I thought you might be interested–I am not sure if Mark talked about it at the non-org last Spring:
CourseSmart
With the growing popularity of ebooks and digital content, the stereotypical massive textbook no longer has its usual place in the world of academia-nor in students’ weighty backpacks. This is exemplified by CourseSmart, an online marketplace for course materials that aims to improve teaching and learning by providing instructors and students better access to textbok content. Developed by five higher education textbook publishers-Pearson; Cengage Learning, Inc.; McGraw-Hill Education; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and the Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC-CourseSmart unites thousands of textbooks under one digital umbrella and invites students to ditch those heavy books and instead discover information digitally.
This etextbook approach not only helps students save on expenses (and alleviate back strain), it allows more flexibility by providing access to thousands of textbooks directly from a computer screen. With CourseSmart, users can search for a book by course name, author, keyword, title, or ISBN. They then have the choice to download the book to their computers or buy an online version that grants them subscription-based access. Other smart benefits include the copy-and-paste tool, which allows users to copy and paste text from the etextbook into notes, virtually eliminating the need for highlighters, and the print tool, which can be used to print specific sections of an etextbook rather than lugging the whole book around. The benefits of using etextbooks extend to instructors as well. CourseSmart provides access to textbooks and other course materials within an instructor’s particular field for review and comparison without the need to request print exam copies. Offering selective print ordering saves some trees and in turn benefits the environment. With more than 2,000 schools currently using CourseSmart, the idea of accessing textbooks digitally is not only a bright one, but it is changing the way students and faculty members approach their academic ventures.
This article from:
InSites By: Mullan, Eileen, Mullan, Eileen, EContent, 15252531, , Vol. 31, Issue 10
- Library Literature & Information Science (H.W. Wilson)
