Big Ten to Conduct Digital Textbook Pilot Study in Fall

Here’s a recent report about Big Ten universities conducting a digital textbook pilot study in conjunction with Courseload, Inc.  The universities are working together to develop a pilot study that allows members of the Big Ten schools to purchase a trial package of electronic textbook services.

The universities are trying to learn about the experiences for students and instructors so that they can make future decisions regarding e-textbooks.  The pilot is going to be conducted at MSU next fall and the university is currently looking for faculty participation and wants to involve up to 1,000 students.  The student bookstore assistant manager says he expects “sales to be affected by digital textbooks but bookstores, to some extent, have already started reducing prices to compete with electronic books, but the technology and pricing still isn’t good enough for students to choose them over hard copies.”