This fall, University of Iowa students in participating courses will have a chance to try out electronic textbooks free of charge as part of a pilot project to examine the effectiveness of e-texts.

Information Technology Services (ITS)-Instructional Services is teaming up with vendors Courseload and McGraw-Hill on the e-text pilot project. The Courseload electronic reader and McGraw-Hill textbooks will be made available to students in participating courses at no charge during the fall semester. Students also have the option to purchase a print-on-demand version of the e-textbook.

ITS-Instructional Services, in collaboration with the College of Education, will investigate the relationships between e-text usage and student learning, as well as whether e-texts are more convenient and economical for students. The team was awarded a $20,000 CCUMC Donald A. Rieck Research Grant in support of the study.

The UI is one of 50 institutions participating in the pilot, which is sponsored by two higher education technology consortiums, Internet2 and EDUCAUSE.

The benefits of the project include:

• Free e-text access for all students enrolled in the course
• Full text available through print on demand (additional fee required if ordered from the vendor)
• Easy access to the e-text through ICON
• Online or offline access to the e-text
• Availability of the content on most browsers
• Ability for faculty and students to annotate or take notes within the textbook and to share with others in the course
• Opportunity for the UI to assess use of e-texts on campus and help set direction for future use of e-texts

Participation in this pilot is limited. Instructors interested in having their courses participate should contact Maggie Jesse, senior director of ITS-Instructional Services, at maggie-jesse@uiowa.edu by July 1.