From Inside Higher Ed:
The American Public University System wants to get more bang for its buck with e-textbooks, so the for-profit college system is enlisting its professors to write and edit digital course materials.
Faculty members are submitting proposals for e-textbooks to be used in about half of the institution’s general education courses by the end of 2012. And university leaders hope the recently launched APUS ePress will produce many more in-house e-textbooks in the future.
The plan has led to grumbling among faculty members, some of whom worry about quality control for the new digital texts and about whether they will be paid enough for the new work. Internally published texts also raise challenging questions about professors’ intellectual property rights.
University officials, however, promise that faculty will be fairly compensated, and that each e-textbook will be vetted for proper copyright protection for its contributors. They also said the editorial process will be thorough, overseen by subject-matter experts and including some form of peer-review.
