From Inside Higher Ed: Cost-conscious students can of course save money with used or online books and recoup some of their cash come buyback time. Still, it’s a steep price for most 18-year-olds. But soon, introductory physics texts will have a new competitor, developed at Rice University. A free online physics book, peer-reviewed and designed to compete with major publishers’ offerings, will debut next month through the non-profit publisher OpenStax College. Using Rice’s Connexions platform, OpenStax will offer free course materials for five common introductory classes. The textbooks are open to classes anywhere and organizers ...

That's the title of an article in KQED Mind/Shift.  It contains a lot of information and links. Here's a snippet: Apple’s announcement last week about its new iBooks2 and authoring app created big waves in education circles. But smart educators don’t necessarily need Apple’s slick devices and software to create their own books. How educators think of content curation in the classroom is enough to change their reliance on print textbooks. As the open education movement continues to grow and become an even more rich trove of resources, teachers can use the content to make their own...

From the University of Rochester's Campus Times: … The UR bookstore boasts a new e-reader station where students can explore versions of Barnes and Nobles’ own e-reader, the Nook.  Furthermore, the station highlights new, free software available online that allows students to easily access material from e-Textbook purchases. e-Textbooks have been available at the bookstore since 2004 and students can rent or purchase them at prices similar to those of standard textbooks.  They can also be purchased online at the University bookstore website. Nevertheless, there are many practical problems surrounding the use of e-Textbooks on...

The editorial is titled, “College students will stick to paper books” and was published by Washington Square News today. From the Editorial: The benefits of these e-Textbooks include the ability to quickly search through large amounts of text, insert marginalia in electronic comment boxes and access hyperlinks. Yet the tactile quality of textbooks, something e-Books will never have, allows readers a certain intimacy with their academic material. It’s a lot easier to curl up in bed with a textbook than it is to go to bed with a hunk of heated metal by your side. It is evident from the limited success of...

That's a point I never thought about.  Storage space on iPads is limited, and the price of the iPad goes up a lot as you get units with more memory.  Chris Maxcer makes this point in an article in MaNewsWorld: E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth, however, is free -- at least, a preview and a sample chapter is free. Good enough for me. I downloaded all 965 MB of it, and this is only for a partial e-book. One of the other e-books, Pearson's Biology, boasts a print length of 1,791 pages and a digital size of 2.77...

From the press release: McGraw-Hill today announced the launch of Harrison's for the iPad, the digital edition of the world's most influential medical textbook, Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, created exclusively for the world's most sought after tablet computer, the Apple iPad. Harrison's for the iPad was developed in partnership with Inkling, creators of the pre-eminent interactive content platform for the iPad. It leverages the mobility, rich media, and processing power of the iPad to enliven its content, improve speed of reference, and expand the learning experience for clinicians and medical students alike. The iPad's state-of-the-art platform and...

While the Digital Public Library of America has been fixated on arcane library-and-museum concerns, Apple is unveiling an e-format that might lock in millions of teachers and students in the U.S. and elsewhere Very possibly the new multimedia book product may ultimately jack up costs in K-12 and elsewhere. The new format will let students rotate and explore 3D objects, among other features. That’s good. But via hardware-related exclusives, Apple for now is locking up the new related to the hilt, playing up the ease of authoring for the format. Probable result? Higher hardware prices for schools, students, businesses and consumers than otherwise,...

Very Impressive Live Coverage of Apple Event from The Verge (each post with an image). New: iBooks 2 for Education (iPad) Apple’s iBooks Textbooks for the iPage Homepage (with Video) Official News Release Download AppNote: Apple is Making a Preview Release of E. O. Wilson’s Life on Earth. Free. Download here. What’s New With Books 2 App? (via the App Store) Experience gorgeous Multi-Touch textbooks designed for iPad iBooks textbooks are filled with interactive features, diagrams, photos, and videos Tap to dive into images with interactive captions, rotate 3D objects, swipe through image galleries, watch videos in full screen, and more Use a finger as a highlighter when swiping over text in a...

From the Indiana University press release: As textbooks continue shifting to digital, Internet2, McGraw-Hill and Courseload today announced implementation of an eText Pilot Trial Pack to students and faculty at five universities for the Spring 2012 semester. The five institutions, also Internet2 members, include: University of California, Berkeley; Cornell University; University of Minnesota; University of Virginia; and the University of Wisconsin. The pilot, which is based on Indiana University’s successful eText model (http://etexts.iu.edu), provides a timely and simple way for universities to quickly assess a new model for digital course materials. While an increasing number...

From the press release: Florida and Texas led a major push for digital materials in the classroom in 2011, strengthening the foundation for the use of technology intextbook adoption states. According to a recent report from publishing forecast firm Simba Information, sales generated from state textbook adoption programs totaled $660 million in 2011. Texas provided a snapshot of the digital trend in K-12 schools when it called for all submissions in supplemental science in grades 5-12 to be digital. In addition, Texas included digital materials for the language arts; however the uptake was slight, with teachers preferring their own materials in digital formats, rather...

From The Chronicle of Higher Education.  More in the article: Despite the promise that digital textbooks can lead to huge cost savings for students, a new study at Daytona State College has found that many who tried e-textbooks saved only one dollar, compared with their counterparts who purchased traditional printed material. The study, conducted over four semesters, compared four different means of textbook distribution: traditional print purchase, print rental, e-textbook rental, and e-textbook rental with an e-reader device. It found that e-textbooks still face several hurdles as universities mull the switch to a digital textbook distribution model. Perhaps the most surprising finding was...

From Inside Higher Ed: … a recently completed report on a yearlong pilot at Daytona State, comparing the satisfaction and success of students using all electronic texts with students using all print, has also complicated the picture. ... “Avoid top-down mandates,” the study’s authors wrote as their top recommendation. “Institutions that require all instructors to simultaneously go e-text might be courting disaster.” The majority of the students in the study who used exclusively e-texts came away dissatisfied. While they appreciated that there was no possibility of losing or forgetting their textbooks when they could be simply summoned to a device, the students told officials that...