Business Research Report Final

Table of Contents Abstract 2 Introduction 2 Methodology 3 e-books 3 Open Educational Resources 5 Results 5 Analysis and Recommendations 6 Conclusion 6 References 8

The cost of textbooks has increased more than twice the inflation of the US in the last two decades. Students are subjected to the responsibility of purchasing books after the old versions have been revised. Nevertheless, the costs have increased with reduction in the number of years the books are being revised. The costs are unbearable to students and correspondingly, students have shifted to electronic book. This system is more advantageous as it is cost effective and easily accessible. Stable network is only required for downloading and students can share and read offline. Open Educational Sources are learning, teaching, and research materials available in any media (digital) which reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that allows no-cost access, adaptation, use, and dissemination by other individuals with limited restrictions. Future improvement to e-books are expected to soothe learning process.

The cost of textbooks has increased more than twice the inflation rate over the last two decades in the united states of America. The main reason for this increase in inflation is because of the increase in the demand of the textbooks as they cycle of revision of the textbooks have been currently reduced to three to four years, regardless of whether any update was needed in the earlier editions. Reduction in the number of years of the revision cycle means that textbooks will be required by learners more frequently therefore increasing the demand of books. This consequently leads to demand-pull inflation. Alternatively, to minimize the cost of purchasing new books students are advised to sell their books of the previous editions to the booksellers and get money to purchase new books. This correspondingly, has increased the rate of growth and development of the market of the old books in the United States of America.

The second reason why the prices of books have increased, is because of the enhanced provisions of extra instructional materials such as software and workbooks have added up to the upsurging prices of books. Currently, books are accessible in both bundled and unbundled versions. Another factor that contributes to the purchase decision is the decision made by the faculty staff members on the textbooks. Faculty members choose to assign students with their own textbooks with their vested interest. Public institutions face increasing scrutiny of the cost of higher education and possible conflicts of interest with this policy on faculty assigning for purchase of their own textbooks in classroom. When they choose a textbook, the college is guided by the learners’ education interests and cost concerns and some cannot imagine any colleague acting in an ethically questionable manner.

Correspondingly, the professor who is the course coordinator for multisession course, is responsible for choosing the textbook for all areas taught by adjuncts. The professor establishes custom edition by choosing textbook from another author’s textbook. When faculty members choose textbooks of their interest for students, they have very little concern about the cost of such books. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of students to meet the costs of the textbooks assigned by their professors.

On the other hand, the e-book business has experienced growth in double digits. An electronic book, is a digital file encompassing a body of images and texts proficient for disseminating electronically and displaying on-screen in a way similar to the printed book. Electronic books are often created by converting a printer’s source files to formats optimized for effortless downloading and on-screen displaying. E-bool businesses often set up their own websites and sell their books online directly. For instance, they can make PDFs, MS, available for their readers. The main reason why the e-book business is growing rapidly is that the cost of the book is at 50 percent compared to the conventional books. The key difference is based on the advantages of e-books. Electronic books are much more affordable that printed books, they have several visual aids such as graphs for learners to understand content easily, easy to make updates, low printing and publishing costs, and convenient for readers to make electronic notes, search and bookmarks. Correspondingly, the awareness of the end users and utilization of the electronic books with faculty members have registered a potential growth (Siegenthaler, 2019).

There has been a shift in the preference of the students to new electronic books from conventional books due to a spark of advantages associated with electronic books. The focus has shifted to establishing and adopting open education resources because they offer access to retain reuse, and dissemination of materials such as curriculum and lecture notes. Students are shifting to e-books because these books simplify and enhance overall learning experience. Electronic books also make learning process very attractive and engaging. Students can participate in learning process instead of listening to one person talking continuously. Students shifted away from buying lifetime access and towards renting e-textbooks purposely to save money. Students realized that much money is wasted in purchasing conventional textbooks that last for a short while and get revised. After revision, they are then expected to purchase another textbook. Also, conventional textbooks are more expensive compared to electronic books. Therefore, shifting to e-books help them save some significant money and improve their general learning process.

The focus has swiftly shifted from publisher-generated electronic/printed format books to establishing and adopting Open educational resources. Open educational resources are learning, teaching, and research materials available in any media (digital) which reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that allows no-cost access, adaptation, use, and dissemination by other individuals with limited restrictions (D’Antoni, 2019). Establishment and promotion of the open educational resources is always motivated by an anxiety to give an alternative or enhanced educational paradigm. Retain means the right to make and own many copies of the content, reuse, means the right to apply the content in a vast range of ways, revise, means to adapt, modify, and alternate content, remix means the right to link original or revised content with a different material to develop something new. Finally, redistribute, means the right to share copies of the original content with other individuals/students. In open educational resources, there is an emerging trend effort by some approved educational institutions to give free certifications, or attainment badges, to document and recognize successful completion of participants. Examples of the open educational resources range from personal videos, lecture notes to comprehensive materials such as textbooks and curriculum.

OERs is becoming very prominent with students, educational institutions, and professors because the resources are freely accessible on the open-source app. The first benefit of the OERs is quick circulation whereby information can be distributed rapidly compared to content published in journals or books. Quick accessibility of materials potentially upsurges timeliness relevance of presented material. OERs also reveal innovation and talent. This poses a wide audience to learn research and experiences. These materials can effortlessly be improved promptly through direct editing by the users or incorporation of the user’s feedback. They also enhance regular course content and supplement textbooks and lecture notes in case of insufficient information in textbooks or lecture notes (Hylén, 2016). The factors that the researchers could observe that the UG students have revealed the most significant utilization of electronic textbooks. Utilization and accessibility of the textbooks over the phone services have made it effective and convenient for UG students to obtains and use the electronic textbooks. Another factor that has influenced the utilization of electronic books is that they are available to read offline. The e-book is available to read offline if when you fully download it to your computer or mobile device. Downloading the books is done anywhere and anytime when you have a stable internet connection. These are minimum requirements that students can easily afford to be able to download and read e-books offline.

The function of the instructor is very significant during the selection of learning medium. The electronic textbook businesses have experienced a rapid growth because most instructors have recommended the e-book as the best model of learning or use. The utilization of electronic textbook is observed in non-technical/general subjects more than in technical subjects in the current context. However, we believe that utilization will potentially grow in future with the increase support of the instructors’ content delivery methodologies (Mike, 2018).

In conclusion, the prices of conventional textbooks are growing at high rates because of reduced number of years of revision. Students therefore, are required to purchase new books after the previous books have been revised. Tis increases the costs as students have to incur the cost of books. Students are advised to sell the old books to bookshops and buy new books. Nevertheless, e-book has proved to be the best methodology of learning and many students are shifting toward this method. Shifting to this trend depends on the decision of instructors, but instructors have shown a positive attitude toward this shift. E-book is effective in that it is easy to make updates, and easily accessible than other conventional books (Mike, 2018). Students are only required to have a stable network to purchase and download the book online. After downloading, students can use the books offline and can easily share with others. I also discussed about Open Educational Resources. Open educational resources are learning, teaching, and research materials available in any media (digital) which reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that allows no-cost access, adaptation, use, and dissemination by other individuals with limited restrictions. The first benefit of the OERs is quick circulation whereby information can be distributed rapidly compared to content published in journals or books. Quick accessibility of materials potentially upsurges timeliness relevance of presented material.

References Siegenthaler, E. (2019). Improving the usability of e-book readers. Journal of usability studies, 6(1), 25-38. Hylén, J. (2016). Open educational resources: Opportunities and challenges. Proceedings of open education, 4963. D’Antoni, S. (2019). Open educational resources: Reviewing initiatives and issues. Mike, H. (2018). Importance of e-book in education.