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Professor here: this part isn't correct in my experience: > Professors are offered substantial bribes to select the most expensive texts I've never heard of t

Professor here: this part isn't correct in my experience: > Professors are offered substantial bribes to select the most expensive texts I've never heard of this happening, and certainly have never been offered a kickback myself to take a book. Accepting one would be a crime for state university professors where I am, and probably almost everywhere else.

ozborn 7y ago
Agree with paultopia - I'm an assistant professor and have also never heard of this happening. The closest I got to some indignation from the University bookstore which wanted to list a textbook for my course and was seemed confused or disappointed to learn that the text book was free and online.
- klyrs 7y ago
  There was a significant push at my uni for open source texts. The old guard continues to win with arguments along the lines of "students won't see value in a free book." Where I'll believe that they aren't taking bribes... at least in some cases a majority don't care about the expense that they aren't paying.
mfoy_ 7y ago
I think that we can safely assume that if something directly comparable but much worse, both ethically and legally, has occurred (e.g. doctors being bribed by pharma companies to over-prescribe their drug), then it's not a stretch to give this claim the benefit of the doubt. Anecdotally, I once had a professor who had personally remixed an existing textbook and forced us to buy his version for the class, because he would reference page numbers and chapter headings from his version. Admittedly, this is essentially what most "nth edition" textbooks do anyways, but it was a little jarring to see him personally emulate this so directly and unscrupulously.
- kylebenzle 7y ago
  "then it's not a stretch to give this claim the benefit of the doubt." Wow, where is your brain?
- jacobreg 7y ago
  On the other hand I had a professor who wrote a book just to teach this particular course, and sold it for $5. It was a great text and a great course.
  - bb88 7y ago
    He probably made money on it (even if it was $100). I've heard of profs writing books explicitly for their classes and not making money on them.
    - rusticpenn 7y ago
      The money required to print it probably...
    - yummypaint 7y ago
      All the prof-authored material ive seen has always been provided as a free pdf before the course started. There is really no excuse for not doing this in 2019.
Someone1234 7y ago
Depends on your definition of bribes. Professors either have to grade themselves OR assign a publisher's book, with a one time code, at no cost to them/their department where the publisher will grade for them. All for free from the professor's perspective. In both cases the professor is likely using the publisher's resource to assign homework, because that's one way publishers encourage expensive book requirements: Allow professors to offload their work to the publisher. There's 101 classes where the professor only turns up to teach. That's it. No homework creation, no grading, and they just have a TA take the publisher's grade report and import it into their student system.
- yummypaint 7y ago
  My experience as a past student and ta has been that courses with TAs have less dependence on the book, and problem sets are more likely written by the professor. A TA saves a prof vastly more work than using a book with canned problems, and the cost of writing problems is amortized in large classes. Smaller classes without TAs (which should ostensibly have better instruction) tend to fall into the textbook trap more often.
DangitBobby 7y ago
I've always wondered why I had to buy the new edition of textbooks each year. I know it's fairly common practice to assign the newest edition of a book. Is there a good reason for that that I don't understand? How different is my Calculus 1 textbook Ed. 17 from this year's Ed. 18?
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  In some cases there are very major differences. Dragon Book v2 has entire new chapters on topics that weren't being widely applied when v1 was written. v18-v19 probably isn't a big jump, but that doesn't make all version changes worthless.
  - ShroudedNight 7y ago
    The dragon book was updated once, 13 years ago, 20 years after its original publication date. It seems strange to use it as an example within the context of textbooks being updated at a regular cadence.
- javajosh 7y ago
  The reason doctors will often prescribe the "next generation" drug, even if the old one works fine and is generic, and 100x cheaper, is that they believe it's better. They aren't stupid, and know its only marginally better, but they want the best for their patients. Professors also want the best for their students, and so the latest edition is prescribed. In a way, it's a point of pride, but its also a little bit lazy, because it's the simplest way they can signal "hey, I'm staying current, doing my job and not just phoning it in." So, yeah, I don't think it's bribery, it's just a heady mix of (ignorance of) diminishing returns, moral hazard, and status signaling. Plus its a petty injustice that only hurts people in aggregate, and it only hurts people who already can afford college in rich places, so no-one is really going to care about this to change it.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    The new intervention being “marginally better” can be questionable. New interventions often aren’t tested head to head against their alternatives. Or inadequately tested against them. So we have no idea if they’re even better, but manufacturers don’t want to risk the embarrassment of evidence that they’re inferior.
notme77 7y ago
You've never been given a free meal? Did you buy your copy of the book? Ever been given a complimentary slide deck? Ever had a publisher give you suggested questions for tests? Ever seen a student have to use "online resources" that does the teaching and grading for the professor? The publishers are doing professors jobs for them, and the students are paying for it. The bribe is you don't have to do your job.
- johnmaguire2013 7y ago
  I don't have any evidence to provide, but I just want to say that I think this is disingenuous. Choosing a product based on the value it provides you is not the same as accepting a bribe.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    I'm not very sympathetic if you're weighing the value it provides to you over the value it provides to the class, which is often where these "resources" fall short.
  - paultopia 7y ago
    Yeah, agreed. Providing teaching resources to make the book and users of the book more effective at the job of teaching and learning isn't a bribe, because it's directly relevant to the legitimate purpose for choosing a book. The only thing on that list that constitutes a bribe would be the meal---and no, I've never gotten a free meal from a publisher.
    - rahimnathwani 7y ago
      "Providing teaching resources to make the book and users of the book more effective at the job of teaching and learning isn't a bribe" What if the publisher were to reimburse you $30k/year so you could hire some additional help in grading papers? Would that count as a bribe? What if you were to spend the time freed up not on additional teaching, but with your loved-ones? Would the money count as a bribe now? What if, instead of providing $30k/year to hire some help, they provided you with an online tool to do the job. You still spend the time now saved with your loved ones, not on better/more teaching. Is the provision of that tool a bribe? What if access to the tool costs each student $100 per year (access for one year, via a voucher that comes only with the purchase of a brand new $100 textbook). Would the tool that makes you more efficient, thus allowing you more time with your loved ones, be considered a bribe now? What if the benefit to you (in saved time) was $20k per year, the additional cost to your students was $40k/year, and there was no change in the quality of education. Would you consider provision of the tool a bribe in this case?
m463 7y ago
I enjoyed reading the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by Dan Ariely. The section on how pharmaceutical companies work with doctors was eye opening. It is relatively easy to manipulate even a very honest person's loyalty. (I'm not saying you are even in a position to be influenced)
Mathnerd314 7y ago
Here's a news article from 2003 (2013? date unclear): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/textbook-publisher-kickback-scam/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/textbook-publisher-kickback-sca... And apparently "inducements" such as free textbooks or meals occur fairly often: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13687/do-textbook-publishers-really-offer-ethically-questionable-inducements-to-profes https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13687/do-textbo...
- paultopia 7y ago
  Ok, some of this stuff is horrifying. I take back my claim that nobody is paying bribes; this review fee business (about which there are other articles as well[1]) is just blatant bribery. I don't teach classes anywhere near large enough for this sort of scummy behavior to be profitable for publishers (plus I suspect they wouldn't dare try it in law schools), so I've never seen it, but I guess it does happen. And, frankly, all involved should be prosecuted, at least if they work for the state. [1] e.g. (paywalled) https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selling-Out-a-Textbook/25422 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selling-Out-a-Textbook/254...
jccalhoun 7y ago
Agreed. I have taught at 3 different colleges and have never experienced this. The closest I have came is when Cengage wanted us to use their online platform and they bought us Panera. We went with OER. I refuse to use any of the drmed proprietary online platforms. As someone else asked, yes, the textbook publishers do frequently provide quiz banks and powerpoints but they typically are garbage. I use few of their quiz questions and have to edit and adjust their PowerPoint slides because they don't emphasize what I want to emphasize and often use shitty transitions or have too much text on each slide. If that is a bribe it is a shitty one.
mcguire 7y ago
Once upon a time, I was at an academic conference browsing the new books and the person next to me in line pointed at the newest edition of Silberschatz's OS text and said, "oh, yeah, he's got another kid going to college." No bribes, but a tolerable amount of goofiness in the authoring.
DoctorOetker 7y ago
Here in Belgium it depends a lot on the study discipline: the pricing for the course notes in say physics and mathematics were quite reasonable like ~10 euros for a course, about 10 courses, so ~100 euros a year printed in a copy shop, while for other (traditionally higher social class) study disciplines like law or economics many professors wrote and require using the books they wrote themselves (through a publisher) costing easily about ~100 euros per course amounting to many hundreds of euros per year. Is this a bribe? nearly all white collar crime is optimized to skirt the definition and hides behind prestige. In my opinion the solution is easy: to receive subsidy from the government, universities must provide their courses online free and in either the public domain or under a copyleft license, so that all citizens paying taxes can benefit from what they payed for (both indirectly through the usual study by other citizens, as directly by self-study). If a professor refuses to put his course in the public domain, fire or replace him with a professor willing to put his textbook in the public domain. Courses only change slowly over the years in practice, why should professors be able to extort a hidden enrollment fee from their students? The only reason I can think of is to arrange gate-keeping of those professions set aside for the higher classes... since the lower classes will then choose the other disciplines even though the university wide enrollment fee is superficially "the same". If the university refuses to put its courses in the public domain, the government should refuse to subsidize the university. To make sure the populace has unbridled access to all relevant course materials, reward students for telling on professors / universities for handing out materials without uploading them to the public domain or copyleft courses platform. All a professor has to do is upload the materials.
coldtea 7y ago
>I've never heard of this happening, and certainly have never been offered a kickback myself to take a book. Well, if you're the type to never have noticed this happening, they surely wouldn't try to contact you. This is very common all around the world, including the US. In fact, it has been written about since time immemorial, even Feynman mentions his experiences: "One book in particular drew his attention. It was one out of a three book series. During a meeting he was asked by some of the other committee members what he thought of the book. He responded that he really couldn't say, that he hadn't received it. One of the members continued to press for an answer. After Feynman repeated himself a second time, a book depository employee piped up and explained that he had elected not to send the book on to the committee members. The publisher had missed the deadline and substituted a book with blank pages instead. They had included a note explaining that the book would be ready in time and hoped it could still be considered. The amazing part of this story is that several of the committee members had nominated the book for inclusion on the approved list! Feynman went on to talk about the unsolicited gifts he received from the publishers. He kept sending them back but one incident took him completely by surprise. He had arrived in San Francisco the evening before a committee meeting. He left his hotel room, intending to wander the streets to find a place to eat. As he walked into the lobby, two men popped up, greeted him by name and asked him if they could help him in any way. He explained that he was just going out and no thank you. They persisted. He said, "Look, I'm just going out to get into a bit of trouble." They responded, "Maybe we can help you with that too." He demurred and then later kicked himself for not seeing just how far they would go and documenting the evening." https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pajze9/people-are-finally-fighting-back-against-the-college-textbook-industrys-scam https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pajze9/people-are-finally... https://www.lukethomas.com/the-textbook-industry-greed-its-getting-worse/ https://www.lukethomas.com/the-textbook-industry-greed-its-g... >Accepting one would be a crime for state university professors where I am, and probably almost everywhere else. Isn't committing the crime and profiting from it the whole point?
JadeNB 7y ago
> Professor here: this part isn't correct in my experience: > > Professors are offered substantial bribes to select the most expensive texts > I've never heard of this happening, and certainly have never been offered a kickback myself to take a book. Accepting one would be a crime for state university professors where I am, and probably almost everywhere else. As also a professor, I have certainly never encountered outright bribes, nor anything that I'd call 'substantial', but certainly book reps take every opportunity that they can get to drop off small gifts—small enough that it feels overly fastidious to complain about it—carefully not advertised as inducements to use their products. (However, there is certainly no shortage of outrage over things professors are imagined to do. My university's student newspaper ran an outraged article a while back on the fortune that professors make by selling off evaluation copies of textbooks. At least in my field, the worst that is done is to give away for free the evaluation copies to pestilential resellers to get them (copies and resellers) out of our offices; but I think it is becoming more common to turn away such resellers.)

ozborn 7y ago

Agree with paultopia - I'm an assistant professor and have also never heard of this happening. The closest I got to some indignation from the University bookstore which wanted to list a textbook for my course and was seemed confused or disappointed to learn that the text book was free and online.

klyrs 7y ago
There was a significant push at my uni for open source texts. The old guard continues to win with arguments along the lines of "students won't see value in a free book." Where I'll believe that they aren't taking bribes... at least in some cases a majority don't care about the expense that they aren't paying.

mfoy_ 7y ago

I think that we can safely assume that if something directly comparable but much worse, both ethically and legally, has occurred (e.g. doctors being bribed by pharma companies to over-prescribe their drug), then it's not a stretch to give this claim the benefit of the doubt. Anecdotally, I once had a professor who had personally remixed an existing textbook and forced us to buy his version for the class, because he would reference page numbers and chapter headings from his version. Admittedly, this is essentially what most "nth edition" textbooks do anyways, but it was a little jarring to see him personally emulate this so directly and unscrupulously.

kylebenzle 7y ago
"then it's not a stretch to give this claim the benefit of the doubt." Wow, where is your brain?
jacobreg 7y ago
On the other hand I had a professor who wrote a book just to teach this particular course, and sold it for $5. It was a great text and a great course.
- bb88 7y ago
  He probably made money on it (even if it was $100). I've heard of profs writing books explicitly for their classes and not making money on them.
  - rusticpenn 7y ago
    The money required to print it probably...
  - yummypaint 7y ago
    All the prof-authored material ive seen has always been provided as a free pdf before the course started. There is really no excuse for not doing this in 2019.

Someone1234 7y ago

Depends on your definition of bribes. Professors either have to grade themselves OR assign a publisher's book, with a one time code, at no cost to them/their department where the publisher will grade for them. All for free from the professor's perspective. In both cases the professor is likely using the publisher's resource to assign homework, because that's one way publishers encourage expensive book requirements: Allow professors to offload their work to the publisher. There's 101 classes where the professor only turns up to teach. That's it. No homework creation, no grading, and they just have a TA take the publisher's grade report and import it into their student system.

yummypaint 7y ago
My experience as a past student and ta has been that courses with TAs have less dependence on the book, and problem sets are more likely written by the professor. A TA saves a prof vastly more work than using a book with canned problems, and the cost of writing problems is amortized in large classes. Smaller classes without TAs (which should ostensibly have better instruction) tend to fall into the textbook trap more often.

DangitBobby 7y ago

I've always wondered why I had to buy the new edition of textbooks each year. I know it's fairly common practice to assign the newest edition of a book. Is there a good reason for that that I don't understand? How different is my Calculus 1 textbook Ed. 17 from this year's Ed. 18?

UncleMeat 7y ago
In some cases there are very major differences. Dragon Book v2 has entire new chapters on topics that weren't being widely applied when v1 was written. v18-v19 probably isn't a big jump, but that doesn't make all version changes worthless.
- ShroudedNight 7y ago
  The dragon book was updated once, 13 years ago, 20 years after its original publication date. It seems strange to use it as an example within the context of textbooks being updated at a regular cadence.
javajosh 7y ago
The reason doctors will often prescribe the "next generation" drug, even if the old one works fine and is generic, and 100x cheaper, is that they believe it's better. They aren't stupid, and know its only marginally better, but they want the best for their patients. Professors also want the best for their students, and so the latest edition is prescribed. In a way, it's a point of pride, but its also a little bit lazy, because it's the simplest way they can signal "hey, I'm staying current, doing my job and not just phoning it in." So, yeah, I don't think it's bribery, it's just a heady mix of (ignorance of) diminishing returns, moral hazard, and status signaling. Plus its a petty injustice that only hurts people in aggregate, and it only hurts people who already can afford college in rich places, so no-one is really going to care about this to change it.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  The new intervention being “marginally better” can be questionable. New interventions often aren’t tested head to head against their alternatives. Or inadequately tested against them. So we have no idea if they’re even better, but manufacturers don’t want to risk the embarrassment of evidence that they’re inferior.

notme77 7y ago

You've never been given a free meal? Did you buy your copy of the book? Ever been given a complimentary slide deck? Ever had a publisher give you suggested questions for tests? Ever seen a student have to use "online resources" that does the teaching and grading for the professor? The publishers are doing professors jobs for them, and the students are paying for it. The bribe is you don't have to do your job.

johnmaguire2013 7y ago
I don't have any evidence to provide, but I just want to say that I think this is disingenuous. Choosing a product based on the value it provides you is not the same as accepting a bribe.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  I'm not very sympathetic if you're weighing the value it provides to you over the value it provides to the class, which is often where these "resources" fall short.
- paultopia 7y ago
  Yeah, agreed. Providing teaching resources to make the book and users of the book more effective at the job of teaching and learning isn't a bribe, because it's directly relevant to the legitimate purpose for choosing a book. The only thing on that list that constitutes a bribe would be the meal---and no, I've never gotten a free meal from a publisher.
  - rahimnathwani 7y ago
    "Providing teaching resources to make the book and users of the book more effective at the job of teaching and learning isn't a bribe" What if the publisher were to reimburse you $30k/year so you could hire some additional help in grading papers? Would that count as a bribe? What if you were to spend the time freed up not on additional teaching, but with your loved-ones? Would the money count as a bribe now? What if, instead of providing $30k/year to hire some help, they provided you with an online tool to do the job. You still spend the time now saved with your loved ones, not on better/more teaching. Is the provision of that tool a bribe? What if access to the tool costs each student $100 per year (access for one year, via a voucher that comes only with the purchase of a brand new $100 textbook). Would the tool that makes you more efficient, thus allowing you more time with your loved ones, be considered a bribe now? What if the benefit to you (in saved time) was $20k per year, the additional cost to your students was $40k/year, and there was no change in the quality of education. Would you consider provision of the tool a bribe in this case?

m463 7y ago

I enjoyed reading the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by Dan Ariely. The section on how pharmaceutical companies work with doctors was eye opening. It is relatively easy to manipulate even a very honest person's loyalty. (I'm not saying you are even in a position to be influenced)

Mathnerd314 7y ago

Here's a news article from 2003 (2013? date unclear): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/textbook-publisher-kickback-scam/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/textbook-publisher-kickback-sca... And apparently "inducements" such as free textbooks or meals occur fairly often: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13687/do-textbook-publishers-really-offer-ethically-questionable-inducements-to-profes https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13687/do-textbo...

paultopia 7y ago
Ok, some of this stuff is horrifying. I take back my claim that nobody is paying bribes; this review fee business (about which there are other articles as well[1]) is just blatant bribery. I don't teach classes anywhere near large enough for this sort of scummy behavior to be profitable for publishers (plus I suspect they wouldn't dare try it in law schools), so I've never seen it, but I guess it does happen. And, frankly, all involved should be prosecuted, at least if they work for the state. [1] e.g. (paywalled) https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selling-Out-a-Textbook/25422 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selling-Out-a-Textbook/254...

jccalhoun 7y ago

Agreed. I have taught at 3 different colleges and have never experienced this. The closest I have came is when Cengage wanted us to use their online platform and they bought us Panera. We went with OER. I refuse to use any of the drmed proprietary online platforms. As someone else asked, yes, the textbook publishers do frequently provide quiz banks and powerpoints but they typically are garbage. I use few of their quiz questions and have to edit and adjust their PowerPoint slides because they don't emphasize what I want to emphasize and often use shitty transitions or have too much text on each slide. If that is a bribe it is a shitty one.

mcguire 7y ago

Once upon a time, I was at an academic conference browsing the new books and the person next to me in line pointed at the newest edition of Silberschatz's OS text and said, "oh, yeah, he's got another kid going to college." No bribes, but a tolerable amount of goofiness in the authoring.

DoctorOetker 7y ago

Here in Belgium it depends a lot on the study discipline: the pricing for the course notes in say physics and mathematics were quite reasonable like ~10 euros for a course, about 10 courses, so ~100 euros a year printed in a copy shop, while for other (traditionally higher social class) study disciplines like law or economics many professors wrote and require using the books they wrote themselves (through a publisher) costing easily about ~100 euros per course amounting to many hundreds of euros per year. Is this a bribe? nearly all white collar crime is optimized to skirt the definition and hides behind prestige. In my opinion the solution is easy: to receive subsidy from the government, universities must provide their courses online free and in either the public domain or under a copyleft license, so that all citizens paying taxes can benefit from what they payed for (both indirectly through the usual study by other citizens, as directly by self-study). If a professor refuses to put his course in the public domain, fire or replace him with a professor willing to put his textbook in the public domain. Courses only change slowly over the years in practice, why should professors be able to extort a hidden enrollment fee from their students? The only reason I can think of is to arrange gate-keeping of those professions set aside for the higher classes... since the lower classes will then choose the other disciplines even though the university wide enrollment fee is superficially "the same". If the university refuses to put its courses in the public domain, the government should refuse to subsidize the university. To make sure the populace has unbridled access to all relevant course materials, reward students for telling on professors / universities for handing out materials without uploading them to the public domain or copyleft courses platform. All a professor has to do is upload the materials.

coldtea 7y ago

>I've never heard of this happening, and certainly have never been offered a kickback myself to take a book. Well, if you're the type to never have noticed this happening, they surely wouldn't try to contact you. This is very common all around the world, including the US. In fact, it has been written about since time immemorial, even Feynman mentions his experiences: "One book in particular drew his attention. It was one out of a three book series. During a meeting he was asked by some of the other committee members what he thought of the book. He responded that he really couldn't say, that he hadn't received it. One of the members continued to press for an answer. After Feynman repeated himself a second time, a book depository employee piped up and explained that he had elected not to send the book on to the committee members. The publisher had missed the deadline and substituted a book with blank pages instead. They had included a note explaining that the book would be ready in time and hoped it could still be considered. The amazing part of this story is that several of the committee members had nominated the book for inclusion on the approved list! Feynman went on to talk about the unsolicited gifts he received from the publishers. He kept sending them back but one incident took him completely by surprise. He had arrived in San Francisco the evening before a committee meeting. He left his hotel room, intending to wander the streets to find a place to eat. As he walked into the lobby, two men popped up, greeted him by name and asked him if they could help him in any way. He explained that he was just going out and no thank you. They persisted. He said, "Look, I'm just going out to get into a bit of trouble." They responded, "Maybe we can help you with that too." He demurred and then later kicked himself for not seeing just how far they would go and documenting the evening." https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pajze9/people-are-finally-fighting-back-against-the-college-textbook-industrys-scam https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pajze9/people-are-finally... https://www.lukethomas.com/the-textbook-industry-greed-its-getting-worse/ https://www.lukethomas.com/the-textbook-industry-greed-its-g... >Accepting one would be a crime for state university professors where I am, and probably almost everywhere else. Isn't committing the crime and profiting from it the whole point?

JadeNB 7y ago

> Professor here: this part isn't correct in my experience: > > Professors are offered substantial bribes to select the most expensive texts > I've never heard of this happening, and certainly have never been offered a kickback myself to take a book. Accepting one would be a crime for state university professors where I am, and probably almost everywhere else. As also a professor, I have certainly never encountered outright bribes, nor anything that I'd call 'substantial', but certainly book reps take every opportunity that they can get to drop off small gifts—small enough that it feels overly fastidious to complain about it—carefully not advertised as inducements to use their products. (However, there is certainly no shortage of outrage over things professors are imagined to do. My university's student newspaper ran an outraged article a while back on the fortune that professors make by selling off evaluation copies of textbooks. At least in my field, the worst that is done is to give away for free the evaluation copies to pestilential resellers to get them (copies and resellers) out of our offices; but I think it is becoming more common to turn away such resellers.)