5 Reasons Why College Students Should Use Digital Textbooks, The Future of Education

For centuries, printed textbooks have been a continual force in universities and colleges across the country. However, post-secondary institutions are looking for more efficient ways for students to access the study material, especially with the increase in digital technologies over the past several years.

Now you might say that I recall using electronic version of the textbook along with the print copy of the book back in 2003. You would be right as Barnes & Noble College has offered an option to use E-books when a hardcopy of the textbook was purchased. However, this combination of the hard copy and digital versions of the textbook ended up costing students somewhere near $300 (for both). Requiring students to purchase both copies only provided some convenience when it came to accessing the study material but the price still remained the same. This was not surprising as publishers wanted to increase their revenues while still offering something new.

This is all about to change with the industry leading towards providing rental services for e-books to students. In this article, we present to you five reasons why college students should use Digital Textbooks in the future of eduction.

1. Less Expensive

In general, e-books are less expensive. According to OnlineEducation, E-books are up to 53 percent cheaper than new textbooks on average. Paper textbooks are expensive to produce and expensive for schools to buy. In the past, there were many incentives offered to students to use e-books, students at JCJC get the price of e-books included in their tuition when they sign up for classes. Unfortunately, this included the price of the hardy copy of the textbooks as well. The price savings offered by the rental services of digital textbooks are much greater as you can still return the textbook, which makes for a cheaper price than buying out the textbooks. The resale value of the hard copy textbooks drops quite drastically with in a year as there is always new versions out on the market, and the next batch of students always want to purchase the new version of the book that their professor recommended.

In general, students attending a four-year college or university program will spend $1,200 per year on average for textbooks. That’s more than $500 a semester, with some textbooks hovering in the $100 to $300 range. With digital textbook rental service you can expect to save at least 50% on the price of some of the books that cost upwards of $300.

2. Spine Saver

The digital textbooks save the added weight of hard copy textbooks. Digital Textbooks can be easily accessed by a smartphone, tablet, or a computer. This eliminates the need to carry textbooks around and students with e-readers or tablets can access all of their book on their device. This definitely adds to the convienience factor of the digital textbooks, so there is never a moment when you forget your book because you always have all of your books in the cloud so you can easily access anywhere.

3. Interactive

Almost all of the E-books come with a lot of useful tools and interactive programs to expand on what the plain text states. With digital textbooks, publishers can insert videos, interactive charts, editable formulas, pop quiz, in-depth figures, and more right within the body of the text. This makes for a more immersive experience for the students, keeps them engaged, and enriches the explanations of topics. This also saves time and resources wasted by the professor in preparing in-class handouts or illustrations for hard to understand topics.

4.  Two in One

Reading and Note taking combined in One. Most digital textbooks are offered via a tablet or smartphone that has the built-in software to take and organize notes. This is very useful tor those that remember things by writing them down. Also, for referencing, Most of us use textbooks as the core of our presentations to highlight the most important sections of the chapter. E-books are a major advantage because you don’t have to take the time to scan data for PowerPoints. It can be done in seconds

5. Up-to-Date

Information changes so quickly that some textbooks are out of date almost before they’re published. Digital content is very easy to manage, change, and update. With a simple download of a file, you can update an entire book with newly available information. Digital textbooks provide more current material than print textbooks: which can take a year or two to get to print.

So when you head to your college this fall, make sure to find out if you can purchase or rent some of your books electronically. Digital textbooks will not only save you money but they will also add the convenience of access, taking notes, light weight, and up-to-date content to your study. Google, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble offer a rental service for digital textbooks. so make sure to check these websites for availability of your textbooks.