Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55943
VSU has many students who can't afford to buy a textbook outright, and the high cost of textbooks affects our retention rate. We believe our new curriculum will provide four bene- fits to our students. It will foster a better understanding of organizational interdependency between divisions; it will cut down on costs; it will reduce waste; and it will give our students the technological skills they'll need to navigate the real-world digital landscape. Electronic Texts The defining characteristic of the new curriculum is its digi- tal delivery. As one of America's historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), Virginia State has many students who can't afford to buy a textbook outright. They might borrow it, check it out of the library, or try to get by in a course merely by listening to class lectures. When these methods are insufficient, they withdraw or fail, so the high cost of textbooks affects our retention rate. We reasoned that, if we can provide textbooks digitally for free, students can have access to all the reading material in a class and maintain that access for their entire undergraduate careers. If, during freshman year, they purchase a three-inch thick textbook that explains forecasting models, will they keep that heavy book for the next three years? Probably not. But when they have to write business plans in their senior year capstone course, they need to refer back to that book. With our digital model, students will be able to download and store all of their core textbook content on their hard drives, and it will always be available to them. Digitally delivered textbooks also have other benefits. They can include just-in-time case studies, which means their information will not be quickly outdated, as is often the case with traditional textbooks. For instance, Enron provides a wonderful case study about ethics in the workplace, but the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a more urgent and timely case to consider. When we bring current news stories into the classroom, students realize that they're not just learning theories, they're studying contemporary life. In addition, because the books are delivered electronically, the material becomes more accessible. Faculty can create links directly to content that targets specific assignments. Students can download that material in PDF format and then access it on their computers, Kindles, iPads, and smartphones. Finally, digital textbooks are environmentally friendly. We're teaching sustainability and corporate social respon- sibility in the undergraduate program. What better way to model these ideas than by showing students a way to con- serve natural resources? Obviously, if a school is delivering a digital program, students must have computers. There are computer labs throughout the university that all students can use, but next year we will require incoming students to bring their own laptops. We can justify the expense of a laptop—which might cost less than $1,000—because we will be saving each stu- dent several thousand dollars in book fees over the course of the program. We will also work with our bookstore to develop a plan that makes these computers available and affordable to our students. Partners and Portals To deliver our digital curriculum, we've partnered with two companies. The first is Flat World Knowledge, which pub- lishes free and open textbooks for higher education. Textbooks were vetted by our faculty on a case-by-case basis before we decided which ones should be adopted, then Flat World created a portal that allows our students to read the textbooks online. Our second partner is GoingOn.com, which has developed an online learning environment where faculty can incorpo- rate social learning pedagogies. Students can use the site to communicate with oth- ers in their teams and cohorts, and they can develop networks around classes and outside interests. A student might down- load a book from Flat World and post something about it online, and everyone else in the group will be able to share their different perspectives. 42 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010