VOA慢速英语--College Textbooks Moving from Print to Digital

 

The rising cost of attending a college or university in the United States has been an issue of much concern and debate in recent years.

But what often does not get discussed is the hidden costs related to higher education, says Michael Hansen. He is chief executive officer of Cengage Learning, a publisher of textbooks and developer of other learning materials.

Hansen notes that the hidden costs are not immediately included in the cost of a student’s tuition. Such costs include student housing and healthcare, and even textbooks, and he admits these costs are not small.

The College Board is a non-profit organization that researches and supports American higher education. In 2018, it found that the average yearly cost of books and supplies for a student at a public, four-year college in his or her home state was $1,240.

For years, higher education textbook publishers have tried to find ways of reducing their costs to students, says Hansen. Some have developed programs that permit students to temporarily own textbooks and then return them once they are no longer needed. And many schools buy textbooks back from students and offer them to other students at a reduced price.

Yet Hansen says such efforts do not do much to solve the problem of rising costs. That is why, he says, his company launched a new product, called Cengage Unlimited¹, a little over a year ago.

A growing movement towards digital textbooks

Cengage Unlimited lets students make use of all of the textbooks the company publishes, but in digital form instead of physical copies. Cengage Unlimited offers this service to students for about $120 each study term or $180 a year.

Hansen says that the service offers more than just textbooks. The digital products include videos and computer software programs that test students’ understanding of what they are reading.

In the past, publishing companies often would wait about three years before releasing popular textbooks with more up to date information, Hansen says. But with Cengage Unlimited, the books’ authors can make changes to the digital versions at any given time.

“If we have an election, they can instantaneously provide new examples,” Hansen told VOA. “If we have an economic interest rate change, they can provide very direct, real-time examples of what is going on, which makes the material much more … relevant for the student and faculty².”

Hansen says that within two months of Cengage Unlimited being offered last August, 500,000 students have signed up for the service.

In the United States, Cengage is not the only publisher to move in this direction. Studies have shown that, in large part because of cost, up to 64 percent of college students choose not to buy the required textbooks for their classes.

So in 2014, Pearson, another educational publisher, launched its Digital Direct Access model, which offers digital textbooks to students and teaching materials to professors. Macmillan Learning has a similar service, called LaunchPad.

Brian Murphy notes that publishing houses that offer such services are helping³ themselves just as much as they are helping students.

Murphy has worked in higher education textbook sales for over 30 years for companies including Pearson and his own Brian Murphy Group. He notes that publishers save a lot of money by not making physical copies of books. Also, with physical books, companies really only make money when a book is first sold. Since digital materials cannot be re-sold, every student who is using them has to pay the company.

Some barriers to the move

Yet Murphy warns that as more publishers move towards digital models, they must be mindful of how they do so. Some digital textbooks he has seen have simply been electronic versions of physical textbooks. Most students like carrying books they can take notes in, and simple digital materials do not offer anything extra to make them more desirable.

Murphy says that if publishers want their digital products to be successful, they must design the user experience to be as interactive⁴ as possible. He adds that another barrier to the success of digital textbook services is college faculty.

Since publishers digitally offer all of their publications at once, they want colleges and universities to make use of all of the materials they offer. Many companies are attempting to set up partnerships⁵ with schools, so that the cost for using their digital services would be included in the price of tuition.

Then schools could choose to replace all traditional textbooks they sell with these products. But this often means that school administrators⁶ are deciding what materials professors must use in their classes.

“The professor … has intellectual freedom to choose their own content for their courses,” said Murphy. “If they’ve been teaching accounting⁷ for 30 years with one book, and the school makes an agreement with another publisher with a different book, the professor’s not going to be happy with that.”

If professors are not satisfied with the quality of the digital content, they will likely ask students to buy other traditional textbooks, reducing the effect of cost saving efforts, he noted⁸.

Textbook authors have their own concerns about the move to digital.

Michael Spinella is the head the Textbook and Academic Authors Association. He says that many publishers are asking authors to do more in addition to producing the content and know more about new teaching methods, all without increases in pay. It is still not clear how successful these new materials will be in replacing traditional ones, he says.

I’m Pete Musto.

And I’m Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

textbook(s) – n. a book about a particular subject that is used in the study of that subject especially in a school

tuition – n. money that is paid to a school for the right to study there

digital – adj. using or characterized by computer technology

author(s) – n. a person who has written something

relevant – adj. relating to a subject in the right way

faculty – n. the group of teachers in a school or college

interactive – adj. designed to respond to the actions and commands of a user

content – n. the ideas, facts, or images that are in a book, article, speech, or movie

course(s) – n. a series of classes about a particular subject in a school

1 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

2 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 interactive   

adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的

参考例句：

• The psychotherapy is carried out in small interactive groups.这种心理治疗是在互动的小组之间进行的。
• This will make videogames more interactive than ever.这将使电子游戏的互动性更胜以往。

5 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

6 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

7 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

8 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。