flexibility than semester-long rentals. Our
pay-as-you-go
model allows students to rent textbooks as needed, and only pay for the
time
they use them. Students can read books on any device while saving
hundreds of
dollars per year."
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.