While college students may have choices for how they get course materials, increasingly teachers are assigning electronic or e-textbooks.
Massachusetts lawmakers, including Amherst state Rep. Mindy Domb, have proposed a special commission to look at the financial impact of e-books on students, including ownership rights.
The focus of the group would include the benefits, costs and resale limits of e-textbooks, as well as looking at the single-user access model and contracts that electronic textbook producers have with colleges and universities.
"When we started hearing about the widespread use of these electronic textbooks, some of the issues that we were hearing that students were having really raised some flags,"Domb said.
For instance she said, can students opt out from contracts, can they hold on to the e-textbook as a permanent resource. Can they share the resource?
The commission would have 18 months after the bill has passed to file a report.
Proposed commission based on MASSPIRG findings
Domb's legislation was based on a study from a few years ago, put out by students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, working with MASSPIRG, the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group.
Their research shaped the framework for Domb's proposed commission, she said, and their findings are just the starting point.
"Let's look at [the industry] from the librarian's perspective, faculty perspective, as well as students perspective," Domb said, "and let's see what we can find in terms of if there are real problems that can be addressed by government to protect student consumers."
The publishing industry faces its own challenges, Domb acknowledged, but said the system unfairly burdens students.
Domb testified in support of the bill earlier this month, on Feb. 6, during a Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure hearing. The legislation has bipartisan backing, with Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) cosponsoring the measure.
Newer survey, students and textbook purchases
This week, students working with MASSPIRG announced a new report — the fourth edition of research they said "publicize[s] the causes and present solutions" students face paying for the cost of textbooks and other course materials, in a textbook market they described as "radically changed in the digital age."
In "Fixing the Broken Textbook Market, MASSPIRG found three-quarters of students surveyed said they needed to buy an access code to do homework or quizzes.
"Making matters worse, sometimes, students need to pay to access content their professors intend on being free and “open source," MASSPIRG said in a statement.
After the release of the new report on Feb. 10, Domb reiterated the need to look closely at the industry, saying that students are responding to historic economic pressures.
"The costs of textbooks - hard copy or electronic - are a major barrier to student success," Domb said.
The MASSPIRG report also studied "the (mostly negative) student experiences with so-called inclusive access billing programs, also known as autobilling, which some campuses in Massachusetts are considering.
According to their research, nearly half of students surveyed at schools with campuswide auto-billing reported not knowing they were billed, not knowing they could opt-out or being unable to opt out.
In a press release from MASSPIRG, Julie Nash, Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said when students can’t afford course materials, "it shows up immediately - missed assignments, delayed participation, and avoidable stress."
Auto-billing and access codes may be marketed as ‘convenient,’ Nash said "but they also reduce choice and transparency and leave students paying for temporary access."
Nash and others are pushing for more Open Educational Resources or OER, and supporting faculty to choose more affordable materials for their courses.
For the new study, MASSPIRG researchers said they surveyed more than 4,000 students at 110 colleges and universities, including 12 campuses in Massachusetts. They found whether the schools were "public or private, large or small, the same problems arose."
