YSU to hire e-textbook-center director

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

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Electronic textbooks provide a cheaper alternative for students, and Youngstown State University wants to offer assistance to professors in navigating the legal issues of developing them.

The university plans to fill a new position, director of the electronic- textbook center, to help accomplish that.

The Maag Library at YSU is among the first U.S. universities to initiate an electronic-textbook center.

“YSU is very much a pioneer,” said Paul Kobulnicky, executive director of the Maag Library.

Bege Bowers, associate provost, academic programs and planning, went a step further in her description at a board of trustees meeting earlier this month.

“Once someone is in the position, YSU will be among state and national leaders,” she said.

The center director would assist faculty who want to develop electronic texts.

“The whole electronic-textbook initiative is part of a larger initiative by the chancellor of higher education and the board of regents,” Kobulnicky said. “It was put forward as an attempt to reduce the costs of textbooks for students.”

The use of electronic textbooks is becoming more widespread.

Ann Koon, a spokeswoman for Eastern Gateway Community College, said four subject areas at that institution use e-textbooks.

Two business classes and one health-sciences course that are taught online use them as well as all developmental-math courses.

“This is part of the wholesale redesign of all develomental- education math courses that took place over the past year and implemented this fall,” Koon said in an e-mail.

EGCC is also redesigning its developmental-education English and reading courses, she said.

Issues of electronic textbooks have a lot to do with changing modalities of communication, Kobulnicky said.

YSU has been using computer-based systems to support higher education for a long time, Kobulnicky said. Through Blackboard, for example, professors may post information such as course syllabi and schedules, where students may access them.

“YSU is a student- centered organization,” he said. “One of the things we’re interested in is distance education and digital libraries and how they’ve affected the way we do instruction and the way students learn. The best way to do it is to offer faculty who are interested in doing those things some support — technical support, networking support.”

The reason textbooks are so expensive is that someone controls the copyright, Kobulnicky said.

“One of the big movements in teaching and research is called open content,” he said.

It allows others to use and reuse material created by another with some restrictions such as prohibitions against the use for profit.

The center director would understand creative-commons licenses, Kobulnicky said.

“It’s pretty standardized, but it would help if someone knows all about them,” he said. “Professors can have some support in applying appropriate kinds of copyright — so it’s usable but not infringeable.”

Mark Vopat, a professor in the philosophy and religious studies department at YSU, is the search-committee chairman.

He said a lot of universities are exploring such positions.

“There’s potentially a lot of savings to students,” Vopat said.

Open content enables material to be distributed freely with credit to the contributor.

The concept also must consider internal issues such as whether such material counts as published work and if it may count toward a professor’s securing tenure.