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I teach literature, so what I’m doing may not work for you. For this summer, I have one course where we’re only using online databases and archives to source texts from 1770-1830, and one where I’m combining some excerpts I can PDF in Canvas with some works students can get on Kindle from Amazon. Turns out a couple of students found at least one book free on Internet Archive. Some ordered print copies from Amazon. In the Fall, I have one course that I’ll do all short legal excerpts as reading materials, and another in which one is free from Gutenberg and the rest are available on Kindle (kobo, audible, etc). Only a couple of my Summer texts were available from VitalSource, and they cost more than on Amazon, so I don’t think many students used it. Nicky
From: Behraad Bahreyni <bba19@sfu.ca>
Sent: June 3, 2020 4:06:50 PM To: Nancy Forde; academic-discussion@sfu.ca Subject: RE: Textbooks for courses In some cases, SFU can have a deal with the publishers to make their books available through SFU library. I am doing this for a couple of courses. I would assume that publishers might not do this for their more lucrative textbooks, but
it might be worth checking with our librarians. Cheers From: Nancy Forde <nforde@sfu.ca>
Hi all, Recent comments from others at SFU have got me thinking about textbook requirements for fall courses. Normally I put my course text on reserve at the library (along with recommended but not required texts), so that students who may not
wish to / are not able to afford the text book can still access the material. There is quite a cheap alternative text for the course I’m scheduled to teach this fall ($10 for the ebook rather than $120 for the ebook text I’m currently using), which is financially
very appealing, but pedagogically it doesn’t match the needs of the course and our students’ background as well. In reaching a decision, I am trying to weigh all aspects of access and learning. I’d be very interested in hearing others’ thoughts on this, and
what you are planning to do about texts for the fall. Thanks, Nancy -- |