is visiting our department today (one of the larger, well known companies), plying faculty members with a generous lunch, as they present their titles to us for consideration for adoption in our courses. This is likely common business practice, much like drug reps treating medical doctors to lunch during office sales visits. But I still question if this is ethical?
For what it's worth, I'm not participating. I don't see how this reduces (or at least limits the rate of increase) the price of textbooks to students, and in fact, it likely results in the opposite.
Monday, January 25, 2010
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I think most students would appreciate the gesture if your colleagues were to boycott the luncheon.
ReplyDeleteThe prices charged for text books are nothing short of criminal.
I agree with Dr. Buchanan, that the ethics of this practice is highly questionable. For many of my classes I buy supplemental texts on top of required texts, usually in the range of $10 to $20 (maximally $30); and without exception I've found that the quality of instruction in the $20 rivals that of my $100-200 required text books. In comparison to the supplemental texts that I purchase, I have often found that the required text books are "valuable" only because they contain the problem sets necessary to complete assignments.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore I have found that textbook author qualifications are rarely higher than the authors of the supplemental texts that I purchase, at least in terms of the level of education and years of work experience.
In having to purchase two calculus books, two chemistry text books, and two physics books during my studies at the same university due to this method of planned obsolescence, I can say that a thorough examination of the "new" edition of a text book reveals virtually no new content. At best a a chapter or two MAY be divided, moved, combined, or otherwise shuffled. The most significant change is always in the problem sets, where the problems are usually the exact same they have been for several editions, but the order of the problems is shuffled, such that a new textbook is required in order to make sure professors and students are on the same page. From a the standpoint of business ethics, this is equivalent to your real estate agent coming into your house once every three years, re-arranging your furniture, then asking you to pay full price for your house... again.
While I understand the immense work put into publishing a textbook, I still don't understand how the five hundred to one thousand percent markup in price is justified.