
DRM a major barrier to e-textbook adoption - soundsop
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080828-study-students-need-open-source-e-textbooks.html
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iamdave
I think it's a fantastic idea, proposing open standards for books but there's
a major incumbent people aren't looking at: _academia still doesn't trust the
Internet_. Students are often limited to one Internet source and the rest hard
copied sources. We on HN know how well open licensing goes on the Internet
because we use it everyday, academia uses the Internet for internal email and
checking the weather, otherwise it's treading on their territory and they
don't like that.

Amazon is pushing a student version of the Kindle out, but just like other
tech toys you're starting to see in the classroom, at the most you'll see them
used in community colleges and maybe even a few privileged high schools, but
the major universities and academies are highly unlikely to jump on the ship
and provide DRM free textbooks any time in the near future.

~~~
mdasen

      academia still doesn't trust the Internet.
    

Partially because the internet is academia's competition. For centuries,
academia was able to keep their knowledge locked away because, while many knew
a little, they were the only ones who knew enough (both in breadth and depth)
to really teach you anything. Today, the internet's communal nature makes up
for the fact that most of us don't have the breadth or depth that they have -
we each contribute a little and it becomes more than the breadth or depth than
they have.

Is it surprising that they don't trust the internet? "Wikipedia is
unreliable!" That's because people who use Wikipedia have less reason to buy
knowledge from you. "Open source is fraught with patent liability problems!"
That's because no one will pay for outrageous licenses from you if they can
get it for free. "Automation creates inferior products!" That's because no one
is going to pay your high union wages if they can get a machine to do a better
job than you for less money.

All of those statements have the _potential_ to be true. I'm sure they are
true in some cases. In the majority of cases, it just isn't true. But your way
of life is potentially on the way out and there's a catalyst of that change
that you can campaign against so you do.

~~~
pg
Professors don't distrust Wikipedia because they regard it as a threat to
their supposed monopoly on learning. (They don't regard themselves as as a
single unit at all.) The reason they distrust Wikipedia is that there's no
accountability.

The problem is not that it's online, but that the work is unsigned.

I think you're misunderstanding the value of Wikipedia. Its main value is as a
fast source of leads, not as a source of authoritative answers.

~~~
prakash
_Its main value is as a fast source of leads, not as a source of authoritative
answers._

Do you say this in general or with the specific DRM/Academic context?

Wikipedia, to me, provides fantastic summaries and quite often an
authoritative source, as much as I would believe a major news source,
sometimes there is more trust in wikipedia.

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pchristensen
Widespread adoption won't happen until the open textbooks are _significantly
better_ than proprietary ones, both for the students and the teachers.
Teachers will happily use them if a) they are better for students and b) don't
require additional work on the teacher's part.

