What do you get when you cross an industry thats infamous for charging colleges universities outrageous rates with an industry thats notorious for charging students preposterous prices? You get the unholy marriage of the largest learning management system provider, Blackboard, and four of the largest commercial publishers of textbooks.

This alliance is borne of necessity. Few in academia really love Blackboard; it remains the dominant learning management system largely because it takes a lot of effort for institutions already doing a lot with it to migrate to a different system. Even though free alternatives like Moodle are available, which would save money in the long run, if you have to retrain your IT staff and faculty members, convert all the learning materials already present on your old system so that they can be imported into the new system, and do all these things within the short window of time that takes place between semesters, thats a major undertaking, and continuing to pay Blackboards licensing fees, however sizable, may be the path of least resistance.

Meanwhile commercial publishers have long lined their pockets by charging very high rates for textbooks, then making sure that students who have shelled out a hundred fifty dollars for a textbook cant make back some of their money by selling them to the next semester of students by releasing subtly different editions on a regular basis, even when nothing is significantly different in the material itself. Why do schools participate in this? Theres little incentive for them to pay a lot of attention to whats happening. Publishers know that impressing the school means a course full of students who have no choice but to buy the book full price, so they happily send instructors and department chairs free copies by the box, hoping to get their works on the list.

The thing is, even beyond all of that, faculty leaders should be wary of a closer relationship between learning management system providers and textbook publishers. These announced alliances will lead to textbook related content becoming more tightly integrated with online courses, and with the online part of courses that take place on campus. That may be convenient for instructors, but its not necessarily the most educational sound approach. Especially in an environment where instructors are more and more stretched for time, it becomes increasingly tempting to teach the textbook rather than teach the course. In other words, more and more instructors will simply go through the motions rather than do what it takes to add their own unique insights and experiences into the courses that students already pay way too much to take.

But thats only one view. What do you think? Is this simply a means by which everything becomes more and more efficient, a good thing for all? Leave your thoughts in a comment!

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