Students get education in e-books

An interesting test involving e-books continues to advance, as a major university and publishing company look to reinvent how students learn and lower costs by leveraging technology.

Northwest Missouri State University and McGraw-Hill are testing the potential of replacing students' printed textbooks with the electronic, fully interactive versions. Ten departments and 500 students are involved in the second phase of the study. The first phase, involving four classes and 200 students, ended in December 2008.

“We see e-books as a proactive solution to address the considerable expense associated with higher education,” said Dr. Dean L. Hubbard, Northwest’s president.

E-books typically cost about half as much as traditional printed textbooks.

Depending on the outcome of the test, the university could move forward with an e-book-only environment as early as this fall, and, even at that pace, college kids will be asking, “What took so long?”

America’s youth have grown up in a digital world and are the early adopters of technology. Expecting them to purchase overpriced textbooks at the college bookstore just doesn’t make sense, especially in an era when such devices as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader demonstrate how technology has forever altered the way in which people consume the printed word.

Northwest simply is embracing the inevitable change, and continuing a legacy it began in 1987, when it became the first public university to create an electronic campus. Today, every full-time student receives a high-speed notebook computer and enjoys access to high-speed Internet and an electronic learning environment.