McGraw-Hill is the sole publisher participating in this e-textbook pilot. What does that mean for us? Well, on the one hand, concentrating on one publisher helps us focus on the project planning. We were able to quickly identify courses and then move on to the work of confirming access and testing the technical requirements. A more comprehensive exploration into electronic textbooks will certainly require a wider cast of publishers. But for this pilot, we hope to identify the initial pros and cons and the opportunities and challenges of eTextbooks.
Here are a few numbers:
Each semester, the College Bookstore orders between 1,000 – 1,300 individual required and suggested titles for our courses
In the Fall 2011, the Bookstroe ordered 31 textbooks by McGraw-Hill
This was 2.4% of our overall textbook titles.
The average cost of these McGraw-Hill titles was $113.
Based on the number of students enrolled during the fall 2012 semester in classes using McGraw Hill eTextbooks, the cost per student use will be roughly $30.
Roughly $300 for the required textbooks for Spanish 101 and German 101
$198 for a Chemistry textbook
$197 and $174 for two different Economics textbooks
$150 and $130 for two Psychology textbooks
$42.70 for an Education Studies textbook
$10.70 for a book of poetry