RentScouter

South Korea’s Education Ministry has announced it wants all school age level educational materials to be delivered in a digitized format by 2015.  It hopes that by 2014 all elementary level materials will be read on a variety of computers, smart phones, and tablets.  No specific equipment choices have been made, but the Ministry did announce it will spend up to 2.4 billion buying the necessary tablets, software, and digitizing the necessary school curriculum.

Some Korean schools already are using electronic textbooks via notebook computers and tablets.  However, it is very unlikely that the South Korean government would pick the Apple iPad as its tablet of choice.  It is much more likely to pick tablets manufactured by South Korean electronics manufacturing company, Samsung.  This could be a very nice windfall for Samsung and its Galaxy tablet or some variant.

Why would the Galaxy need modification?  The folks who brought us the Kno Tablet did lots of research on students that buy textbooks online or hope to rent textbooks online, whether digital or otherwise, instead of purchasing a printed textbook.

What a student needs, according to Kno’s research, is something that faithfully reproduces a full-size textbook, without compromise.  In contrast, the attempt to cram a textbook onto a smaller screen is a primary reason that previous trials with replacing textbooks with tablets and e-readers such as the Kindle DX have been abject failures.

This move will be watched by governments and manufacturers worldwide as everyone is wondering about the future of electronic textbooks.  It also awakens the argument about whether students learn better from printed or digital textbooks.  Another reason digital textbooks have not taken off in the United States is the cost when compared to buying a cheap used textbook online or renting college textbooks online.  The initial cost is still much higher, but currently their is no cash sell back value for electronic textbooks, nor can they be transferred.  Now that Kno has given up on hardware manufacture and is now focused on a software solution for cheap textbooks and trying the novel “Words to Friends” approach we detailed about a month ago.

More and more companies are releasing tablets from the iPad to the Kno tablet, many with high hopes of rapidly converting everyone to reading electronic books.  However, according to a new survey by the Student Monitor, students still prefer printed textbooks and really like to rent textbooks online.  The survey consisted of 1200 participants with an average age of 20.6 years and the statistics showed the renting textbooks doubled from the same time period last year, with an average savings of $132 dollars.  Over a third of the undergraduates surveyed said at least one textbook rental was in their future for next semester if they didn’t wind up renting all their textbooks when possible.

Students prefer renting textbooks.

A new trend was renting books from campus bookstores instead of renting textbooks online.  BookRenter’s new campus book store program, and others, made a huge push to get ahead of online book rental companies like CampusBookRentals.  However, many students gave high marks to Chegg siting price, punctuality, and ease of use.  It is surprising that nearly 30% of students surveyed still did not know they could get an textbook rental price comparison online or even buy their books online instead of the campus book store.  Etextbooks still remain very distant, at only around 5% of textbooks sold, despite efforts of tablet makers.  Two of the biggest reasons sited: they are generally more expensive than printed textbooks initially, and to compound the problem, there is no way to transfer or sell back the licensed electronic textbook whereas a textbook rental is a fixed price transaction or a used textbook can be sold back for cash.

This trend was also voiced when it came to the news, as 38 percent of college goers prefer their print on dead trees, versus only 13 percent who would go all digital for their news reading.  Students also echoed this stating that for over 75% of them their campus paper is available online less than 20% said they have read the web version within the last month.  Perhaps the printed version is a better cover for that comic book or to spy a look on the new freshman?

So if students find renting textbooks pleasing what else where the top trends in the survey?  Well, outside of drinking, technology swept the top interests: Facebook, iPhone, text messaging, and laptops, while grad school and working were not considered nearly as cool as new smartphones and other technologies.  In fact, smartphones (iPhones, Andriods, Blackberrys) are now owned by over 50% of college undergrads up from 40% last year.  These gadgets which are like mini-computers and wonderful soul sucking time vampires continue to grow in popularity and power.

Perhaps when these devices can project a textbook in 3D will electronic textbooks beat out a textbook rental.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about utilizing the iPad reports lots of initial excitement about the potential of the device, but it is not yet ready for mainstream use. Students and facility from George Fox and Seton Hall reported that lack of multi-tasking as one of the main limitations of the iPad in addition to low adoption rates and education specific applications. However, there is definitely growing interest and investigation of how iPads can be utilized in the education environment at campuses nationwide.

Anyone have any personal experiences to share?