Archive for the ‘Textbooks’ Category
CafeScribe Upgrades Digital Textbooks Search; Adds Social Networking no comments
CafeScribe has announced that it has added some new features to its digital textbook offerings. From the press release:
E-textbooks are advancing far beyond mere PDFs of hardbound editions thanks in part to powerful new search capabilities introduced today by Follett Higher Education Group. CafeScribe improvements derive directly from student needs that Follett has directly observed, gleaned from research, or heard articulated by individual students. To ensure student needs continue to drive product development, Follett has created a special early adopter program that gives a limited number of students early access to new features prior to product rollout to the larger CafeScribe user community.
The new capabilities in the latest product release now let students and educators using Follett’s CafeScribe® eBook platform easily perform robust people searches to find other digital book readers, class groups, study groups or academic interest groups anywhere in the world. Once a user discovers a potential friend or group through the CafeScribe platform, the user can request friendship or membership just as they would on other popular social networks. Once connected, groups can discuss their studies and automatically share notes using the CafeScribe social networking platform for academic applications.
In addition, digital textbook consumers can search a fast-growing collection of more than 8,500 digital books by title, author, subject, publisher or ISBN number. This makes it easy to pinpoint and purchase an assigned text or supplemental reading in a matter of seconds.
Possibly Related Posts:
Amazon Textbook Buyback Program no comments
Amazon announced today that over 1 million textbooks are now eligible for its Textbook Buyback Program. Students can sell their used textbooks to Amazon and will be paid with an Amazon gift card.
To sell your used textbooks visit Amazon’s Textbook Buyback page
Amazon also sells new and used textbooks.
Possibly Related Posts:
CourseSmart Textbooks on iPad no comments
CourseSmarthas had their digital textbook app out for the iPad for a while, but I just ran across this infomercial video which is interesting in spite of being just a simulation.
CourseSmart says that they are working on version 2.0 of the iPad app which should be out this summer.
Possibly Related Posts:
Download Your Textbooks no comments
Back to school time is here again already, and with it come all of the related expenses. More and more textbooks are becoming available as digital downloads, and in many cases will be significantly cheaper than their paper versions, not to mention easier for you to carry around. Of course it would be great if
all digital textbooks were available for Kindle or other ebook readers. Unfortunately we are not quite there yet, but if the textbooks you need are not available on your ebook reader, they may be available in a digital version for your computer. There are an increasing number of online providers for etextbooks, and we will take a look at some of the largest:
CourseSmart
Offers over 7,000 digital textbooks for college, costing on average 50% less than the dead tree versions. Search capabilities, highlighting, note taking, and copy/paste are supported. You can also print out pages from CourseSmart’s etextbooks. Students can subscribe to either a downloadable version of an etext or an online version that can be accessed from any computer. Subscriptions last for 180, 360, or 540 days. Subscribers can also access their etextbooks via their iPhones and iPod Touch.
Textbooks.com
eTexts from Textbooks.com are downloaded to your personal computer and read using Adobe Digital Edition, Adobe Reader 7.1, or VitalSource Reader. Printing is allowed unless banned by the publisher. Subscriptions last for a minimum of 12 months.
iChapters
iChapters sells not only entire etextbooks, but also individual chapters. This can enable you to buy just the chapters that you need, or to pay as you go through the course. iChapters’ digital textbooks can be either viewed online or downloaded to your computer. You get two licenses for each title, so you can access from two different computers. Printing is allowed.
Update: iChapters is having a contest, you can enter to Win $1000 in Free Textbooks from iChapters.com. Expires August 26, 2009.
www.ecampus.com
This online seller of both paper versions and digital textbooks has over 4,000 etexts available. Titles are available in either an online or downloadable version. Subscription lasts for one or two semesters. eCampus also buys your used paper textbooks.
Cafescribe’s e-textbooks support note sharing and text to speech functions in addition to the other common features. Purchasers are granted a lifetime license to a title on up to three computers. You must use the company’s MyScribe reader software. Limited printing (up to 30%) is permitted, and the same limits apply to copy/paste. MyScribe is also available in a portable version that you can install on a USB key.
Textbookmedia.com
Digital textbooks from this provider are free, as they are supported by in-text advertising. You can also upgrade to ad-free versions. Free versions support only very limited printing capability; if printing out passages is a priority you may want to upgrade.
Possibly Related Posts:
eBook Readers and Textbooks no comments
One major path to wider implementation and use of ebook readers will be their use for reading textbooks, but are the current devices up to the task?
In May of this year, When Jeff Bezos introduced the Kindle DX, one of his focuses was on textbooks; which this new, larger addition to the Kindle family should be better suited for than it’s smaller sibling, the Kindle 2. Definitely the screen shots of the Kindle DX displaying diagrams are looking good. “We’re going to get students with smaller backpacks, less load”, he said. He also announced five colleges and universities that will be trying out the Kindle DX in the upcoming fall session: Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College, and University of Virginia.
Mr. Bezos also announced that Amazon has reached agreements with three of the leading textbook publishers: Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley.
Some pilot programs at universities have met mixed results. In several cases, students requested print textbooks after becoming frustrated with the digital textbook. Most of the problems seem to arise from navigational problems. Results so far would seem to indicate that additional features are needed on the devices before the use of ebook readers for reading textbooks can really take off. Advanced search functions, annotations (including shared annotations), and reliable multiple bookmarking functionality for example. And wouldn’t it be great to have easy access to Wikipedia! Another problem is mismatched pagination between users of printed and e versions of books. And finally, of course, color would be much better for those anatomical drawings! Looks like we’ve still got a ways to go. Certainly the Kindle DX is currently best of breed when it comes to digital textbooks; it does include many of the features necessary. It will be interesting to see how well the device is accepted by the students in the trials this fall.
