Aatash Parikh

Making Digital Textbooks a Reality

A revolution waiting to happen
When Apple first announced the iPad in April of 2010, the talk immediately began about how it would change the world of education. Interactive learning applications, videos and photos, and especially textbooks, would suddenly be easily accessible from one lightweight digital device in all students backpacks. However, walking into my Berkeley classroom on Wednesday, March 2, 2011, after Apple had just announced the second iteration of its revolutionary tablet device, I wondered why, almost a year later, were there almost no students with iPads in their hands? I believe that, with the publishing industry being turned on its heels in the past couple years, this question is a very important one. Amazon, in May 2009, released the Kindle DX, a 10-inch version of its flagship Kindle device, seemingly geared towards the education marketwith a screen size large enough to match the dimensions of hardcopy textbook. However, it failed to impress students in a pilot program at Princeton University1 along with another one at University of Virginias Business School2. Its been almost two years, and were still waiting for a new Kindle DX that might better suit students needs. Similarly, the iPad has a whole host of education tools. Apples strong developer community is constantly creating rich applications for its App Store that allow for all kinds of educations uses, from periodic table visualization tools to interactive books and movies. It also has access to iTunes U, which holds a large collection of full-length class lectures from top universities, including UC Berkeley. Yet, although the iPad has taken off in popularity amongst the general communityeven some elementary school

districts have been trying it out in their classrooms3if UC Berkeley, a premiere university in the heart of Silicon Valley, still doesnt have its students using iPads, something is clearly missing.

The textbook dilemma

The biggest barrier to the adoption of the iPad, Kindle, or similar devices in the university setting is the availability of textbooks on these devices. If textbooks were available cheaply in a digital format readable on the iPad, a lot more students would be using it. I own an iPad, which I first brought to Cal last fall. When I visited the campus bookstore to buy my textbooks for the semester, I was excited to see the numerous flyers for e-textbook options, which would be perfect for my iPad. Upon further probing, however, I realized that not only, out of all the textbooks, only a small fraction were available in digital format, but that the digital versions cost the same price as the physical books. Anyone who is involved with higher education is aware of the problem posed by the pricing of modern day textbooks. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in 2005, students pay an average of $800-900 a year on textbooks.4 It is enough of a concern that schools and students are turning to government to solve the problem, whether to force publishing companies to release information about their pricing structure or even to directly regulate prices. Many students and families find themselves struggling financially when being required to pay upwards of $100 for each textbook, on top of the already high costs that come with a college education.

A few reasons exist for this. Namely, the economics of the textbook market make it different from more efficient markets: according to MindingTheCampus, the textbook industry more resembles health care, in which one entity (the physician/the professor) desires - that is, assigns or prescribes - the product, a second entity (the patient/the student) consumes it, and a third set of entities (insurance companies/parents) foot the bill.5 Additionally, textbook companies have begun to bundle supplementary materials, such as workbooks, CDs, or codes to their online subscriptions, with the basic textbook, allowing them to further increase prices. With advent of e-books and all of the recent digital e-readers, including the iPad and Kindle, many are hoping that the digital publishing revolution will solve the problem of the high textbook costs. After all, a digital textbook is much cheaper to manufacture; thus, it should be priced more cheaply. Yet, all of todays digital textbook options only present marginal improvements in pricing, if any at all. Likely, this is due to publishing companies unwillingness to give up their currently favorable economic position. However, I believe the solution should not be solved with government. It should be solved with economic and technological innovation.

Why the iPad works

As mentioned, I use my iPad in school. Even though I may not have all my textbooks on it, I use it for several other purposes and am able to vouch for its value to a college student. For example, several of my classes have reading and handouts available in PDF form. Within a matter of minutes I am able to download these readings from bSpace and sync with a folder on my iPad. The form factor of the device allows me to read these PDF

handouts in the same way I might read a traditional handout, by holding it in my hands in front of my face, just like a piece of paper. And I can do this without having to actually print anything out or having to sit and look up at my laptop screen. I also bring my iPad with me to class. I have a wireless keyboard to take notes, and I can quickly look up information online during lectures. The value in this is that the iPad weighs approximately a quarter of what my laptop doesand factoring in the lack of need to carry other physical handouts, Im saving a lot of stress on my back. These are great features, but it is evident that a huge piece of the puzzle in making the iPad of value to studentseasy and affordable access to textbooksis missing. Having this would result in money saved, back pain avoided (no more lugging around the behemoths that are hardcover textbooks), and convenience created.

Potential solutions
Companies are beginning to attack this problem; however, most of are missing the boat. Two companies currently in the space are CourseSmart and Inkling. CourseSmart has a very large collection of textbooks available online (most of my current textbooks are there), but almost all of the prices show little or no savings over print versions. Secondly, a digital purchase with CourseSmart is more of a rent students lose access to the book after 540 days. Inkling is much more innovative in its approach. Its team develops each individual textbook into an interactive format optimized for the iPad. A book is more than a book; it is a multimedia experience, with dynamic diagrams and interactive quizzes. However, its selection currently includes only twenty-three titles, almost half of

which are still listed as Coming Soon. And when it comes to pricing, most of these titles are more expensive than their hardcopy counterparts. Neither of these current offerings are enough to encourage the full adoption of digital devices in lieu of textbooks. I do believe that part of the solution is to find a way to create digital textbooks with value over print textbooks in a similar way that Inkling is doing it, by taking advantage of the power of the new technological platform. CourseSmart currently ports textbooks in a raw PDF-like format, which is unconvincing for the student trying to replace his tangible materials with digital ones. However, if we have interactive graphics, movies, and collaborative tools, along with a unique touchscreen interface, then digital textbooks are much more likely to spread. The key ingredient that will truly incite the spread, however, is a way to work convince publishers to make these digital books available at a much lower cost than they currently are. The way to do this is to get at least one forward-thinking publisher onboard, and create a rich, interactive, and affordable (but also profitable) textbook experience on the iPad. This will take research, creativity, and innovation; however, if it is done, it will prove that it is possible. And then, other publishers will take note. And, it is what I would like to do.

A research project
I believe that figuring out how to make digital textbooks and Post-PC devices, as Apple Inc. calls them, work for college students is a very important challenge. We currently have an inefficient economic system, a financial burden on students, an outdated and environmentally-unfriendly use of technology, and, in other words, a revolution waiting to happen.

However, it hasnt happened yet because there are problems to be ironed out. With money won from this competition, I would use it to research some of these problems: What students are looking for when it comes to digital textbooks, and what would make them willing to give up their hard copies for them If students do adopt digital materials, how to prevent piracy in order to keep publishers and other financially-involved parties happy How to make a rich multimedia learning experience that offers much more than the static textbooks were used to How to create financial system that would not only keep publishing companies profitable, but also make them want to adopt the new technology. This research would be accomplished with: 1) case studies and surveys of students, 2) learning of application development to create the killer textbook app, 3) thorough analysis of the market in order to understand how to create desirable pricing. I believe that with research, there is a definite sweet spot that can be hit that will revolutionize this market and technology. A strategy for overcoming the economic inefficiencies of this market would make students happier with pricing and keep textbook publishers profitable. And the right digital implementation of the textbook can successfully persuade students why they should ditch their paper textbooks, and it can persuade textbook publishers that they should adopt the new medium. Solving some of these problems could lead to a new technological product with the potential to completely change the education and publishing industries.

About me -- and why Im right for this job

My name is Aatash Parikh. Im currently one of the 8 undergraduate researchers of the Ensemble Computing Portal team led by Professor Dan Garcia, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. During my senior year in high school, I co-founded a television station at my high school. Im passionate about technology and mediaI have been thoroughly experimenting with technology since I was a child, and I have also done numerous side projects involving filmmaking and graphic design. Im very interested in learning how to make technology work for the average personI subscribe to Steve Jobs philosophy that technology should be merged with liberal arts if the goal is to change the world. This project requires multiple disciplines, from computer science and business to engineering and design to education and psychology. Therefore, I plan to build a diverse team to work on this project, with people from different disciplines and locations. Aatash Parikh Undergraduate, EECS 510-304-8334 aatash@berkeley.edu 1 http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/09/28/23918/

2 http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/business-school-students-not-fond-of-kindle-for-academics.ars 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05tablets.html 4 http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v07n02/pollitz_j01.htm 5 http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2008/04/youve_just_started_your_freshm.html

(I dont mind public dissemination of this paper.)