Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Self-destructing eBooks rile librarians

A publisher's new policy forces libraries to repurchase eBooks after 26 check-outs.

A move by publisher HarperCollins, which would cap eBook loans from public libraries at 26 check-outs before requiring the library to repurchase the eBook, has school and public librarians worried about how such a policy will affect strained library budgets.

The new policy comes after HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said it has “serious concerns that our previous eBook policy, selling eBooks to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging eBook ecosystem, hurt the growing eBook channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors.”

Libraries can lend out an eBook from the publisher 26 times—“a year of availability for titles with the highest demand, and much longer for other titles and core backlist,” according to a statement from HarperCollins—before the eBook will expire and vanish.…Read More

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Experts: Accusations could make students wary of for-profit colleges

Students claim they were misled by Kaplan University advisors.

Members of Congress likely won’t be swayed by the latest round of damaging personal accounts from former Kaplan University students released last week, but prospective students might exercise a bit more caution while researching online college offerings, industry experts said.

Change.org, a nonprofit organization specializing in web-based petitions, is publishing a series of personal stories from former students at Kaplan – one of the nation’s largest online institutions – who claim they were misled by the university and saddled with thousands in student loan debt.

The Change.org accounts are the latest in a string of charges claiming the fast-growing for-profit college industry has used unseemly recruiting practices and student loan tactics that lead students to a job that doesn’t pay enough to afford massive loan repayments.…Read More

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