Despite the expansion in online material and digital textbooks as an alternative to expensive printed material, the cost of attending class keeps increasing.
Departments with large introductory lectures, such as Chemistry and Physics, have been using online problem sets for years. Webassign was actually started in the NCSU Physics department. And yet, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the prices of “Educational Books and Supplies” have increased by 812 percent since 1978.
Textbooks have increased by three times the amount of average goods and services according to the Consumer Price Index, and the Government Accountability Office, GAO, reports that textbook prices have increased by approximately six percent per year. The GAO believes that this has been caused by the increase in supplementary material such as Online Access Codes and states that publishers are responding to requests of instructors for more online material.
This is most likely because supplementary materials such as online quizzes and test banks reduce the work required to teach a class. Homework can be assigned online, lectures are given from provided PowerPoints and a test made from a provided test bank.
This new web-aspect of textbooks also came about because of the availability of cheap international or used textbooks that students were purchasing on the internet. According to the GAO, this was cutting down on the profits of textbook publishers, and this loss in revenue partially contributed to the rise in the online access code requirements. If an online access code is mandatory for a class, the potential savings to the student from a cheaper textbook are negated, and the student has no incentive to buy internationally.
Most departments at N.C. State offer online components for at least a few their classes. For instance, a required class for a number of majors, COM 110, has a mandatory online purchase of MySpeechLab, which costs $37. This purchase provides access to online homework, supplementary material to help students decide on a speech topic and printable grading rubrics.
Kenneth Zagacki, the department head for the communication department, said he supported the online material.
“The students I’ve talked to have said they have gotten a very good product,” Zagacki said. “I’ve looked at it myself; I think it offers students a very good educational experience.”
However, not all students agree with Zagacki on the value of MySpeechLab.
“Basically all it did was it allow you access to quizzes, and I don’t think it added much to the class,” Heinrich Enslin, a junior in electrical engineering, said.
In addition to providing practice problems and homework, the online access provides links to rubrics and an online handbook produced by a former NC State Faculty member. However, these files could be provided for free on moodle – the copyright revenue for the material is given to the communication department.
Zagacki addressed this as a problem to be fixed and believes that the solution lies in the speed at which technology is changing.
“We want to make sure that when we migrate courses over to these alternative technologies that once again, the students are getting the best possible educational experience they can,” Zagacki said. “There might be a time when some of the online material could be moved to moodle. We consider all options when making these decisions for this course and all our courses in the department.”