It seems to be the latter, Chris (at least with FSU students). They prefer pre-digested materials, even if those materials are not of great quality. Best, deana Deana A. Rohlinger, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Sociology Florida State University Book Review Editor, Mobilization Social Movement Section Editor, Sociology Compass ________________________________ From: Chris Anderson [heychanders@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 8:38 AM To: Rohlinger, Deana Cc: Gina Neff; communication and information technology section asa; danah boyd Subject: Re: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"? I wonder, are you all seeing this as an economic refusal (not wanting to pay), or.more of a medium problem, ie, no desire to engage in monographic forms of reading? On Aug 11, 2014 8:08 AM, "Rohlinger, Deana" <drohling@fsu.edu<mailto:drohling@fsu.edu>> wrote: I agree, Gina. I quit assigning monographs to undergraduates because 98% of the class didn't read the assignment (I did an anonymous online survey). Increasingly, FSU students just purchase notes from a local vendor, which includes summaries of course readings. The amusing part, of course, is that often these poor quality notes exceed the costs of the books for the course. Sigh...... Best, Deana Deana A. Rohlinger, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Sociology Florida State University Book Review Editor, Mobilization Social Movement Section Editor, Sociology Compass ________________________________ From: CITASA [citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org<mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org>] on behalf of Gina Neff [gneff@uw.edu<mailto:gneff@uw.edu>] Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 3:21 AM To: danah boyd; citasa@list.citasa.org<mailto:citasa@list.citasa.org> Subject: Re: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"? Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else? Gina Dr. Gina Neff Associate Professor, Department of Communication University of Washington Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study Central European University Twitter: @ginasue http://ginaneff.com/ Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries<http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Labor-Innovative-Industries-Technology/dp/0262017482> From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org<mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org>] On Behalf Of danah boyd Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM To: citasa@list.citasa.org<mailto:citasa@list.citasa.org> Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"? Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (*thank you*!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have _zero_ clue.) danah ------ My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" <http://bit.ly/dmbItsComplicated> "taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria<http://www.twitter.com/zephoria> _______________________________________________ CITASA mailing list CITASA@list.citasa.org<mailto:CITASA@list.citasa.org> http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org