Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57337
CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY Is the Paperless Classroom Possible? L Business professors who step off the paper trail not only save resources and streamline course content, but also prepare students for an increasingly digital business environment. by Allen H. Kupetz ast spring I taught a new elective, "Managing Technology," a course for non-engineers who might someday manage technical people, projects, or products. I decided to teach the course in an almost entirely paperless format: no textbook and no hardcopy papers. Students could take notes directly on their laptops, which our school provides as part of tuition. I used the Blackboard course management system to deliver all my presentations and non-copyrighted readings. You'll note that I mentioned the course was almost entirely paperless—for some situations, print still wins out over digital. But the completely paperless classroom is not the goal. Rather, the goal is to take advantage of technologies that truly help faculty cut print costs, ease distribution of materials, and facilitate learning. Moreover, striving to do more work electronically helps meet the needs of a new generation of students who are now entering business school more comfortable than ever with the digital—and increasingly paperless—world. The Paperless Advantage I have shared my approach with some of my colleagues and their typical reply has been, "Why bother going paperless? What are the advantages?" In fact, there are at least three tangible benefits to a paperless classroom. First, business students learn to appreciate what "going paperless" has to offer. The paperless approach encourages students to think about the advantages of digital commu- nications and the cost savings companies with paperless practices might enjoy. Second, when students and faculty depend less on printing, mailing, shipping, buying, and storing paper, they use fewer resources. Finally, I've found that a paperless classroom allows professors greater flex- ibility in several ways: It cuts the cost of cases. For example, many professors still order hardcopy cases, from sources like Harvard Business School Cases (HBSC) and Ivey Publishing, through the campus bookstore. This approach can double the per-case cost for students, with no benefit to anyone but the bookstore itself. Why not go paperless? HBSC allows professors to bundle together all the cases in a course electronically. Then, students can pay HBSC directly and download the cases immediately. In contrast, Ivey still sends students paper copies, which must therefore be ordered in advance. This inconvenience adds nothing to intellectual property protection since a student can still scan the paper and distribute it digitally any- way. We are teaching the Napster generation. I predict Ivey will go paperless soon as well. It eliminates the need for printed textbooks. For my core course that required a textbook, I experimented with Zinio (www.zinio.com), a digital publishing company. Zinio can convert printed materials, including textbooks, into a digital format that allows authors to protect their intellectual property through 36 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008