• TAA Council appoints two At-Large members
• TAA places ads on Inside Higher Ed
• TAA to hold teleconference on how to strengthen a literature review
• TAA debunks the top 7 myths regarding textbook costs by Kim Pawlak
• New TAA teleconference on how to market your textbook
• TAA to hold teleconference on online feedback tools for authors
• TAA accepting session proposals for 2009 Conference
• 'Textbook piracy' not the solution to rising textbook costs
• TAA to hold teleconference on how to form a scholarly writing group
• Book Savvy latest company to jump into online text arena
• Students offer top five reasons for switching to digital books
• University System of Ohio to reward faculty for creating affordable learning materials
• University System of Ohio partners with CourseSmart to offer eTextbooks to students

TAA Council appoints two At-Large members

The TAA Council has appointed Angela Jackson, president and CEO of Culturally Competent Consulting, and Claudia Sanchez, an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Texas Women's University, as At-Large members. At-Large Council members serve for one year.

"It is my pleasure to accept this appointment as I look forward to supporting the mission of TAA," said Jackson, who just started a one-year contract with Michigan City Schools as the Mental Health Cultural Facilitator. She will be working with all the elementary schoools to support cultural assimilation into the school district for children from other countries and with cultural factors impacting mental health in children and their families."I have a passion for writing and inspiring others in the process. This appointment allows me to join the TAA leadership and forward the association to new heights. I aspire to publish materials in multicultural education and as a council member I bring an exciting area to the publishing discussion. I was most appreciative of this opportunity to serve on behalf of TAA."

Said Sanchez: "I would like to grow as a published author while collaborating with the Council in furthering TAA’s mission to enhance the quality of educational materials and support the endeavors of text and academic authors. To achieve this goal, I plan to serve TAA by disseminating information about the Association’s services, policies, and programs among non-members, working actively on TAA committees, and recruiting members and Council members for the Association. I really appreciate the opportunity and am looking forward to joining efforts with fellow Council members."

Culturally Competent Consulting, Inc.'s mission is to provid teachers with the tools to effectively communicate with children of color and understand their worldviews. "Increased self-efficacy and self-worth for children of color are good indicators for academic success," said Jackson.

Jackson's educational history includes B.S. in industrial management; M.Ed. in Community Counseling; and a Ph.D. in Counselor Education from Virginia Tech where she also specialized in race & social policy. She has published academic articles and taught as an assistant professor in counseling/psychology programs teaching courses such as abnormal psychology, practicum/internship, and multicultural counseling.

Jackson is a certified Study Circle on Race Facilitator charged with facilitating groups that help people work together for creative community change. She is a member of The American Counseling Association subscribed to the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development.

The enthusiasm shown by these two indidividuals and the sophistication of the questions they have posed in their short time as TAA members, said TAA President Paul Siegel, was what led him to recommend them for Council. "I have a special affinity, too," he admitted, "for first-time conference attendees who so clearly manifest a drive to get more involved. After all, my own first TAA conference was less than a decade ago, in New Orleans. And I was asked at that conference to serve as primary planner for the very next conference, which was in San Antonio."

Prior to teaching at Texas Women's University, Sanchez taught and pursued graduate studies at Texas A&M-College Station, where she graduated with an M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. Her research interests include grant writing, mentorship in teacher education programs, multicultural teacher competency, Spanish language literacy, and English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching methodologies. A frequent presenter at the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the International Reading Association (IRA), and the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) association. Sanchez is director/co-director of three federal grants totaling over $4 million dollars, which focus on the preparation of teachers in critical need areas.

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TAA places ads on Inside Higher Ed

TAA placed ads on Inside Higher Ed (www.insidehighered.com) that promote TAA membership and the 2009 TAA Conference. The ads pop up randomly as viewers click through the site. TAA Associate Executive Director Kim Pawlak said she hopes the ads will improve TAA's visibility among textbook and academic authors.

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TAA to hold teleconference on how to strengthen a literature review

Dr. Sonja Foss, a professor of communication at the University of Colorado, and Dr. William Waters, coordinator of composition, director of the Writing Center, and assistant professor in the English Department at Northwest Missouri State University, will present a TAA teleconference on Friday, October 17 from 12-1 p.m. central time entitled "Scholarly Writing: Strengthening Your Literature Review". In this one-hour members-only teleconference, Foss and Waters will share a method scholarly authors can use that will make processing and writing their literature efficient and manageable. The teleconference will cover: the purpose of the literature review; identifying the literature to review; coding the literature; creating a conceptual schema for a literature review; and writing it up.

TAA members can sign up for this free teleconference by clicking here or by sending an email with their name, email address and the title of the teleconference to kim.pawlak@taaonline.net

TAA teleconferences are for members only. Join TAA for as little as $15.

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TAA debunks the top 7 myths regarding textbook costs
By Kim Pawlak

Download PDF of this article

Students’ purchase of used textbooks, and more recently, the theft of new textbooks via downloads at file sharing websites, is based on misinformation about how textbook publishing works, how professors choose textbooks, the business practices of book resellers, and the motivations of authors who write textbooks, said Richard Hull, executive director of the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA).

TAA recently interviewed publishers, professors and authors as a way to set straight the top myths regarding textbook costs:

Myth #1: Publishers churn out revised textbooks every year with little or no change from the previous edition so that students can’t buy used books.

Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at the Association of American Publishers, said the charge that publishers are putting out new editions more frequently is bogus. “For the most popular and competitive textbooks the new edition cycle remains at three to four years,” he said. A report by the Nebraska Book Company (See illustration “New Editions Chart” below) found that in 2005, only 0.4 percent of books were being revised after one year, 1.0 percent after two years, and 3.1 percent after three years, Hildebrand pointed out.

“It is just not financially feasible to issue new editions every year or two; costs are too high and the volume of sales is too low,” he said. “The principal costs for a textbook are what are called ‘the intellectual inputs’: authors, editors and designers. Textbooks are definitely labor intensive. Beyond those costs, there is printing, marketing, shipping, office overhead and of late, creating digital technologies.”

As an example, Hildebrand noted that more than 10 man-years of labor went into publishing the 7th edition of Biology by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece. “This doesn’t include the work of producing the supplemental materials,” he said. (Download PDF “What goes into making a textbook?”)

Mary E. Edwards, a professor in the department of economics at St. Cloud State University, and author of Regional and Urban Economics and Economic Development: Theory and Methods, said her publisher, Auerbach Publications, doesn’t want a revision until after four years or 60 percent of the textbook needs revising.

Anthony Buffa, coauthor of College Physics, published by Prentice Hall, said his books come out in a new edition about every four years, and are never done just for the sake of producing a new edition: “Each revision takes over a year out of our lives [he and his coauthors], working an average of several hours a day or more. In introductory physics there are no new fundamentals, but each edition is a challenge. We have user comments, of course, and we try to include modern up-to-date applications and develop new features for each edition that help the students learn from the book better and more efficiently. Some editions have more changes than others, but it is more of an evolution.”

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Marilyn “Winkie” Fordney, author of Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office, said she produces a revision every two years because the textbook has constant federal and state changes and a great deal of the technical material would be out of date if it was not on a quick revision cycle. “In the insurance billing field, procedure and diagnostic codes are enhanced each year and some are deleted,” she said. “This affects both the textbook and workbook assignments as well as the instructor’s manual.”

Janet Belsky, author of Experiencing the Lifespan, said it will take her about a year of full-time work to revise her book. “Over the past two years there has been a TREMENDOUS amount of new research in lifespan development that I can't wait to share with my students,” she said. “Yes, my book is on a three-year cycle, but I now realize that to give the students the very best, it is imperative to update the material at least every three years. I estimate that I'll be changing at least 30 to 40 percent of my book--often dramatically. These certainly aren't cosmetic changes.”

Kevin Patton, a professor of life science at St. Charles Community College and coauthor of Anatomy & Physiology, said that much of the criticism he sees of textbooks in terms of whether a revision is a “substantive” revision is based on student perceptions. “They flip through the book and because it ‘doesn’t look much different’ or ‘it’s about the same size’ they assume that there has not been a substantive revision,” he said. “I think such a test fails on at least two levels. First, I don’t think a student who has not yet even taken the course is an appropriate judge for making this determination. Second, such a method of investigation (‘flipping through’) is not likely to reveal the data needed to make such a determination.

“My anatomy and physiology textbooks are chock full of very technical scientific concepts that are in a constant state of progress,” said Patton. “During a revision, I typically spend many hours researching new developments. In fact, even when I’m not actively revising, I spend a lot of time scanning and evaluating the huge literature of human biology. When I do begin a revision, I may then spend several hours trying to find just the right wording to reflect a new development in an established concept. The result may be ONE CHANGED SENTENCE, but it is a sentence that substantively changes the content of the affected chapter or section. It may not LOOK like a big difference, but it is.”

Patton said he would hate for his own students to be learning concepts (or certain aspects of concepts) that have recently been found to be wrong: “Just a handful of those could land them into serious trouble later on.”

Myth #2: Professors choose textbooks with little or no thought for how much they cost or how useful they will be to students.

Malcolm Kahn, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Miami, said he definitely took the cost of textbooks into consideration when choosing texts for students in the abnormal psychology classes he taught before retiring in June 2008. “I told the students that 50 percent of the material on the exams would come directly from the textbook, and I tried to stick to that policy, though there was much overlap between the lectures and the reading material,” he said. “I believe that students would have failed my class without reading the text. I greatly valued the test banks that accompanied the text along with video tapes and DVDs of case histories and similar interesting supplementary material.”

Rebecca Plante, associate professor of sociology at Ithaca College and author of Sexualities in Context: A Social Perspective, said her decision of what textbook to use for her courses takes into account five factors: 1) how the author(s) or editor(s) address some of her key issues (gender, inequalities, etc.); 2) length of the textbook and readings; 3) style of writing – does it bore me?; 4) price of the textbook singly and total for the course; and 5) portability, since she actually opens and reads from the text or directs students’ attention to the textbook in many classes.

“I don’t assign textbooks for my courses out of obligation, and my syllabi are structured around the readings,” she said. “The readings give the students a road map – today we’re talking about, say, prostitution – and it gives me a starting point from which to develop class activities, lectures, etc. I supplement with updated research and other materials that only I read. Students learn that they need to bring the books to class, as we will turn to passages, analyze quotes, etc. All assignments use the readings as well.”

Plante says she agrees that some professors don’t have any idea of what textbooks cost, but that others like her do: “When I visit the bookstore every August and January to check that my orders have arrived, I also note the costs for used and new books, and tell the students those costs on day one,” she said. “When I make orders, I ask the book rep how much things will cost if new, because I strive to book all my courses for $100 or less (and I normally have more than one book).”

Scott Harr said that as chair of the criminal justice department at Concordia University Saint Paul, he lets his faculty select the books they will use for their courses. But before he provides the final approval, the materials must meet two basic requirements: that the majority of the book will be used, and that more than one book can be used only if absolutely beneficial to the course.

“Reading in and of itself does not a course make; there are discussions, writing and other activities I expect in addition to reading,” he said. “Of course, reading requirements vary by course and topic (i.e., a literature class may necessitate more books). My faculty and I seek relevant books from the various publishers, as well as ask colleagues for suggestions (even from other schools), and then compare and contrast them. I do ask my faculty to consider cost. I also encourage my faculty to consider supplemental online readings that may be so current they haven't yet appeared in hardcopy format, making additional texts unnecessary. I place great value on student assessments about each course, including the book(s) used. I'm much happier with one book being assigned that is so meaningful that students might even want to keep it in their own personal library.”

Julie Lobur, an adjunct lecturer at Pennsylvania State University, and coauthor of The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture, said that as an adjunct she is allowed to choose the textbooks for most of the classes she teaches. Her criteria in choosing a textbook are that it must support the pedagogical goals of the class, and it must do so with a clear, and readable style; be accurate and current; and serve the student even after he or she graduates.

“While cost is not on the list, I would avoid any text that I feel is excessively expensive, but sacrificing quality (e.g., currency, accuracy) for the sake of cost does our students a disservice,” she said. “Incidentally, while my coauthor and I were writing our computer architecture text, our students were able to download and print the text for free. It seemed that there was no end to the students' complaints regarding the effort involved in doing this.”

Patton believes that many of the students who complain that their professors don’t actually “use the book” in the course don’t really know what “using the book” means: “To some students coming right out of high school, ‘using the book’ means the teacher reads (or has students read) passages from the book during a class session, or that at least the teacher assigns ‘homework assignments’ from the book. Many college courses do not use the book in that way. Instead, the student is expected to read the textbook on their own to supplement and complement the other course activities. But students who are not adept at higher education, or are inexperienced in this method of learning, could easily interpret the situation as ‘not using’ or ‘not needing’ the textbook.”

Myth #3: Textbook authors are motivated by the royalties they receive from textbooks and many who are instructors teach from their own textbooks as a way to make money from this “captive” market.

“Being a textbook author is not easy, yet the hard work that we do seems to be overlooked when textbook costs are being debated,” said Carolyn M. Seefer, professor of business administration at Diablo Valley College, and coauthor of several business-related textbooks, including Essentials of College English. “What always seems to be omitted from the discussions of textbook costs is the fact that there is a real person behind each textbook, a person who is putting in countless hours, researching, planning, writing, proofreading, editing, revising, and updating the textbook and supplemental materials, not to mention replying to questions and comments from students and faculty who are using the textbook.”

Belsky, whose Experiencing the Lifespan textbook garnered a five-star reviewer rating on Amazon.com for its depth, insight and clarity, said: “You can’t make money from writing textbooks. Hour by hour, writing a text pays the author less than minimum wage, even for a potentially blockbuster, huge-market book.” Writing a textbook is a labor of love, she said, not one undertaken for money, and it’s a process that takes years.

Although many don’t see the hours upon hours that turn into years upon years that textbook authors, publishers and review committees composed of subject experts devote to making academic texts concise and valuable to would-be learners in a given field, the motivation to undertake writing a textbook is usually rooted in a desire to make a difference, said Belsky.

“I have been writing books in developmental psychology for 30 years,” she said. “I do it because I have a desire to make a difference. My life’s passion is to make students think more deeply, to look at the world in a new way, to influence minds and captivate hearts. But also, I’m a knowledge pack rat; I love to learn all I can about a field -- and I’m trying to make a real contribution to my field.”

For the most part, said Belsky, textbook authors and publishers -- along with a cast of editors, reference checkers, artists, reviewers and designers, among many other project contributors -- join forces, oftentimes for years on the same book project, to create what they hope will “look like a lovely work of art” while providing faculty and students with accompanying study guides, websites and other related materials to complement the book and its contents.

Plante said that she knows that students have NO idea what goes into the production of even the most basic texts, such as the ones she has written, which have no pictures, color, hard covers, etc. “They think academic texts should cost what a trade book costs,” she said. “When I explain how a text gets produced and how little many authors earn on royalties (for example, I earn $2.50 for a new book; my text is 2 œ years old, so very few new copies are sold anymore), they understand a bit more.”

Another issue, she said, is the general decaying of understanding of intellectual property: “My textbook took me hundreds of hours over many months, and I have earned about $1,500 from it because of the small market, small courses and small publisher. The book was a labor of love, not of profit. Given that I earn almost nothing from it, I have a vested interest in it not being available for free, not being scanned, and not potentially being plagiarized.”

Patton, who uses his own textbooks in his courses, said: “My students often appreciate the fact that reading their textbook ‘sounds like I'm talking to them’ because I guess my voice carries through in both media.” And because he knows the book more thoroughly than if it was someone else's book, he said, he can more effectively use it as a teaching tool.

Steven Barkan, a professor of sociology at the University of Maine, and author of several textbooks including Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, said he donates his total royalties from the textbook copies bought by his students to his department’s gift account, which is used for student needs (travel, awards, etc.).

Jay Devore, a professor emeritus of statistics at Cal Poly State University who has written several textbooks in his discipline, said he has frequently taught classes where one of his textbooks was a required book. “Almost always the adoption decision has been at the departmental level, and I absented myself from the deliberations,” he said. “I don't feel it necessary to reimburse individual students for purchases, but I have made appropriate donations to my department and university. Even when the decision is not departmental, it seems kosher to me for someone to use his/her own book provided it has been published by a reputable company and therefore peer reviewed prior to publication.”

Myth #4: Booksellers are helping students by selling used textbooks and complimentary copies of textbooks.

“The real culprits forcing up the cost of textbooks are the people sitting at the college buyback tables, ripping off the students and making more profit – for doing almost nothing – than either my publisher or I will ever see for our years of work,” said Belsky.

“Imagine working for eight years to produce a compelling text – one that entices students to learn – then, on your book’s publication date, up pops a raft of the complimentary review copies sent to faculty by the publisher,” she said. “They are being sold at online sites as ‘new’. A few months later, the market floods with many hundreds more used copies, from which you and your publisher also won’t recoup a cent.”

New copies of her textbook sell at retail for $80.95. From this Belsky earns only a few dollars on each sale. When the book is sold as a used book, she earns nothing. “When students sell their new book back at the end of the semester or quarter, from then on the author and publisher get nothing, nada, zip,” she said. “Basically, with a book like mine costing $80 new, the booksellers are going to pocket $20 on the first sale, then $40, $50, or even $60 on each used book sale, depending on how often it is sold back and bought again.”

Myth #5: Textbook pirates are the heroes fighting greedy publishers and authors who sell new textbooks at unreasonable prices.

Textbook piracy will most likely only result in another rise in textbook costs, said Hull.
“I don’t think students realize that using pirated textbooks will not solve the problem of high textbook costs any more than purchasing used books has,” he said. “In both cases, publishers and authors receive no income from the use or sale of these books, causing publishers to have to increase the prices of new textbooks to recoup those losses.”

Hildebrand said that it is his impression that some of those engaged in print piracy are purely out for profit: “While many online pirates consider their efforts to be a cause to fight for free information and to ‘stick it’ to the publishers, some sell ads on their sites, making money off other people’s work and investments and hurting the majority of students by pushing up prices.”

Myth #6: International editions are a low-cost good option for students.

Another issue contributing to textbook costs is international versions of textbooks being sold back into the U.S. Publishers sell international versions to countries for the specific purpose of providing low-cost access, said Anthony Buffa, emeritus professor of physics at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. “Thus royalties and profits are considerably lower, although the volume is supposed to make up for it,” he said. “Lately I have seen an international version of my book being used illegally by students in the U.S. This has amounted, for our text, to thousands of U.S. copies being returned from bookstores, as the students opt to buy the international versions from the Internet.”

Myth #7: Free textbooks, materials shared on the Internet for free, and open textbooks are the solution to the high cost of print textbooks. Publishers don’t offer e-books.

“With regard to the availability of ‘open textbooks’ for students on the Internet,” said Mary Ellen Guffey, emeritus professor of business at Los Angeles Pierce College, and coauthor, with Seefer, of Essentials of College English, “I wonder how many of the instructors who might adopt these books are willing to prepare their own test banks, PowerPoint slides, solutions, websites, videos, audio lectures, and endless supplementary materials that authors and publishers provide at little or no cost to instructors or students. The instructor’s manuals for my textbooks are now larger than the books themselves.”

Said Susan Fawcett, author of Evergreen: A Guide to Writing and Grassroots: The Writer's Workbook: “I am amazed by the idea that textbook authors should not be paid for our hard work. Who would dare ask members of any other profession to pour heart and soul into a project for years and then give away the fruits of their labor? The idealistic creators of the Internet laudably conceived of a free information highway, but many now acknowledge that this notion has been used to rationalize the pilfering of intellectual property from the inventors, the musicians, and the writers. Let's find a solution that is fair to students, authors, and yes, even publishers."

Belsky said that the solution to the high cost of textbooks isn’t to publish her “eight year labor of love on the Internet for free. Making textbooks totally pro-bono ensures that there won’t be any real textbook authors left.”

For Belsky, the suggestion from some that texts be “farmed out to writing committees to get rid of those so-called greedy publishers and authors” is unfathomable, as is the idea that a professor would instruct his or her students to merely “look this stuff up on the Internet, don’t bother buying the book.”

Such suggestions make sense, Belsky reasons, “only if we want to lose the essence of what education is all about—enticing students to love to learn!”

“Let’s be real, there is no free lunch,” said Hull. “The people who are advocating for ‘free books’ are going to large donors and to state legislatures asking for millions of dollars to pay authors to develop and then update textbooks. Does that make them free or does it mean that they are simply asking someone else to pay the bill? The reality is that writing and publishing course materials is a tough, exacting and time-consuming proposition. Sustaining this kind of effort is neither cheap nor easy.”

Yet most major publishers already offer e-books as a low-cost alternative to purchasing a print version. More than one third of the most popular college textbook titles (those expected to sell at least 200 copies nationwide this Fall) are now available in eTextbook versions from CourseSmart (www.coursesmart.com), an e-book company founded by five higher education textbook publishers: Pearson, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill Education, John Wiley & Sons Inc., and the Bedford, Freeman, Worth Publishing Group.

CourseSmart’s e-textbooks are being sold for half the cost of the equivalent printed text.

Download TAA Press Release PDF: Text and Academic Authors Association debunks the top 7 myths regarding textbook costs

Download PDF of this article: Download here

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New TAA teleconference on how to market your textbook

Robert Christopherson, professor emeritus of geography at American River College and author of the leading physical geography textbooks in the U.S. and Canada, will present a TAA teleconference entitled "Tips & Strategies for Successfully Marketing Your Textbook" on Thursday, November 20 from 12 to 1 p.m. central time. During this members-only teleconference, Christopherson will describe some of the strategies authors can use to successfully market their textbook, including sales manual copy, lists of new features, participation in national sales meeting with PowerPoint presentations, an author's blog linked to the text, an interactive web site, listing of author's e-mail address in the Preface, contact with sales reps, copy for ads and fliers, a calendar project, and more.

TAA members can sign up for this free teleconference by clicking here or by sending an email with their name, email address and the title of the teleconference to kim.pawlak@taaonline.net

TAA teleconferences are for members only. Join TAA for as little as $15.

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TAA to hold teleconference on online feedback tools for authors

David Brake, CEO and founder of Content Connections, a company that specializes in market research, audience analysis, and feedback loops for publishers and authors, will present a TAA Teleconference Thursday, September 25 from 12-1 p.m. central time entitled "Make Your Book Better and Your Sales Bigger with Online Feedback Tools". In this one-hour, members-only teleconference, Brake, a 22-year veteran of the book publishing industry, will show you how to create simple but effective “author-driven” surveys that can be created, managed and launched online. Participants will learn the do’s and don’ts of author-driven surveys; how to craft effective questions that yield actionable results; how to choose an online survey tool that works for you; other online feedback tools for your toolbox; how to manage your contact list and turn them into relationships; and how to enlist the support of your publisher.

TAA members can sign up for this free teleconference by clicking here or by sending an email with their name, email address and the title of the teleconference to kim.pawlak@taaonline.net

TAA teleconferences are for members only. Join TAA for as little as $15.

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TAA accepting session proposals for 2009 Conference

TAA is accepting session proposals for its 2009 Conference on Text and Academic Authoring, which will be held in San Antonio, TX, June 25-27 at the El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel. TAA is seeking proposals for 30-minute or 60-minute sessions that would appeal to textbook and other instructional materials authors, academic authors (authors of journal articles, dissertations, grants, scholarly books, etc), or both groups. Deadline for proposals is November 15, 2008. Visit the 2009 TAA Conference website for more information or to download a Presenter Proposal Form: Click here

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'Textbook piracy' not the solution to rising textbook costs

Students’ latest reaction to the increasing costs of textbooks, referred to as ‘textbook piracy’, the unauthorized scanning of textbooks made available for free download on file sharing websites, will most likely only result in another rise in textbook costs, said TAA Executive Director Richard Hull.

“I don’t think students realize that using pirated textbooks will not solve the problem of high textbook costs any more than purchasing used books has,” he said. “In both cases, publishers and authors receive no income from the use or sale of these books, causing publishers to have to increase the prices of new textbooks to recoup those losses."

Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at the AAP, said that it is his impression that those engaged in print piracy are purely out for profit: “While many online pirates consider their efforts to be a cause to fight for free information and to ‘stick it’ to the publishers, some sell ads on their sites.”

The AAP is combating textbook piracy by locating and thwarting infringements. For printed textbooks, the AAP has a division headed by attorney Patricia Judd, who works with the U.S. State Department and travels the world working with foreign governments, overseas printers, publishers, distributors and police to shut down pirate printers. For digital piracy, they have another attorney, Ed McCoyd, who is their director of digital policy. McCoyd works with AAP members and retains a law firm to track down websites that distribute pirated works and demand that the infringements be taken down.

TAA is working with the AAP to come up with solutions that will discourage students from resorting to theft and that will encourage them to respect the enormous amount of time and effort that authors and publishers have invested in writing and publishing textbooks.

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TAA to hold teleconference on how to form a scholarly writing group

Linda Searby

Linda Searby, an assistant professor of education in the School of Education at the University of Alabama Birmingham, will present a TAA Teleconference on Thursday, November 13th from 1-2 p.m. central time entitled "Scholarly Publishing: Finding Support Through Peer Mentoring."

Searby was one of three assistant professors in the School of Education at UAB who formed a professional learning community called S.N.A.P., Support Network for Assistant Professors, in 2007 as a way to offer structured support for the School of Education's non-tenured faculty who wish to become more prolific scholarly writers.

Twelve of the School's assistant professors joined the group and began meeting monthly for peer mentoring, writing workshops, informative presentations by senior faculty, and the development of supportive, collegial professional relationships with one another. The objective of S.N.A.P. was for faculty peers to give each other 'a leg up' to 'go up' for tenure and promotion.

At the end of the first year of S.N.A.P., the group's leaders conducted a survey to determine the effectiveness of the group. More than 80 percent of the group's members said that participation in S.N.A.P. motivated them in writing more or publishing more. Eighty-two percent of the group's members said they had had articles accepted for publication.

Seventy-five percent of the group's members said that they met the goals they set for themselves at the first S.N.A.P. session, and all said they would participate in the group the next year.

Searby, who wrote a scholarly paper on the project, will share how she created the support group, describe the success that they have had, and tell faculty how they can develop a similar group on their campus.

Learn more about S.N.A.P.: Click here

TAA Teleconferences are for members only. Join TAA

Members can sign up for this free teleconference by clicking here or by sending an email with their name, email address and the title of the teleconference to kim.pawlak@taaonline.net

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Book Savvy latest company to jump into online text arena

Book Savvy, LLC (www.mybooksavvy.com) is the latest company to jump into the online text arena with the promise of making the transition to online texts "as easy and as cost-effective as possible for all parties."

Instead of each publishing company having to undertake its own separate transition to the digital world, said Book Savvy Founder Byron Johnson, Book Savvy will provide all the necessary functional components "just as Apple’s iTunes initiative aggregated buyers and sellers efficiently to create a global marketplace for paid music downloads."

"Book Savvy has created a highly secured digital environment that will reduce the cost of textbooks for students both K-12 and Higher Education," said Johnson. "BookSavvy is pushing the digital revolution into the formerly staid world of academic publishing. Structurally, there are many failings in the status quo: high costs, relatively long time-to-market so information is stale by the time it is printed, bound, and delivered, impossible to update easily and restricted in its methods of presentation."

One of the modules that is available to BookSavvy customers is an interactive reading source through Higgs Phonics. Higgs Phonics is series of books that will teach any student how to read, said Johnson: "Individuals will be able to read 85 percent of all English based words in 40 hours of instruction or less! Higgs Phonics is the ultimate Language Arts Supplemental Curriculum. Higgs Phonics teaches a student how to decode every word they see, hear and say while also teaching them to comprehend and analyze everything they have read in their classroom texts in all subjects. Higgs Phonics is perfect for motivating struggling students; keeping grade-level students on target while also challenging high achievers."

Johnson said the goal of BookSavvy is to become the focal player in the provision of online academic texts: "By acting as the center of a wide network of players (students, universities, publishers, digital rights management companies, electronic publishing software companies) we will ensure that all necessary elements are brought together and combined in such a way as to enable the rapid and efficient creation of online texts that are in high demand by students and teachers alike.

"The partnership between BookSavvy, LLC and Higgs Phonics gives us the ability to help students of all ages. Forming this type of partnership has given us the ability to convert a paperback textbook into a digital interactive experience. The individual modules within BookSavvy along with Higgs Phonics will allow us to help a student be successful as young as three years of age."

BookSavvy also offers author assistance in converting their textbook into an interactive textbook, making textbooks available in digital format and also reducing the cost. "We have also identified tools to help students, parents, and teachers be more successful," he said.

Learn more about Book Savvy at www.mybooksavvy.com
Learn more about Higgs Phonics at www.higgsphonics.com/index-1.html

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Students offer top five reasons for switching to digital books

More than one third of the most popular college textbook titles (those expected to sell at least 200 copies nationwide this Fall) are now available in eTextbook versions from CourseSmart, according to data compiled by industry analysts at R.R. Bowker’s PubTrack Business Intelligence Division. CourseSmart LLC (www.coursesmart.com) was founded by five higher education textbook publishers including Pearson, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill Education, John Wiley & Sons Inc., and the Bedford, Freeman, Worth Publishing Group.

“Our goal is to offer as many textbooks on CourseSmart as possible so that every student has the opportunity to purchase their assigned textbook as an eTextbook,” said CourseSmart CEO Sean Devine. “eTextbooks are a great way to learn and save money and we think all students will benefit from this new choice.”

Since its launch in August 2007, students at more than 1,000 colleges and universities have purchased eTextbooks from CourseSmart. Eighty percent of existing customers said they will continue to purchase their assigned textbooks as CourseSmart eTextbooks. The following are the five most common reasons given by existing CourseSmart customers for purchasing an eTextbook:

1. CourseSmart eTextbooks are less expensive. CourseSmart eTextbooks average 50% of the cost of a new print textbook. Many students prefer the guaranteed savings on eTextbooks versus purchasing print and hoping for a reasonable amount of cash back from selling the print book at the end of the semester. CourseSmart research shows that only 36% of student purchases are actually sold back to the bookstore or to a fellow student as used books and that 65% of students are disappointed in the value they receive when they do sell back.
   
   
2. Many students find search an essential tool for learning. For students who already use the web extensively for news, entertainment, and in their jobs, searching is second nature. Students use a textbook to educate themselves on key ideas and provide guidance in problem solving or other skills, and it is often more useful for them to search a textbook than flip pages.
   
   
3. eTextbooks can be accessed anytime, anywhere. Today’s students have a mobile lifestyle. The ability to login to any computer at school, home, work, or a lab to study or read, eliminates lots of weight in a student’s daily backpack. Students can also instantly access CourseSmart eTextbooks after purchase. This is extremely valuable to students who wait until they are certain they need a textbook before making a purchase.
   
   
4. The copy/paste functionality in CourseSmart eTextbooks can't be accomplished with print. Research shows that a high percentage of students use some sort of notes summary to compile their knowledge and study for tests and finals. Integrating content from an eTextbook into a notes summary is easily done with the copy/paste functionality in CourseSmart. Students with a print textbook need to re-type any content they want to include in a notes summary.
   
   
5. Selective printing is more environmentally-friendly than buying print texts. Students appreciate the trees saved by purchasing a digital textbook. But many students also value and utilize CourseSmart’s printing functionality, which allows students to print up to 10 pages with one click, because they can select what to print for study, carrying, or future reference. Students can print the whole book but very few print more than a few pages, choosing instead to buy the print book if their studying requires a complete printed text.

CourseSmart's blog, blog.coursesmart.com, has several entries that compare purchasing an e-book to purchasing a used print textbook.

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University System of Ohio to reward faculty for creating affordable learning materials

The University System of Ohio has launched a competitive grant and faculty award program that recognizes and rewards its faculty efforts to make learning materials more affordable.

A new Textbook Affordability Grant program offers a $250,000 grant to faculty teams who develop, build, and package collections of course materials offered free to students. The University System of Ohio will fund as many as five projects at $50,000 per course offering.

The University System of Ohio is also rewarding faculty members who find innovative ways of creating digital content (video, simulations, e-texts and journals, visualizations, etc.) that lower the out-of-pocket costs to students with a $1,000 cash award. Ten winners will be chosen each year from nominations by students, administrators and other faculty members. Nominations will be reviewed by a panel of state and national reviewers.

"These programs will reduce student expenses and reward faculty who apply their substantial intellectual property into reusable course materials that can be delivered without the costly overhead of traditional publishing," said University of Ohio System Chancellor Eric Fingerhut.

For more information, visit http://www.uso.edu/opportunities/textbooks/innovatorGrants.php

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University System of Ohio partners with CourseSmart to offer eTextbooks to students

Through a partnership with CourseSmart, a provider of electronic textbooks from the six largest U.S. commercial publishers, students enrolled in public and private colleges and universities and adult learning programs in the University System of Ohio will receive discounts of up to 55 percent off the print price on digital textbooks purchased from CourseSmart through a special website and at participating campus bookstores. CourseSmart currently offers more than 4,000 titles. Visit the CourseSmart website at www.coursesmart.com

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