5 ms·

Speaking as a professor, I'd be furious if some legislator told me exactly which textbook to use. I'm concerned about book prices, certainly, but mandating a sp

by Steuard 14y ago

Speaking as a professor, I'd be furious if some legislator told me exactly which textbook to use. I'm concerned about book prices, certainly, but mandating a specific text would immediately shut down the few attempts at innovation in textbooks or curriculum that do exist. If the new books are of comparable quality to the current market leaders in a given discipline (and especially if we eventually get some competition between free texts), then all that will be necessary will be an education campaign to make sure faculty know what's available. We do care about this stuff! (Or at least, a lot of us do.)

brazzy 14y ago
And some care about the kickbacks from forcing students to buy $150 textbooks that cannot be bought used because there's a new "edition" every year that shuffles the practice problems. That's what needs to be prevented in some way.
- dhimes 14y ago
  Who's getting kickbacks? I've never gotten a kickback. I really want to know if you know of a kickback scam. The high prices could be due to just the opposite problem: professors are particularly difficult to sell to. They are individually picky about how their subject matter is presented, and textbook meetings (where we try to agree on the textbook among colleagues at a particular school) are frustrating and difficult. The time and effort expended in selling those books are (probably) enormous. There's no institutional path-to-sale. Decisions are made by the professors themselves, meaning it's close to b2c marketing of a b2b product. The problem, in business terms (stolen from a VC spiel to an entrepreneur group as to why they don't fund educational software) is that "the customer is dysfunctional."
  - steve19 14y ago
    Professors write textbooks and make their students buy them. Thats the scam. I remember vividly the pain during college of buying $150 textbooks that would be worth $30 the next year because a (n+1) edition would be released with a couple new pages just to mess up all the page references and exercises.
    - dhimes 14y ago
      That's a very small effect. A professor doesn't make much money off of a single textbook- selling to one class wouldn't be worth the trouble of writing. Even revision (working with the editor) is aggravating. And if you have co-authors? Forget it. Writing the text book is an act of love and/or vanity. Only if your textbook becomes a "standard" (Halliday/Resnick, etc.) does it provide direct financial rewards. EDIT: I agree with you about the 3-year cycle, but that's not the authors' doing, it's the publishers'. That's their business model.
      - brazzy 14y ago
        > That's a very small effect. A professor doesn't make much money off of a single textbook- selling to one class wouldn't be worth the trouble of writing. Unless you sell it to a new class (possibly multiple classes) every year. > Even revision (working with the editor) is aggravating. That assumes an editing process that isn't streamlined and automated towards the singular goal of making previous editions obsolete and forcing students to always buy the most recent one.
        dhimes 14y ago
        Unless you sell it to a new class (possibly multiple classes) every year. For what? $1K a year? Would you do it? I wouldn't. The money isn't there. That assumes an editing process that isn't streamlined and automated towards the singular goal of making previous editions obsolete and forcing students to always buy the most recent one. That's quite a conspiratorial stretch to think the authors do that. Think for a moment about what it would take to write a textbook that would be acceptable to a group of experts. You would be an expert in a very small part of the field. It would take you immense work and study to make sure you had the facts right on all of the parts for which you are not the world authority. That is really hard work. The three-year obsolescence plan is a publisher model, not an author model.
        dave5104 14y ago
        If I were a professor who wrote a textbook based on a class I teach, of course I'd make it the textbook I use and make everyone buy a copy. Chances are that the textbook's material closely matches what I actually want to teach in the class. Why wouldn't I want to use my own path through the material? No other textbook is going to match identically or synthesize the material in my way.
  - brazzy 14y ago
    Here's an HN discussion about a particularly egregious example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4405296 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4405296 There are strong indications in this case and mentioned in the discussion that the textbook industry is actively catering to professors who work like that.
  - nigori 14y ago
    It would be nice to see all picky professors just collaborate on the http://www.wikibooks.org/ http://www.wikibooks.org/ site, and simply make their own edits on, for example, the The One True Microbiology Textbook. For students who need dead trees, the Wikibooks platform already supports printing PDF's.
- Steuard 14y ago
  I had a professor assign his own text once (somewhere around 1996?). It was pretty expensive. At the start of the semester, he gave a $2 refund to everyone who had purchased a brand-new copy, since that was his share of the price we paid. I think there were about 60 students taking the class that year, so that comes out to $120. Are you really suggesting that $120/year creates some vast moral hazard for college faculty? Or even ten times that? (The "new edition shuffles problem numbers" thing is irritating to me as a professor, too, by the way. It's not clear to me that even most textbook authors are fond of the continual release of new editions, but it seems to be a big part of the publishers' business model these days.)
  - Retric 14y ago
    Take it to the next level selecting textbooks for required classes at a school with 10,000+ freshman / year that's far more tempting. Even just as an ego thing where you assume 'your' book is much better than all the other options.
rmc 14y ago
But since they are CC you can update/change the "official book" with your changes. You can even sell it yourself. The one thing you cannot do is prevent your edition being copied or improved on. Mandating books be CC licenced would give great freedom to eductors and protect students.
ChristianMarks 14y ago
Speaking as another professor, I quote from SB 1053, section 2, paragraph (c): "Nothing in this section shall be construed to mandate faculty use of any particular textbook or related materials."
- Steuard 14y ago
  Absolutely. I was responding to the parent comment, not to the original article.

by Steuard 14y ago

brazzy 14y ago

And some care about the kickbacks from forcing students to buy $150 textbooks that cannot be bought used because there's a new "edition" every year that shuffles the practice problems. That's what needs to be prevented in some way.

dhimes 14y ago
Who's getting kickbacks? I've never gotten a kickback. I really want to know if you know of a kickback scam. The high prices could be due to just the opposite problem: professors are particularly difficult to sell to. They are individually picky about how their subject matter is presented, and textbook meetings (where we try to agree on the textbook among colleagues at a particular school) are frustrating and difficult. The time and effort expended in selling those books are (probably) enormous. There's no institutional path-to-sale. Decisions are made by the professors themselves, meaning it's close to b2c marketing of a b2b product. The problem, in business terms (stolen from a VC spiel to an entrepreneur group as to why they don't fund educational software) is that "the customer is dysfunctional."
- steve19 14y ago
  Professors write textbooks and make their students buy them. Thats the scam. I remember vividly the pain during college of buying $150 textbooks that would be worth $30 the next year because a (n+1) edition would be released with a couple new pages just to mess up all the page references and exercises.
  - dhimes 14y ago
    That's a very small effect. A professor doesn't make much money off of a single textbook- selling to one class wouldn't be worth the trouble of writing. Even revision (working with the editor) is aggravating. And if you have co-authors? Forget it. Writing the text book is an act of love and/or vanity. Only if your textbook becomes a "standard" (Halliday/Resnick, etc.) does it provide direct financial rewards. EDIT: I agree with you about the 3-year cycle, but that's not the authors' doing, it's the publishers'. That's their business model.
    - brazzy 14y ago
      > That's a very small effect. A professor doesn't make much money off of a single textbook- selling to one class wouldn't be worth the trouble of writing. Unless you sell it to a new class (possibly multiple classes) every year. > Even revision (working with the editor) is aggravating. That assumes an editing process that isn't streamlined and automated towards the singular goal of making previous editions obsolete and forcing students to always buy the most recent one.
      - dhimes 14y ago
        Unless you sell it to a new class (possibly multiple classes) every year. For what? $1K a year? Would you do it? I wouldn't. The money isn't there. That assumes an editing process that isn't streamlined and automated towards the singular goal of making previous editions obsolete and forcing students to always buy the most recent one. That's quite a conspiratorial stretch to think the authors do that. Think for a moment about what it would take to write a textbook that would be acceptable to a group of experts. You would be an expert in a very small part of the field. It would take you immense work and study to make sure you had the facts right on all of the parts for which you are not the world authority. That is really hard work. The three-year obsolescence plan is a publisher model, not an author model.
        dave5104 14y ago
        If I were a professor who wrote a textbook based on a class I teach, of course I'd make it the textbook I use and make everyone buy a copy. Chances are that the textbook's material closely matches what I actually want to teach in the class. Why wouldn't I want to use my own path through the material? No other textbook is going to match identically or synthesize the material in my way.
- brazzy 14y ago
  Here's an HN discussion about a particularly egregious example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4405296 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4405296 There are strong indications in this case and mentioned in the discussion that the textbook industry is actively catering to professors who work like that.
- nigori 14y ago
  It would be nice to see all picky professors just collaborate on the http://www.wikibooks.org/ http://www.wikibooks.org/ site, and simply make their own edits on, for example, the The One True Microbiology Textbook. For students who need dead trees, the Wikibooks platform already supports printing PDF's.
Steuard 14y ago
I had a professor assign his own text once (somewhere around 1996?). It was pretty expensive. At the start of the semester, he gave a $2 refund to everyone who had purchased a brand-new copy, since that was his share of the price we paid. I think there were about 60 students taking the class that year, so that comes out to $120. Are you really suggesting that $120/year creates some vast moral hazard for college faculty? Or even ten times that? (The "new edition shuffles problem numbers" thing is irritating to me as a professor, too, by the way. It's not clear to me that even most textbook authors are fond of the continual release of new editions, but it seems to be a big part of the publishers' business model these days.)
- Retric 14y ago
  Take it to the next level selecting textbooks for required classes at a school with 10,000+ freshman / year that's far more tempting. Even just as an ego thing where you assume 'your' book is much better than all the other options.

rmc 14y ago

But since they are CC you can update/change the "official book" with your changes. You can even sell it yourself. The one thing you cannot do is prevent your edition being copied or improved on. Mandating books be CC licenced would give great freedom to eductors and protect students.

ChristianMarks 14y ago

Speaking as another professor, I quote from SB 1053, section 2, paragraph (c): "Nothing in this section shall be construed to mandate faculty use of any particular textbook or related materials."

Steuard 14y ago
Absolutely. I was responding to the parent comment, not to the original article.