Paper vs electronic textbooks

Ross Woods, 2022 with thanks to J. Chεng, Zεn Fαulkεs, Frεd Lαndis, and Vαleriε Dοuglαs.

This is specifically about textbooks, and other kinds of publications might be quite different.

An evaluation of paper vs electronic textbooks depends largely on one's particular perspective. Authors, educational institutions, publishers, librarians, and students see textbooks quite differently. Online schools can see them quite differently from a campus program, because campus students can more easliy get books from a bookshop, whereas online students who want paper textbooks might have no option but to depend on an unreliable postal service.

The context of education has changed greatly in the last twenty years. Almost all campus schools have at least some online programs, and online education was mandatory during the Covid pandemic. Some campus programs require students to take at least one unit online, and some schools offer exclusively on-line programs.

Kinds of publications and business models

Even then, paper comes in different kinds. Some are commercially published by third-party publishers. Others are a kind of hybrid, internally produced by the school as simple books or notes that they sell to students; they are paper but not published on the open market.

E-books also face the same phenomenon. Some are commercially published, often with a license for a specific time period or number of readers, and sometimes dependent on proprietary software. Schools can also publish e-books internally for their students without any third party restrictions.

Commercial publications have the advantage that schools can simply choose the best available book and get students to buy it. Internal publications have the advantage that school personnel can write them to suit their own curriculum needs and then edit it as they like.

They have paralell disadvantages. Commercial publications might allow limited choice and are usually expensive. Internal publications take lots of time and effort to write, the cost of which must be recouped somehere in the busines model.

The different business models create their own implications. External e-book publishers can publish for the general public with a business model such as Kindle. In contrast, institutions can produce e-books internally and provide them to students at no cost of any kind to students. However they have no separate business model to recoup costs; costs need to be covered in tuition fees if they are recouped at all. Ebooks are easy to pirate and schools might let them become open source with a Copyright Commons notice.

Several other sources need particular mention. They come with no need to recoup writers' costs or pay royalties:

1. A good alternative for many institutions is simply to buy a membership to an online library such as Lern (lern.org) or Ebsco (ebsco.com) and charge each student a library fee. These have many online sources that are not available for free on the internet, and are an easy way for an online school to instantly establish a large library.
2. Open source materials are an attractive option. These are usually available for free with a Creative Commons license, and, as a publishing and distribution system, drawbacks to schools are quite minimal. They can be used as e-books or printed and sold at cost of printing. The range was once limited, but is now growing, although for higher education they mainly address only the early years of undergraduate studies.
3. It is quite possible to simply provide links to third party websites, with the disadvantage that the third party might change or withdraw that page.
4. Wikipedia is the other possibility. Being open source, one can download pages and edit them into a textbook for use without royalty or specific software. However, Wikipedia has changed its download software several times, and some versions predetermine a layout and file type that cannot be edited as a textbook. All articles need fact-checking and some articles are now too technical and specialized for a general textbook.
5. Journal articles may be suitable for some programs. They are often publicly available for free and use accessible .pdf technology. The main difficulty is in locating suitable items.

Paper: Advantages and disadvantages

Paper textbooks still have many advantages:

1. Believe it or not, lots of people prefer paper if they have a choice and all other factors are equal. They are tactile and it is easy to put a finger on a page and flick over to another page. People often like the smell of new books.
2. Paper textbooks come with a business model so that authors can be paid for their work, although textbooks only produce substantial income when sales volumes are high.
3. Printed paper is high resolution, long lasting, and does not become obsolete.
4. The data does not corrupt.
5. People like to underline and highlight text, which serves as a record of their learning of a subject. Consequently, people who stay in the profession often like to keep their textbooks with their notes and underlining.
6. Some books are still only available in paper.
7. Some colleges and universities still keep paper books in their libraries, and some older works are far too good to throw out.
8. Paper books work without power or Internet access.
9. People do not need training to use them.
10. Print-on-demand services have changed the lead time to release and have reduced the risk of unsold copies.

Even so, paper has many disadvantages:

1. They are much more expensive.
2. A paper book usually needs a publisher and it usually takes longer to get a new book to print.
3. Paper depends on some kind of delivery system for online students, which might take time and add costs. Mail in some parts of the world is quite unsuitable; items either do not arrive at all, arrive too late to be of help to students in that semester, or attract heavy import duties.
4. Storing them in a library is expensive, considering space, maintanance, and air conditioning.
5. They can be damaged by water.
6. People lose them or leave them behind.
7. Theft is problematical, especially in libraries.
8. Books eventually go out of print.
9. It is more difficult to search a paper book than an e-book, although a well-written table of contents and index largely resolve this problem.

E-books: Advantages and disadvantages

E-books have many advantages over paper books:

1. They can be replicated in massive numbers at no cost.
2. They cost less, and are perhaps even free.
3. They can include animations that explain concepts better than static diagrams.
4. They can be delivered to students reliably and instantaneously at no delivery cost.
5. The technology is increasingly similar to reading paper. Readers can annotate or highlight sections similar to a paper book.
6. They are very portable; a relatively small drive can hold a large personal library.
7. They do not need an external light source.
8. Accreditors now permit institutions to have completely electronic libraries, and it is the only workable option for many online institutions.
9. They can't be ripped, don't get water damage, and are hard to lose.

However, e-books are not yet a perfect solution for everybody:

1. They cannot be resold after use.
2. They cannot be purchased used.
3. They can be harder on eyes than physical textbooks.
4. They are inaccessible when the battery dies.
5. Some require training to use.
6. Hardware can be costly.
7. File formats eventually become obsolete.

If the e-book is commercially published by an external publisher, the business model can create disadvantages. Licences can expire, and some e-books require a proprietary reader, which locks users into a commercial provider and the risk that the company might discontinue that technology.

Conclusions

Most likely, there is no one perfect solution that works the same for every school.

1. E-books are probably the only real alternative for international online programs that reach places where paper mail is impractical.
2. Depending on the cost, paper books are still practical for campus programs and online programs that reach places where paper mail is practical.
3. For campus programs, paper books are still practical, depending on the cost.
4. When costs are the determining factor, e-books can be better than paper.

Similarly, the choice between internally and externally published material is not straightforward. If the time spent in writing materials is prohibitive, externally published resources might be the best alternative, at the cost of lack of control. But if control of content is essential, the school must produce its own.