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First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

nytimes.com

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Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#31

Post by ig1 »

cypress-hill wrote: post #21
willarson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the average textbook sells a small run of copies, and doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Unfortunately, it seems that the professors and the publishers both like the current system, and the students have very little influence on the process. There are some solutions, but the incentives don't seem to be in place to encourage them. The best seems to be reducing the overall number of textbooks,…

"The problem is that the average textbook sells a small run of copies, and doesn't benefit from economies of scale" WHAT??? for example, stewart's calculus book has been used for twenty+ years all over the english speaking world. you find me a ny times bestseller that has had that kind of run

Stewart isn't an "average textbook"

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#32

Post by [deleted] »

iamdave wrote: post #24

Some great comments here, but I gotta jump off track for a second. I kind of want to know who or what the lead was for this article. No way the NY Times just goes through TPB looking for the most piquant torrent and write a tilted article about it. Seriously....revenge? College students are frugal people. Between work and school it's not easy making a living to put food in your belly and pay the costs of student hous…

[deleted]

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#33

Post by pm »

gaius wrote: post #29
cypress-hill wrote: post #22

its amusing how harvard stanford and princeton with endowments of like forty quadrillion dollars shake and quiver in the face of a thirty person publishing firm. the big schools could trivially "nationalize" textbooks with online material. it would be cheaper just to buy a new laptops for students who don't have the means to access the data

Is this not what MIT are doing with OCW?

Similar, but it's not quite the whole picture. I've downloaded the materials from a wide range of classes, and the quantity of material and subsequent potential for greater understanding varied greatly.

Lecture notes are no replacement for a well-written textbook, especially if you're an autodidact attempting to further your horizons.

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#34

Post by ken »

willarson wrote: post #13
huhtenberg wrote: post #6

Is the existing level of pricing justified at all ? I mean a $209 book does sound like it carries a huge margin.

The problem is that the average textbook sells a small run of copies, and doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Unfortunately, it seems that the professors and the publishers both like the current system, and the students have very little influence on the process. There are some solutions, but the incentives don't seem to be in place to encourage them. The best seems to be reducing the overall number of textbooks,…

"This is an engineering textbook, about 300 pages long, OK? Hard-bound. This costs, anybody guess? How much would it cost in a bookstore? OK, this cost $22 to the students. Why does it cost $22? Because it's published on-demand, and it's developed from this repository of open material. If this book was to be published by a regular publisher, it would cost at least $122 dollars."

-- Richard Baraniuk, 2006 -- http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_baraniuk_on_open_...

So it's a bit more complex than that. It may be "economy of scale" in that a professor isn't going to take the time to write a solid textbook without being able to make back at least his expenses. But if we had some way for people to collaborate more easily and cheaply to write a textbook...

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#35

Post by s3graham »

I'm not sure if this applies to all majors, but one great thing about Math/CS at Waterloo was that the majority of reading material used was written by profs there. The little math dept. printing office latex/dvips/lpr'd and spiral bound it, and you just paid the cost of reproduction (more or less).

That's (yikes!) 10 years ago now, but I hope it hasn't changed.

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#36

Post by markbao »

rms wrote: post #27
henning wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're feeling lazy and don't want to install anything, you can also find websites with links to filesharing sites. They have the same kind of defense as a torrent tracker in that they don't actually host files, they just have links. They frequently feature highend technical books from Springer Verlag, Elsevier, et al. We're through the looking glass here, people.

A closed online site for sharing textbooks would really take off. The PRQ has been unstoppable so far. It can't really be stopped.

It did, and met its fate.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080701-campus-copyrig...

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#37

Post by rms »

markbao wrote: post #36
rms wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A closed online site for sharing textbooks would really take off. The PRQ has been unstoppable so far. It can't really be stopped.

It did, and met its fate. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080701-campus-copyrig...

:/

When will pirates learn that you need to host in a secure country?

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#38

Post by silencio »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #30
silencio wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're in pretty advanced bio classes, it doesn't change every year like the textbook editions suggest. Also I have had community college classes where the text cost upwards of $200. I've also had classes where the used book cost $5 and the prof was willing to buy it herself if you couldn't afford even $5...

The material doesn't change, but the homework problems do...or at least the order of homework problems/chapters may change.

But the material isn't changing, which then begs the question as to why the hell the professors and teachers believe that using a brand new edition is a good idea. That's the key point. Homework problems don't need to be changed, unless you're worried about people cheating from folks who've taken the class before - in which case, change the exams, and change which homework problems are being assigned. Even then it's their loss/problem if they decide to cheat. And it's not that the problems were incorrectly written - corrections are usually minimal - it's that if the problems change, what happens is that it's fundamentally the same question except numbered differently.

I've seen this happen so many times and I'm sick of it because the likes of all my intro classes from chem and physics and bio to calc and CS have not fundamentally changed SO much that it is impossible to use a text that is a couple years old.

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#39

Post by yummyfajitas »

silencio wrote: post #38
yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The material doesn't change, but the homework problems do...or at least the order of homework problems/chapters may change.

But the material isn't changing, which then begs the question as to why the hell the professors and teachers believe that using a brand new edition is a good idea. That's the key point. Homework problems don't need to be changed, unless you're worried about people cheating from folks who've taken the class before - in which case, change the exams , and change which homework problems are being assigned. Even then it's…

I completely agree with you: it's a scam.

But we, the profs, don't have a lot of choice in the matter. Problem 1: we need to assign a text which is available to all students, and I can't guarantee availability of enough copies of the old editions.

I'd love to use this book (http://store.doverpublications.com/0486457710.html) costing $20 for calc, but that brings up problem 2: I have to use the book the department assigns. Changing this would require joining a curriculum committee, turf wars, academic politics, etc. Yuck, I'm a scientist, not a politician.

I usually work with my students to save them some money (copy problem pages, etc), and I bought old editions when I was an undergrad. But that's about the best I can do. I have given the problem some thought, and have a startup concept (with some code). If I can overcome some technical issues, I'll go live with it.

Re: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

#40

Post by silencio »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #39
silencio wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the material isn't changing, which then begs the question as to why the hell the professors and teachers believe that using a brand new edition is a good idea. That's the key point. Homework problems don't need to be changed, unless you're worried about people cheating from folks who've taken the class before - in which case, change the exams , and change which homework problems are being assigned. Even then it's…

I completely agree with you: it's a scam. But we, the profs, don't have a lot of choice in the matter. Problem 1: we need to assign a text which is available to all students, and I can't guarantee availability of enough copies of the old editions. I'd love to use this book ( http://store.doverpublications.com/0486457710.html ) costing $20 for calc, but that brings up problem 2: I have to use the book the department a…

With problem 1, wouldn't the old edition still be cheaper than the new? Or would the publisher just stop publishing the older edition? Even with new editions I've come across situations where the bookstore was having an impossible time ordering enough to meet demand.

And the second...I just guess I don't understand why new editions have to be adopted so quickly sometimes. I taught myself all sorts of subjects out of used books I got at garage and library sales. Years later actually taking the classes with a brand new edition of a text, nothing's changed. Only the price..used books would be dirt cheap and the new edition would be $120. So the department assigns a book, why do they have to assign it? Kickbacks from the publisher? My question above about the publisher discontinuing the older edition?

I guess I'm ultimately mad about this whole situation (and yes, I was a textbook torrents user although they never had the texts for my classes). I even had one class at a CC (I think it was anatomy) where the class itself was only somewhere around $70 but the materials and mainly the text|online access|workbook were in the $300 range. I about flipped out then.

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