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Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

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Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#61

Post by wfunction »

aspensmonster wrote: post #55
impendia wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a lecturer in a math department. I also despise the textbook industry. Would you please recommend what I might do, subject to severe limitations of (1) time and (2) political clout within my department?

Tell your students not to purchase whatever books the department head has been bribed into using in the coming semester. Instead, spend a few hours curating online resources that may serve as notes for students; better yet, just photocopy the handwritten notes that every mathematics teacher I've ever had seems to have for each lecture they give :-) Otherwise, Paul's Online Math Notes tackles Calculus and ODEs, and II…

Bribed? That's a pretty big assumption you're making.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#62

Post by thedufer »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #17
jug6ernaut wrote: post #4

Honestly I don't know how i feel about this. As a recent grad i know full well how high prices are for text books, i would do everything possible to prevent having to buy them. I personally thing the requirement to always have a new textbook(that years version) is more ridiculous then the prices they charge. I don't know where that requirement stems from, but in my opinion it is the real problem. But with that said I…

Publishers are merely exploiting the highly school-like nature of university education in the US. When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best. But in the US, students demand that their education is like high school, with a set text and all, and if the…

> students demand

What? I've never heard this particular demand (and I just graduated from a US college). Sure, students might complain about having the wrong edition - but only when lecturers assign work by page number, so that it becomes impossible to do it with the wrong edition. Do you have any evidence that this is the students' fault?

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#63

Post by saraid216 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #17
jug6ernaut wrote: post #4

Honestly I don't know how i feel about this. As a recent grad i know full well how high prices are for text books, i would do everything possible to prevent having to buy them. I personally thing the requirement to always have a new textbook(that years version) is more ridiculous then the prices they charge. I don't know where that requirement stems from, but in my opinion it is the real problem. But with that said I…

Publishers are merely exploiting the highly school-like nature of university education in the US. When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best. But in the US, students demand that their education is like high school, with a set text and all, and if the…

> When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best.

o.O Seriously? How have I never heard that this happens? That's ridiculously sane.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#64

Post by DannyBee »

SEMW wrote: post #48
DannyBee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, at least 2 justices specifically do not determine congress's intent, because they do not believe it matters. If you look, you'll see they often specifically refuse to join in footnotes/etc that cite congressional intent or history.

It's possible they're still trying to determine congress's intent in a sense, they just give a more objective meaning to 'intent': i.e. what a reasonable person reading the statute would think that congress meant by the words they used. (As opposed to what they actually, subjectively meant, per extrinsic evidence like statements made in congress). That's the way intent is read in contract law: it's judged objectively…

Speaking as a lawyer familiar with both english and US law:

English contract law is a bit different than US. In the US, it's not objective in general (contracts are held against the drafter, and subjective intent matters).

Your description of objective intent is well, not intent in this case :) Objective intent of congress would be what a reasonable person making the statute would have meant, not what a reasonable person reading the statute would think it meant.

The second is in fact, what is done, but is not related to intent at all, it's related to interpretation.

As for congress's intent, Scalia is of the firm view that either objective intent, or subjective intent does not matter. The words mean what they say, and say what they mean, and if they don't, that's a problem for the legislature. In cases of ambiguity, he believes in plain meaning, not objective intent. So he'll use a dictionary, not try to figure out what congress objectively meant.

He's fairly unwavering in the above, though if you look through hundreds of opinions, you can generally find one or two that are not consistent with this.

http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/salvatori/publications/RARSc... and http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... are fairly good descriptions of his approach

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#65

Post by Jach »

impendia wrote: post #44
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

I am a lecturer in a math department. I also despise the textbook industry. Would you please recommend what I might do, subject to severe limitations of (1) time and (2) political clout within my department?

Is the purpose of the textbook for problem sets, or as reference? In either case, previous editions are often much less expensive than the most modern edition (sometimes the professor already owns the previous edition too). But if the purpose of the textbook isn't for the problem sets, then there are likely inexpensive or free (by author or by copyright expiration) books that are fine for the other purpose. (I have a liking for Schaum's Outlines that cover a nice spread of topics.)

I'd add that if cheating is a concern (whether from using books whose solution set is easily available, or using in-house solution sets that don't update with each year), then assign watching a previously recorded lecture (by the professor, or one of the excellent already available ones online) as homework, and use the in-class time to have quizzes, tests, or professor-assisted homework sessions. In addition to weeding out cheaters there's the benefit, if you believe Salman Khan, that such methods are probably better ways to learn the material.

Finally, it's not too time-consuming for a professor to scan the problem sets from the book and distribute them to the students. So long as the problems aren't highly specific to the text, the student ought to be able to solve them without the text. For many subjects there are lots of free resources out there to learn from.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#66

Post by diminoten »

impendia wrote: post #44
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

I am a lecturer in a math department. I also despise the textbook industry. Would you please recommend what I might do, subject to severe limitations of (1) time and (2) political clout within my department?

In addition to the wonderful suggestions below, don't forget that most publicly available resources will (most likely) gladly accept revisions and expansions on topics that you don't feel are "up to snuff" for your class.

It's, admittedly, more work, but what good thing isn't?

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#67

Post by SeanLuke »

greenyoda wrote: post #18
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

This is far too unkind. Professors rarely make more than a pittance on their textbooks. They nearly always write textbooks because they need a textbook in a certain area and there isn't an adequate one. It is an extremely demanding task with little payoff. The ethical error the professor has made is not in making money off the student (he's not) but in choosing a publisher which charges ridiculous prices without thinking about how this impacts on his own students.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#68

Post by stephengillie »

darkarmani wrote: post #46
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

> The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. That's fine if they do that. That's what they should have be doing all along instead of trying to destroy the first sale doctrine using foreign distribut…

I've had professors who told us "If you have the regular textbook, read section 1 from chapter 4. If you have the international version, read section 1 from chapter 7", as they're the same chapter.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#69

Post by neilc »

greenyoda wrote: post #18
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student.

I think you are seriously overestimating the financial gains such a professor would make. I've taken several classes with profs who teach from their own textbook; the profit per book sold that a prof receives is usually minimal (either because the book is sold for near cost or because the publisher takes most of the profit). In fact, most such textbooks (essentially just rigorous lecture notes) are downloadable for free anyway.

If you want to make extra money as a professor, writing a textbook and then forcing it on a single class of students is about the least effective money-making scheme I can think of.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#70

Post by Herring »

impendia wrote: post #44
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

I am a lecturer in a math department. I also despise the textbook industry. Would you please recommend what I might do, subject to severe limitations of (1) time and (2) political clout within my department?

Math professors at my undergrad college used to buy old (cheap) editions in bulk and rent them out to students for a semester.
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