Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

i2-news - [I2-NEWS] Internet2 and EDUCAUSE Partner To Deliver eText Pilot At Colleges and Universities Nationwide, Fall 2012

Subject: News for and about the Internet2 community

List archive

[I2-NEWS] Internet2 and EDUCAUSE Partner To Deliver eText Pilot At Colleges and Universities Nationwide, Fall 2012


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Todd Sedmak <>
  • To:
  • Subject: [I2-NEWS] Internet2 and EDUCAUSE Partner To Deliver eText Pilot At Colleges and Universities Nationwide, Fall 2012
  • Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:22:49 -0400 (EDT)

Internet2 and EDUCAUSE Partner To Deliver eText Pilot At Colleges and
Universities Nationwide, Fall 2012

McGraw-Hill Education, Courseload and 25 higher education institutions test
new approaches to making electronic textbooks and other learning materials
more affordable through new business model

Washington, D.C. and Ann Arbor, Mich.–-Sept. 4, 2012--EDUCAUSE and Internet2
today announced a series of pilot efforts to evaluate technologies and
business models in the fast evolving migration from traditional textbooks to
digital learning materials. For the fall 2012 term, the pilot is being
conducted in partnership with McGraw-Hill Education and Courseload, through
which more than 25 colleges and universities will provide eTexts to their
students.

Including educational institutions across the spectrum from major research
institutions to community colleges, this pilot aims to advance a new model
for the purchase, distribution, and use of electronic textbooks and digital
course materials. Participating colleges and universities are listed at the
end of this announcement.

The pilot departs from current eText practices in three key ways:

1. Replaces individual purchases by students with site licenses
negotiated and funded by campuses;
2. Substitutes paper textbooks owned by students with electronic
materials licensed for use in specific classes; and
3. Uses an e-reader not associated with a specific publisher.

Based on the pilot, EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and the participating institutions
will assess the new model for appeal and pedagogical benefit to faculty and
students, scalability of the approach, ease of integration with campus
learning management environment, and especially how the model supports
increased value and lower costs of educational materials. The pilot will help
higher education progress toward adoption of more cost-effective procurement
of electronic class materials, which are in turn much less expensive than
their print predecessors.

Students in participating courses will use McGraw-Hill Education eTexts and
digital learning material selected by faculty, as well as the Courseload
reader and annotation software, which allows content to be delivered directly
through their school’s existing learning management system (LMS).

Students will receive their eTexts at no cost as the institutions are
subsidizing the study. The e-reader will enable students and instructors
to access, highlight, and annotate their eTexts and learning materials on
almost any Internet-enabled device, even when they are not connected to the
Internet. Students who want a printed copy may print portions of their eText
directly, or may order a print-on-demand version of the eText for a fee.

The fall 2012 pilot expands upon a more limited experiment involving the
University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University, the University of
Minnesota, the University of Virginia, and the University of Wisconsin at
Madison, and a successful earlier effort at Indiana University. These initial
efforts demonstrated the appeal of the new model -- more than 100,000 online
pages read, with almost none printed--with balanced reactions from students
or instructors. Feedback also indicated that in addition to the substantial
cost savings the approach represents, those involved appreciated the ability
to digitally annotate content and share those annotations while using less
paper.

As a faculty participant at the University of Virginia said, “the main
benefits have been for the students, who […] can have their texts on the
various machines they carry around with them all the time.” The initial
efforts also underscored important goals for future efforts, such as ensuring
that eTexts are accessible to students with special needs and others
requiring special accommodation. Here’s a link to the Internet2 eTextbook
Spring 2012 Pilot Final Project Report.

“Our core mission,” said Greg Jackson, vice president of EDUCAUSE and former
chief information officer at the University of Chicago, “is to advance higher
education through the use of information technology. This pilot will help us
understand how the advent of appealing, affordable eTexts can enable
fundamental changes in the relationships among students, instructors,
campuses, and publishers, and thereby address a major obstacle to college
affordability.”

“More and more universities are eager to explore new approaches to delivering
content to students. These pilot programs offer an alternative to the legacy
textbook model to which students and campuses are anxious to find
alternatives as eTexts become mainstream,” said Shel Waggener, senior vice
president of Internet2 and former chief information officer at UC Berkeley.
“We continue to invite other publishers and e-reader platform providers to
join our efforts to explore new models for improving the delivery and use of
electronic content so that everyone benefits.”

“We're in the midst of a digital transformation in higher education, as more
and more institutions, instructors, and students recognize the power of
technology in the classroom,” said Tom Malek, vice president of Learning
Solutions and Services for McGraw-Hill Higher Education. “We are excited to
partner with Internet2, EDUCAUSE, and the institutions to explore new ways of
delivering our world-class content and transformative digital learning tools
to all students at a fair price and through campuses’ existing
infrastructure.”

“We are delighted to continue our collaboration with the higher-education
community,” said Mickey Levitan, CEO of Courseload, “and we very much
appreciate that EDUCAUSE and Internet2 have encouraged a broader array of
institutions to experiment with new models and share their experiences and
outcomes.”

List of participants, as of Sept. 4, 2012:

● Baylor University
● California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
● Colorado State University
● Cornell University
● Dartmouth College
● Iowa State University of Science and Technology
● Madison Area Technical College
● Miami University
● Michigan State University
● Middlebury College
● Northern Kentucky University
● Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
● Stony Brook University
● University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
● University of Alaska
● University of California, Berkeley
● University of Hawaii
● University of Iowa
● University of Kentucky
● University of South Florida
● University of Virginia
● University of Wisconsin, Madison
● Vermont State Colleges
● Virginia Tech
● Wichita State University

Pilot leaders will speak about the eText pilot at the Fall 2012 Internet2
Member Meeting in October and the EDUCAUSE 2012 Annual Conference in November.

Media contacts:

● Todd Sedmak, Internet2 (http://internet2.edu), 202-331-5373 or

● Greg Jackson, EDUCAUSE (http://educause.edu), 202-331-5351 or

● Brian Belardi, McGraw-Hill (http://mheducation.com), 212-904-4827 or

● Erin Wray, Courseload, (http://courseload.com), 317-602-1427 or


###

Visit our website: www.internet2.edu
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/internet2
Become a Fan on Facebook: www.internet2.edu/facebook




  • [I2-NEWS] Internet2 and EDUCAUSE Partner To Deliver eText Pilot At Colleges and Universities Nationwide, Fall 2012, Todd Sedmak, 09/04/2012

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.16.

Top of Page