{"id":6357,"date":"2010-06-22T14:44:36","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T18:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=6357"},"modified":"2010-06-22T14:57:16","modified_gmt":"2010-06-22T18:57:16","slug":"e-textbooks-and-some-thoughts-about-being-innovative-and-using-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2010\/06\/22\/e-textbooks-and-some-thoughts-about-being-innovative-and-using-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"E-textbooks — and some thoughts about being innovative and using teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reflections on The E-Book Sector<\/a><\/strong> — from InsideHigherEd.com<\/p>\n

First of all, some excerpts (with emphasis from DSC):<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

E-textbooks might be the most-talked about and least-used learning tools in traditional higher education. Campus libraries and e-reader manufacturers are betting on electronic learning materials to overtake traditional textbooks in the foreseeable future, but very few students at traditional institutions are currently using e-textbooks, according to recent surveys.<\/p>\n

Not so in the world of for-profit online education.<\/p>\n

For-profit institutions in general are moving toward wider e-textbook use than other sectors of higher education, Stielow says. \u201cI think a great many [for-profits] are certainly trying to move toward this model,\u201d agrees Bickford. And the ones that have appear to be succeeding.<\/p>\n

Why is that?<\/p>\n

John Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, which studies online learning, posits that it might be a function of the more centralized administrative structures<\/strong> at for-profit institutions. \u201cFor-profits do things like provide lesson plans for instructors, provide you with what you\u2019re supposed to do; they hire all these adjuncts to deliver all these things that have been sculpted by instructional designers<\/strong>,\u201d says Bourne. Being able to dictate to the faculty what text format they should assign to their students probably makes it easier to implement e-textbook adoption across the institution, he says.<\/p>\n

It is more difficult<\/strong> to engineer change at such scale at nonprofits, because of their more distributed governance models. <\/strong>At those colleges, <\/strong>faculty control of curricular texts \u2014 including mode of delivery \u2014 is \u201csacred,\u201d Bourne says.<\/p>\n

Manny Rivera, a spokesman for Phoenix, says that the online giant\u2019s centralized administration does indeed allow it to make sweeping changes without many hang-ups. \u201cThe university is set up to be more nimble to confront market forces,\u201d Rivera says. \u201cSo we\u2019re able to innovate more quickly.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

From DSC:<\/strong><\/span>
\nTo be more nimble…to confront market forces…to be able to innovate more quickly…to use materials created by teams of specialists…hmmm….sounds like a solid position to be in as the bubble continues to expand (and may even be beginning to slowly burst based upon where students are going — more community colleges, more state\/public schools, lower-cost alternatives, etc.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


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\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflections on The E-Book Sector — from InsideHigherEd.com First of all, some excerpts (with emphasis from DSC): E-textbooks might be the most-talked about and least-used learning tools in traditional higher education. Campus libraries and e-reader manufacturers are betting on electronic learning materials to overtake traditional textbooks in the foreseeable future, but very few students at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,275,36,35,327,13],"tags":[600,704,736,585,661,732,574],"class_list":["post-6357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-side-of-he","category-digital-textbooks","category-future-of-higher-education","category-game-changing-environment","category-library-librarians","category-using-teams","tag-business-side-of-he","tag-digital-textbooks","tag-for-profits","tag-game-changing-environment","tag-innovation","tag-library-librarians","tag-using-teams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6357"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6365,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions\/6365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}