After writing my rant I did a little checking on prices of texts in other fields and without any systematic data gathering, my impression was that Psychology students are getting hammered by higher prices than others. Are there studies to show this?
What you are suggesting about sharing powerpoints, augmenting them yourself, etc. is fundamentally a wiki project. The power in such a system is access and editing by anyone and everyone. The technology exists. There is Wikipedia/Wikibooks, ToPIX, etc. All of these are designed to facilitate creation and sharing, but there is not a lot to facilitate packaging (Wikibooks and a new eBooks initiative on TeachPsych.org may do the trick). After my rant last night I decided that I'm going to email all my students with options for them to use earlier editions this Fall (starts in one week). It is the next thing I do after writing this email. There is no time like the present to do something about this travesty. Paul Bernhardt On Aug 22, 2010, at 8:19 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > Yes I think textbook costs for psychology are ridiculous. I suppose > the publishers are cashing in on the popularity of psychology > It must be all those chapter technologies for enhanced learning. Only > for visual learners though :-) > > It might be helpful if people posted specifically which textbooks cost > so much (name and publisher) and perhaps some cheaper alternatives > they have found. > > Perhaps a longer term solution of changing this would be to have > textbooks (including an electronic version) produced by faculty > themselves and produced for as near peanuts as possible (and faculty > would still make some money even)...paperback, cheap paper, etc. And > instead of all the chapter technologies, just have wide margins for > students to take their own notes. Imagine what would have happened to > Harry Potter had Snape not had enough room to write his notes in his > potions book! > > Another option might be for faculty to produce very comprehensive > power point files for sharing free of any cost (or a minimal fee while > keeping all the copyright notices to a minimum: preferably one at the > end in small print) to replace a text book. These could have a lot of > notes on them for students to read (and print if desired). The > end-using professor could cut and paste the presentations at will to > customize them and it saves the prof from making them from scratch. Of > course, they would cover a typical chapter in a book. > > Both of the above alternatives would be distributed to any prof that > wants them and of course the instructor using them can enhance their > coverage with a few journal articles if desired...although that costs > money for subscriptions etc. So, better yet would be for faculty to > write summaries of articles in student friendly language and make > these available (essentially "the text book" above). If these > alternatives were co-ordinated across multiple university faculties > then the burden on any one faculty member wouldn't be too bad. > Professor Emeriti could leave that legacy of a lifetime of teaching, > writing, and collecting :-) > > Sorry for the length of that...must be because it's Sunday morning! > > --Mike > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: pcbernha...@frostburg.edu. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=4346 > or send a blank email to > leave-4346-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4349 or send a blank email to leave-4349-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
