The title of our proposal is, “OneBook”, and it is an online resource that allows students to have access to all of their textbooks. OneBook replaces the need for students to purchase actual hardcopy textbooks by giving them the ability to access their textbooks online. OneBook solves many of the problems that students voice with their current textbooks; such as the high individual cost and the need to purchase new books each semester. The OneBook site would have all of the University’s required textbooks in their electronic or E-book versions. Furthermore students would have the ability to access past textbooks in order to reference them in their current courses. We believe that the growing influence of technology within the education market is evolving very rapidly, and that OneBook would allow the university to remain ahead of the curve by improving the way in which their students learn. There are many benefits that we believe OneBook can have by replacing the current structure of hardcopy textbooks. The OneBook proposal streamlines the education process by removing any problems associated with students not having the textbooks, by giving them access from Day 1. As a result students would be more comfortable and in a better to succeed academically, helping the University to benefit in a variety of ways.
OneBook would be a website and an application that students could access through their laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Students would have the ability to login into their account by using their Net ID and password to gain access to the site. As a result of this students could login regardless of their location and have all of their textbook resources at the click of a button. This eliminates some of the main problems that traditional textbooks inherently cause because students don’t have to worry about forgetting one of their textbooks or bringing the right textbook to class. According to Nielsen, the demand for E-book has risen by 15% in the last three years as technology continues to evolve. The E-book version of textbooks help to facilitate learning in a variety of ways. For example students would be able to follow along with their professors much easier by having the actual information in front of them as lectures are being given. Furthermore students would be able to have virtually unlimited access to their books during the day via their mobile device by accessing OneBook online. This ease of access to textbooks would make students more likely to do assigned readings and keep up with their coursework. The many benefits that OneBook presents for students makes it a project that we believe merits serious consideration by the University. Students wouldn’t be the only ones to benefit, teachers would have an easier task of having to reinforce concepts and answer questions rather than completely having to teach lessons from scratch. This would make the material fresh in the minds of the students because they would have access to the actual information and have the opportunity to ask questions during class to help them understand the more difficult concepts of the course.
Overall our OneBook proposal seeks to make education more efficient and effective by removing the constraints that traditional textbooks provide. By creating an online resource for students we believe that the University would see a variety of changes in the performance of students such as improved scores and better study habits. OneBook gives the students more control of their studying and allows them to come closer to reaching their potential by giving them greater access to their textbook needs. As a result the University should consider implementing and establishing OneBook on campus in order to reap the many rewards that will surely follow.
The creation of Onebook was designed to ease the monetary strain as well as the physical imposition of textbooks. As an integrated database that provides access to all textbooks for University of Arizona students, Onebook is a single unified destination for educational reference. As every college student across America can attest to, textbooks are extremely expensive and are rarely a good investment. For the 2013-2014 school year, the College Board reported that each student spent an average of $1,207 on textbooks. For private colleges it was even more expensive at $1,253. Onebook would provide a flat fee for all students. As a result, the cost of textbooks could be anticipated and planned for and student would not have to worry about purchasing textbooks that they may or may not use. In many cases, the recommended textbook is never used at all and students waste money in the effort to be prepared for class. Many classes require several textbooks and students have no way of truly knowing whether all or just some of the references will be used until they are actually involved in the class. Each professor has a different policy so suggested readings carry varies levels of actual suggestion. Onebook would provide access to all possible literature regardless of amount of books or how often the textbook will be used. It also would provide unlimited copies of each book. Bookstores do the best they can to anticipate the required volume of each textbook but they can’t stock their inventory perfectly. In many cases, if books are not purchased before or within the first week of school then students may be at a loss and have to acquire their books through alternative means. This setback wastes valuable time and money and is a huge inconvenience to the student. In addition, a physical copy of a textbook has many disadvantages. College textbooks are heavy and hard to carry around. Many students simply can’t fit all of their textbooks into their backpacks and must choose which class book to sacrifice that particular day. In particular, the University of Arizona is a largely spread-out campus. Students often walk several miles a day all over campus and having to carry around their cumbersome load of books only makes this feat that much more difficult. The amount of money that goes into textbooks is hardly justifiable as the return investment is rarely worth it. Most textbooks can be sold back for a great deal less than their original worth. In effect, the money spent on textbooks is a sunk cost.
Onebook is the way of the future. The majority of public systems have reached maximum effectiveness by integrating to online and textbook purchase and distribution should be no different. The ease of having a student’s textbooks all accessible on one lightweight device far outweighs any possible disadvantages. An online database can be accessed from any internet-inhibited device. Thus, students not only don’t have to physically carry all of their textbooks to class, but they don’t have to pack them whenever they leave the university for vacation. Bringing textbook while traveling is extremely troublesome. Textbooks can also get damaged or lost. While the device a student uses to access Onebook can be damaged, the site itself can never be lost.
Onebook would benefit the life of University students immensely but there are also certain advantages to the University itself. The initial cost of purchasing the licensing agreements would be made up to the University in the long run. The flat rate charged to students would be based off of an estimated average but calculated still so that the students benefit and the University still makes a profit as well. The bookstore would still be sustained off of revenue from campus merchandise and it would also have the chance to have an even wider variety of inventory selection. Onebook is an advantageous system to all parties involved. Publishers would be satisfied with the purchase of licensing agreements by the University. Students would be thrilled with the ease of having their books online and the saved cost. The University would benefit from the profit of the fair rate charged for access to the Onebook site.
OneBook will increase the overall efficiency of accessing information for education while also saving money. This product is good for the environment, a great tool for organization, and it simply makes life much easier for its users. OneBook provides a great deal of benefits for its customers; this product will help keep students and professors more organized, while also creating less work for its users. Because OneBook is a portal device, it will have a very good impact on the environment because this product will dramatically decrease the use of paper. The major attraction behind OneBook is that students will no longer have to carry a bunch of textbook across college campuses. Instead, every bit of text they will need to access will be on one device. This makes life for students and teachers much more convenient because everything they need can be accessed with the click of a button.
In addition to OneBook’s efficiency, this product is also financially very beneficial. This product will ultimately save students a great deal of money because they will not have to buy a bunch of new hard copies of text books for the next four years of their lives. Students will pay a fee for the product, but the overall expenses will eventually be much less because online versions of books are much cheaper.
OneBook will also be a great service to college campuses; universities will no longer have to buy and organize thousands of books. Most schools have a bookstore where they sell their textbooks. At the beginning of the semester, the bookstore is very crowded and hectic because all students are racing to get their books. It is quite often for students to not find a copy of the book they need for school, and they therefore typically have to order their books online. If OneBook were to exist, all students would be able to buy all the books they need without having to race to the bookstore and rely on luck and hope to get all of their books.
There are a number of groups and entities who would be responsible for bringing OneBook to students across the nation and the globe. The first step would be for Universities to figure out licensing deals with publishers and textbook companies. To make this a reality, the school and OneBook would be forced to pay steep startup costs. However, over time those startup costs would be negated because students fees would eventually make up for the initial start up costs of getting licensing deals with major textbook companies. Eventually over time the students paying the cheaper student fee would exceed the initial startup costs and the school could have a fund in which they could dip into for future textbook investments.
Another group who would play a large role in OneBooks success would be University IT departments. At the UofA that would be UITS. It would be important for them to set up netid and passwords for the OneBook program so that students could access their textbooks in the exact same fashion as accessing their D2L or Blackboard sites. Also the IT departments would be crucial in keeping the textbooks up to date and current so that students are always at the cutting edge of learning.
Lastly, the students would need to buy into the program. Talking with peers and other students of varied levels, OneBook seems like a good idea to them and something they could see themselves using. I think college students especially would be in favor of the cheaper costs of textbooks. Therefore I see no issue with getting student support for this product.
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