From THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION - Issue dated June 12, 2009

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

Maryville, Mo.

Northwest Missouri State University nearly became the first public university to deliver all of its textbooks electronically. Last year the institution's tech-happy president, Dean L. Hubbard, bought a Kindle, Amazon's e-book reading device, and liked it so much that he wanted to give every incoming student one. The university already runs an unusual textbook-rental program that buys thousands of printed books for students who pay a flat, per-credit fee. Mr. Hubbard saw in the gadget a way to drastically cut the rental program's annual $800,000 price tag, since e-books generally cost half the price of printed textbooks.

Then the university ran a pilot study with the Sony Reader, a device much like the Kindle (Sony was more responsive to the university's calls than Amazon was). University officials learned some sobering lessons about electronic books. Students who got the machines quickly asked for their printed books back because it was so awkward to navigate inside the e-books (though a newer version of the device works more gracefully).

Mr. Hubbard still dreams of lighter bookbags and lower costs, but the university is now moving more slowly — and running tests involving several different types of e-books. Publishers are clamoring to be part of the experiment.

"We've had all four of the major textbook publishers on campus, and all of them want to get on board because they sense that this is their General Motors moment," said Mr. Hubbard earlier this semester, when I sat down with him in his office. Like the auto giant, he said, publishers must adapt or head for bankruptcy.

Hence the flurry of activity these days on the digital-book front. Just last week Google told book publishers about a new e-book store it plans to open by the end of the year. And last month Amazon announced a new, larger version of the Kindle designed with textbooks in mind, which six colleges will test in the fall.

Based on my talks with professors, students, and administrators at Northwest Missouri, here are six lessons for any university considering assigning digital textbooks.

1. Judge e-books by their covers. No, not their jacket art, but the device and software used to display them. Those wrappings are key to satisfaction when it comes to electronic textbooks, since the choice of reading device determines whether students can highlight material or easily flip the pages (things they take for granted with printed copies). E-books come in many shapes and sizes — some electronic books work on laptops or desktop computers, others are formatted for Kindles or other machines designed just for e-books.

The university started out last fall by handing out Sony's Reader devices loaded with textbooks published by McGraw-Hill to about 240 students. The project used the original model of the Sony Reader, which students found difficult to operate. "It was hard to even find where you were supposed to be in those things," said Thomas M. Spencer, an associate professor of history. Worse, the e-book wasn't numbered the same way as the printed edition, so it was hard for everyone to get on the same page.

So in the spring, the university switched to a format that can be read on a laptop or desktop PC, using software called VitalSource. Even so, a large number of the students longed for the good old printed book. Nearly 40 percent of the participants surveyed in March agreed that "I study less because the e-textbook makes studying more difficult."

Not everyone was that negative. About 17 percent said they studied more because it was easier. Paul Klute, who coordinates the university's e-textbook experiments, predicts that satisfaction will improve as the books do.

2. Learning curves ahead. Tania Brobst, a junior at the university, is proud of the note-taking techniques she's developed over the years. She crafts typed study guides for each of her courses, and she carefully highlights material in her printed textbooks.

When she ended up in a marketing course this spring that required her to use a digital textbook, she had to adapt her strategies. "It took some experimenting on my part," she said. "I mean, you can easily read it, but if you want to highlight or enlarge the text or share your notes with other people," you have to learn to do that. Initially skeptical, she now says she prefers the electronic version in part because of its search feature and the ability to paste passages into a Microsoft Word document.

Other students reported an adjustment period as well. "I didn't realize how many applications there were on the e-textbook," wrote one student in the university's survey. "The more I have used it, the more I have discovered what I can do with it."

As Darren Finney, a freshman, told me in the student union: "They should have a week in class where they explain how to use it."

3. Professors are eager students. Faculty members are known to be reluctant to change their teaching approaches. So the original goal was to rope five or six professors into volunteering for the spring experiment. But 54 professors said they wanted in. "Some of them were so passionate about it that they actually sent me petitions," said Mr. Hubbard, clearly pleased by the interest. "They got all of the faculty in the department to sign it and say, You've got to do us."

The professors said they wanted to try something new, and argued that the experience would help students. "In my courses we talk about preparing for the future just about every single day," said Allison Strong, a marketing instructor who taught from an e-book this spring. "This is one thing they can do to learn to adapt to change."

4. Long live batteries. The technical difficulty that came up the most in my interviews with students was battery life. Students said they sometimes forgot to charge their laptops overnight, so they had to find a spot in the lecture hall to plug in if they wanted to use their books in class. Other students said they had several classes in a row and inevitably ran out of juice. "It's harder to take your computer everywhere than a book, I think, because you have to carry the power cord and all," said Sara Herrera, a freshman whose laptop's battery typically lasts only about an hour and a half. Sure, printed books are heavy, but when was the last time one went blank for lack of power? Sony's Reader and Amazon's Kindle boast longer battery lives than laptops, so longevity is an advantage of those gadgets.

5. Subjects are not equally e-friendly. Kevin Green, a junior, loved the e-book required in his business-marketing class this spring. "But if it was an accounting course," he said, "I would kind of want a printed textbook because it's got all the numbers" and equations that would be harder to manage electronically.

His instructor, Michael J. Wilson, an associate professor of accounting, economics, and finance, said the one problem they had with the e-book in the marketing course was when students needed to refer to a dense table of numbers in the back. He demonstrated for me, noting a pop-up window with a font that was almost illegible. "You can kind of expand them, but it's not as easy as it could be."

At least laptops can display color. E-reading devices handle only black and white. That's a major handicap for science or medical books that rely on illustrations.

6. Environmental impact matters. Ms. Brobst said she would now choose e-books over printed ones, not because she thought they were better but because they save trees.

"I realize how it's going to affect the environment," she said. "It's going to benefit everyone in the end."

A few comments in the university's surveys echoed that sentiment, and administrators said they were surprised at the degree to which such consciousness affected students's opinions. Mr. Hubbard is convinced that in five years e-textbooks will become common on college campuses. And an ambitious e-textbook project at the university could turn out to be the capstone to Mr. Hubbard's legacy.

Soon after he took the helm as the institution's president, 25 years ago, he helped start what was then the nation's first program at a public university to put computer terminals in every dorm room (the machines linked up to a mainframe). This month the president plans to retire. An e-book program would be another electronic first if officials decide to expand it.

He compares the idea of e-textbooks to the practice of putting a convenience store in a gas station. Soon after the first such quick-marts popped up, just about every gas station had one. When companies develop user-friendly books and readers, he said, campus adoption is "going to come fast."

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Section: Information Technology
Volume 55, Issue 39, Page A18
Copyright © 2009 by The Chronicle of Higher Education