Article Summary 8: Dynamic Books

Motoko, Rich. "Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally." New York Times 21 Feb 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

What if a professor had complete control over the content of your textbook? Well it’s about to happen. DynamicBooks.com is about to release a new e-book system that allows professors to edit the textbooks they purchase at the paragraph and even sentence level. They can then have their students read what chapters, sections, and version of a textbook that is most relevant to the course. The textbooks are also a lot cheaper in this format. Professors will be able to control exactly what their students have to read, and will be able to do it at a significant discount.

Some are not very happy about the idea. Not every author is comfortable with giving up complete control over their work. Some believe that if a book is edited too much it could affect the flow and feel to the book, and not everyone agrees on what the correct version of a topic is. An example given was the idea that a professor would be able to change a textbook about evolution into a book on intelligent design. The owner of DynamicBooks.com claims that they will not be monitoring the changes made to the textbooks, and are going to rely on the students and parents to report any abuse of power made by the professor.