Price controls on college textbooks

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Does that really matter though? If they don't agree let them say that in their lectures.

Some professors don't want their students to read some theory they consider to be idiotic and paint their picture of that concept.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Some professors don't want their students to read some theory they consider to be idiotic and paint their picture of that concept.

Some professors are stupid or only care about their own opinions and not what the students are learning. Why not have standards that require textbooks to include important material.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
No one said anything about not teaching all the theories. Generally, all of the textbooks are inclusive of all the theories.

Errr, no... not in my field at least.

One of my classes the prof recommended five different books covering different approaches to the field:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0534954251/ref=pd_thx_sims_3/103-8376632-9719058

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201729156/qid=1066399923/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/702-2769119-0316810

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0849315034/qid=1073509385/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_0_10/702-1444436-9558428

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1855548208/softwareproducti%22%3ESW%20Metrics

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0070328269/softwareproducti%22%3EApplied%20SW%20Measurement

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


None of them are the business profs I've found. The're the least sensitive.

During my MBA, nearly every first year class and a good number of second year classes had profs that put together huge reproduced reading packages. They did everything on the up-and-up, paying reproduction royalties to the numerous publishers. Tack on the cost of production and they only came to about $15-$20 each. Considering they were bigger than most textbooks, it was a pretty good value. Plus, no wasted material - everything in the package was something we directly used.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher

Errr, no... not in my field at least.

Well, they should anyway, especially for the money they charge.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Well, they should anyway, especially for the money they charge.

Why should an expert in one opinion/theory write theories about other opinions/theories? Do you see the problem with that?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Some professors are stupid or only care about their own opinions and not what the students are learning. Why not have standards that require textbooks to include important material.

No, they just think that some of the "expert's" theories are full of ****. It happens.

And if you want textbooks to include important material (I assume that's all important material) it's going to be a massive book!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Put it this way, in law school one of the profs wrote a Con Law book that the entire law school used. Another prof (not mine... I was taught by the prof that wrote the book) complained bitterly about it. He was forced to use it by the school, but thought it didn't include important cases and focused too much on things that should be covered in advance classes.

Professor want to stress different things in a subject. An 'expert' book that doesn't stress what they want to stress and stresses something else that they don't think appropriate for the class may make the textbook almost useless.

[klesh]

I did an aweful lot of purchasing 'used' versions of the textbooks I needed. Quite a price drop, and the less-used ones were generally void of the previous owner's markings and highlights. Often times I would need to buy 6+7 paperbacks per class, and this is where you can really see substantial savings going the used route.

[Ben Kenobi]

During my MBA, nearly every first year class and a good number of second year classes had profs that put together huge reproduced reading packages. They did everything on the up-and-up, paying reproduction royalties to the numerous publishers. Tack on the cost of production and they only came to about $15-$20 each. Considering they were bigger than most textbooks, it was a pretty good value. Plus, no wasted material - everything in the package was something we directly used.

Interesting. I've been puzzling over that business model myself, starting a store that made customised reading packages for profs on demand.

Why should the profs have to waste their time photocopying, all they would have to do is send their requested works in sufficiently ahead of time, and the store could whip it up.

[Kontiki]

Do you really think the profs do the actual photocopying?

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't know how they could avoid having to make a master copy.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher

Why should an expert in one opinion/theory write theories about other opinions/theories? Do you see the problem with that?

Yes, but my point is that costs have to be considered more than they are. I imagine that you could completely ignore costs and produce the absolute best textbook possible, but that it wouln't produce the most net benefit to the student.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And if you want textbooks to include important material (I assume that's all important material) it's going to be a massive book!

No. I'm not saying that. Smaller books are probably better, from the students perspective. But a standards board could pick and choose what the books should include.

[Kontiki]

Right after they select what the country's factories are going to produce and who is going to do what job.