Thursday, May 7, 2009

E-Textbooks and "Open Textbooks"

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"The ongoing digital transformation means we must continue investing to deliver great content and great tools for course management, online instruction courses, and e-books as paper-based products are replaced by electronic products." -- McGraw-Hill Chairman, Terry McGraw

Digital delivery costs less (currently about 51 percent of the price of a new print book). Digital textbookos are now beginning to gain a more prominent position in the textbooks marketplace. As they become more widely used, it is important to keep in mind that there are some issues that need to be addressed: affordability, printing options, and accessibility.

An emerging development in E-Textbooks is open textbooks, which are textbooks that are freely available with nonrestrictive licenses. Covering a wide range of disciplines, open textbooks are available to download and print in various file formats from several web sites and repositories. Open textbooks help solve the problems of the high cost of textbooks, book shortages, and access to textbooks as well as providing the capacity to better meet local teaching and learning needs.

Check out these E-textbook resources:

McGraw-Hill eBooks Online Viewing Demos
CourseSmart.com
iChapters.com
ASU to Pilot Kindle's E-Textbook Program
What are Open Textbooks?
Online 'open textbooks' save students cash

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