PEARSON PERSPECTIVES ON HIGHER EDUCATION. ebooks

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1 PEARSON PERSPECTIVES ON HIGHER EDUCATION ebooks 8economical, ecological, pedagogical, and just plain smart reasons to offer ebooks in your next course

2 Today s ebooks can be read on computer screens, readers, personal digital assistants, and even mobile phones. The same electronic nature that accommodates those delivery options does the same for features that more actively engage students, including built-in dictionaries and pronunciation guides, bookmarks, searchable text, and highlighting. Whether you re seeking a PDF version of a printed book or you wish to integrate dynamic content from the Web 2.0 environment such as video, audio, animation, and interactive simulation a host of proven pedagogical resources are only a mouse click away. While sales predictions for ebooks in higher education vary, there is little doubt that ebook sales are growing. Investments in ebook collections and shifts in delivery models by prominent U.S. private and public institutions confirm that ebooks have indeed entered the mainstream. The following eight reasons detail why the time is right for your campus to explore the ebook opportunities that are appropriate for your students. Pearson Learning Solutions can help guide the way. Pearson Perspectives on Higher Education: ebooks 2010 Pearson Pearson Learning Solutions, 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900, Boston, MA 02116

3 REASON 1 ebooks facilitate increased student success. Students who actively participate in their learning learn more. ebooks offer a wide range of options that increase the interactivity of your curricula, thereby promoting increased engagement in course material and more time on task. Audio clips, videos, games, hyperlinks, and assessments are just a few of the ways ebooks keep students coming back for more. Whether content is required, supplemental, or remedial, ebook content is highly engaging and immediately accessible in the context of learning. Most important, by addressing a range of learning styles, ebooks are more than just fun: they re effective. Pearson is providing digital textbooks for nearly every Colorado Community Colleges Online course. CCCOnline s student surveys indicate that the multimedia-embedded ebooks are a hit. Students appreciate that ebooks offer them control over their learning process and that they can review concepts as many times as they need to, going as slowly or as quickly as is suitable to their learning styles.

4 REASON 2 ebooks put the instructor in the driver s seat. Content ebooks put you in control of content, curricula, and assessment. They cover only the material you want and in the order you choose. Cost The cost of education is higher than it s ever been before. ebooks cost an average of 50 percent less than printed textbooks. And they cost nothing to ship. Delivery ebooks work with you. Versatile and varied, they can be delivered through course and learning management systems, Web portals, custom Web sites, DVDs, USBs, and mobile devices. Format options include PDF, FlashPaper, CaféScribe, CourseSmart, VitalSource, and Pearson etext. Revisions ebooks take the guesswork out of textbook revision cycles. Unlike print textbooks, you decide how, when, and whether you want to revise your ebook annually or less frequently. Time Online delivery means seamless coordination of course materials and course schedules. No more back orders, late shipments, or wrongedition hassles with the bookstore. It took the school a while to give me my financial aid voucher. Although I got behind on my other classes because of a lack of material, I never got behind in this class; the material was already here for my use. Isabelle, Student Colorado Community Colleges Online

5 REASON 3 ebooks give students what they want. According to Project Tomorrow s Speak Up survey, 1 students have a clear vision of how to drive achievement and ensure that they are well prepared for the future. With a focus on transformational changes in the learning process itself, their vision draws heavily from the empowering and engaging tools that are facilitated by emerging technologies. Students want to be able to interact with and learn from their own personalized network of experts via cutting-edge communication and collaboration tools; they want learning tools and processes that are not tethered to time, place, or geographic boundaries; and they recognize from their own experiences growing up immersed in digital media that the best way to drive educational productivity is through the effective use of rich and relevant digital tools, content, and resources. When asked to create their ideal digital textbook, student survey participants responded with the following wish list. The ability to personalize their book with electronic highlights and notes (63%) Quizzes and tests for self-evaluation (62%) Games (57%) Animations and simulations (55%) Links to PowerPoints, lectures, and other material that supports textbook content (55%) Links to real-time data such as NASA and Google Earth (52%) Self-paced tutorials (46%) 1 Creating Our Future: Students Speak Up about their Vision for 21st Century Learning, March 2010,

6 REASON 4 ebooks deliver both at home and on the go. With delivery options that are as flexible as today s mobile and technologically driven lives, ebooks meet students where they are, wherever they are, Online anywhere with Web access Downloaded to a computer or laptop Accessed via ipod, ipad, mobile phone, tablet, or other reader device Indispensable tools for part-time workers, full-time professionals, and other nontraditional students, ebooks facilitate learning while people are traveling or commuting and without the weighty baggage. For the K12 set, ebooks portability and online access mean no more heavy backpacks, and no more missed assignments because books got lost between school and home. I am in the military and have to travel with my laptop and schoolbooks to complete assignments. My ebook made a world of difference. James, Student Colorado Community Colleges Online Most of our members are full-time professionals and their time is valuable. They need content that offers many resources, from which they can pick and choose only those they need. Most of all, they need resources that are convenient and easy to access. Devi Vallabhaneni, Chief Executive Officer Association of Professionals in Business Management

7 REASON 5 ebooks give instructors customized control over content. Today s ebooks make customization easier and more cost-efficient than ever before. Their digital nature offers the opportunity to create and seamlessly deliver learning materials that are entirely tailored to course content, perfectly coordinated with curricula and assessment, and exponentially more empowering to students than printed textbooks are. Custom options include creation of one book from several, removal of content that won t be covered, and addition of original content be it text, image, audio, or video. It s a value-add proposition for instructors, whose texts align with the curriculum and are easy to update; and for students, who are engaged and connected to the content and reap better learning results because of it. Customized ebooks enable my students to do universal searches of the text for individual terms, thereby facilitating test taking. The custom multimedia simulations integrated directly into the ebook enable students to learn step-bystep exactly how the applications work together. By conveying material in this way, within the online learning space of the content itself, students never need to break pace from the learning environment. Learning is seamless and contextual. Mike Puopolo, Professor Bunker Hill Community College

8 REASON 6 ebooks help make classroom learning real-world relevant. Students care more about material they can relate to. ebooks help course content come alive by aligning it with targeted, timely, real-world examples. Pearson Learning Solutions used Carrington College Online s existing textbooks and curricula as well as the specific learning objectives of the allied health industry to guide the development of a customized package comprising CourseConnect, ebooks, MyMathLab, and the Pearson LearningStudio platform. Course curricula and ebook content is dynamic and personalized, thanks to built-in customized videos, podcasts, animations, and discussion boards. In turn, courses previously implemented solely via U.S. mail are now interactive, robust, exciting, lively, teacher-led courses that students are excited about. The new courses bring students experiences to life, enable them to learn from those experiences, share them, and confirm them as valuable. [Pearson s ebook solution] changed the nature of the course for the better: there s bonding among students participating in different states, real-life clinical experiences shared daily, and group learning taking place naturally. Mike Case, Regional Program Director for Online Education Carrington College Online (formerly Apollo Online)

9 REASON 7 ebooks represent today s new academic standard. Already, 29 percent of middle school and high school students say they re using some kind of online textbook or online curriculum as part of their regular schoolwork. According to OnCampus Research s Student Watch 2010, a 16,000-student survey released by the National Association of College Stores in fall 2009, about 42 percent of students have either purchased or seen an etextbook. That s an increase of 24 percentage points from Whether traditional on ground or strictly online, educational institutions and their students have recognized the increased learning potential, reliable delivery benefits, and reduced cost of ebooks. Former Northwest Missouri State University president Dean L. Hubbard was anticipating the school would become an ebook-only campus (or close to it) soon. We ll move as fast as the industry moves and it s moving rapidly, Hubbard said. Citing the ebook s built-in interactivity, he added, I m convinced that students will read more and they will learn more by using this medium. At Kaplan University s School of Legal Studies, digital texts account for approximately 80 percent of assigned reading. At Capella University, ebooks constitute an available and accepted option in nearly all of the school s 1,250 courses. The immediacy of ebooks works for both me and my students. No more searching for books at the bookstore or shopping for cost; ebooks are instantly accessible. And that s what teaching today is about: access and choices. Reta Roberts, Professor Florida State College at Jacksonville

10 REASON 8 ebooks are less harmful to the environment. ebooks appeal to today s environmentally concerned, green-oriented students. Because they are created electronically, no trees are cut to produce them. No ink is used to put the words on the page. No fossil fuel is used to run presses. No power trucks move them around the country. No storage facilities are heated to store boxes of books until the books get shipped to bookstores. And with the click of a button, ebooks are disposed of without ever taking up room in a landfill. 2 2 Environmental Impact of E-books, Way to go green! Beth, Student Colby College

11 Pearson provides education in the broadest sense. Our aim is to help people make progress in their lives by means of education and information. We build partnerships based on mutual respect, communication, and integrity. Those partnerships and those values are what set Pearson apart and are the reasons more instructors return to Pearson year after year, successful solution after successful solution. Visit Pearson online to learn more about the ways Pearson Learning Solutions is improving how higher education teaches and learns today. Printed on chlorine-free paper from sustainably managed and renewable forests using vegetable-based ink and protected by a water-based aqueous coating.

12 Pearson Learning Solutions 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900, Boston, MA