‘ Physics Department, Library team-up to lower costs

Collaboration saves students money, offers sustainable options for textbooks

Arth Pandya

Staff Writer

A partnership between NCSU Libraries and the Department of Physics has made the required textbook for Physics 211 and 212, Physics Fundamentals by Dr. Vincent Coletta, openly available online to students according to a Jan. 22 press release by the library.

The two units are collaborating to keep up to $250,000 in the pockets of students who take introductory physics courses at the school.

According to the press release, the traditional physics textbook sells for $150-190.

With 1300 students enrolled in the introductory physics courses each year, these savings add up.

Dr. Michael Paesler, head of the Department of Physics, said rising textbook costs prompted the department to look for a more sustainable and cost-effective way to provide quality, peer-reviewed textbooks to their students.

‘We’ve been talking about this for at least 5 years. This was the first time we felt there was a real option, and a quality option that would indeed save students money,’ Dr. Paesler said.

‘Our belief was we could provide the same quality education that we have historically provided with the hard copy with [the electronic copy],’ he said.

NCSU Libraries was able to strike a deal to purchase a site license for the digital text, making it available to all students.

The cost to purchase the site license from the publisher was $1300, according to Greg Raschke, associate director for collections and scholarly communication at the NCSU Libraries.

Raschke said the publisher’s willingness to pursue new and innovative models was essential in obtaining the site license.

‘We contacted the publisher and negotiated the terms and contract,’ Raschke said. ‘It helped that the publisher was pursuing new models. A big publisher wouldn’t have made [the license] available.’

Dr. Paesler said the NCSU Libraries played an immense role in making the digital text available to the University.

‘The library really took care of all the particularities, in getting the license, developing the server and hosting it; making it available to the students,’ he said.

Raschke said he believes the new model is effective, especially in large courses such as introductory physics.

‘The nice thing about [the digital text] is it gives the students the choice between getting the online version, getting the print version, or just printing a few pages from then text,’ Raschke said.

Not all faculty approved of the new model, however.

‘There was some reluctance in our faculty to move toward the e-books,’ Dr. Paesler said.

According to Peasler, some faculty believe keeping the books one acquires throughout their education is important.

‘One of the sentiments of the department was that there was value to having all the books you learned out of,’ Peasler said. ‘But we just realized this was the way of the future.’

Peasler plans to monitor student response to the new model.

Students can still buy a paper black-and-white version of the e-text at a small additional fee.

‘This is our test run. If it works well, we’ll keep going. This fall we’re expanding into [the conceptual physics class],’ he said.

‘But we have to see how it’s recieved by the students. We’ll see that by the student evaluations at the end of the semester.’