E-Readers in Higher Education in Universities – Various studies using Kindle DX

Higher Education institutions and Universities have always been forefront in adoption of technology particularly digital technologies like the personal computers, internet, open source technologies, software applications, etc in teaching, libraries and knowledge management. One such adoption in the past few years has been the adoption of e-readers like Amazon Kindle (No Color & Touch), Barnes & Noble Nook (Color & Touch) and Apple iPad (Color & Touch). E-Readers from Amazon (Kindle) launched in November 2007 & Barnes & Noble (Nook) launched in October 2009 have revolutionized the e-reader market as they provided users with unique reading experience supported by the availability of digital content like e books in various subjects like fiction and non fiction including textbooks. The availability of eBooks through Amazon Store and Barnes & Noble Store at fairly lower prices, easy to buy and download fueled the sales of e-readers and millions of devices were sold. Most of the devices initially sold for leisure reading for entertainment and knowledge but slowly these devices found their way into academics for students and faculties. Students and faculties have to read other books along with textbooks as part of curriculums like management graduates have to read business management related books which helped drive e-reader usage.

Many universities particularly in US had adopted the e readers like Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook on an experimental basis and have studied various implications of them on the students, faculties and their performance. Kindle & Nook had significant amount digital content available due to the Amazon store & Barnes & Noble store access respectively for the devices but Kindle did not have text books in digital format available on the store and Nook had significant amount of e-textbooks available and had significant revenue from e-text book sales. Despite the lack of e-textbooks on Amazon store other related books other than textbooks that were part of curriculum were available which fueled the use of kindle in academic circles. Students liked reading books on both the devices due to the E Ink pearl technology that allows the reader read comfortable in day light too, easy to carry with very less weight, etc but also had problems like the lack of colors and the difficulties in navigation, browsing, bookmarking and taking notes. Students felt the device needed more advanced technology features like touch screen, more educational applications that allow taking notes, interactive sharing, visual enhancement of charts and diagrams, ease of use, powerful browsers, input problems like typing and search capabilities, etc on the e readers.

Princeton University conducted a pilot program using electronic readers (e-readers) in a classroom setting in 2009 that involved 3 faculty members and 51 students and the e-reader used was the Amazon Kindle DX. Findings of the study were class room experience for both the faculties and students was some what worse initially as e-readers were a complete change from the traditional ways of reading, learning and lifetime habits have to be altered for adopting to the new device, less paper was used as printing was some what reduced, but the users have adopted to the device and liked reading on the Kindle DX but with a serious drawback in terms of “writing” tools like annotation tools, pagination, content organization which ultimately fell short of more paper like or book like user experience. Students also find it difficult to use in the classroom discussions as they were not able to share and collate with each other, navigation within the books was slow and troublesome, lack of functionality like touch and color screen and particularly note taking capability which is essential was difficult. But students liked reading on the Kindle DX as it was easy to carry and its non reflective screen and ink technology provided comfortable reading for long hours.

Kindle DX was distributed to a group of students at seven universities in United States in a classroom pilot program for the electronic reader. The seven universities included two business schools Foster and Darden Business School, University of Washington, Arizona State University, Case Western University, Pace University, Reed College. The results of the findings included students felt that Kindle was not a proper replacement to textbooks, totally suitable to the classroom environments, and device had functional issues in terms of slow browser, navigation problems within the books and device, storage folders and file management system, sharing & communication problems. Students’ major complaint was problems in note taking, unable to view properly graphs, images, lack of color and touch screens, etc on the device which forced them to either abandon the device totally or use papers and laptops for making the notes and references. Students actively participate in group and focus group discussions in the classrooms on daily basis and e-readers were not helpful in these discussions as they were not able to share, compare and collate each others views and notes using these devices. E-Readers lack of ability in terms of communication with one another between the students and between students and faculties or teachers is one of the major concerns for e-readers.

There is a difference between the reading for leisure and entertainment purpose and reading by students and faculties in academics. Even the way one reads a particular type of literature varies as reading a fiction novel leisurely where the text generally advances linearly and is different from reading a textbook studies and research purposes involves a lot of browsing, glancing, seeking and re-reading. One does not take notes, highlight sentences, check references when reading fiction novels but all these are regularly done while reading textbooks by students and faculties. E-readers should provide the functionality on the devices or else as evident in the studies students and faculties will abandon the devices. Internet Browsing, email checking, videos watching and other such functionalities should be there on the device as per user choice but the device makers should focus more on improving the reader experience, ability to download more digital content at affordable prices, easy to use, low cost and ability to learn more easily with the device. Teachers in schools and faculties in universities are looking for applications that will help them design their own courses, make the learning more interactive, visually appealing to students, easy to share and instantly test the students understanding by evaluating their feedback.

Along with the higher education institutes like universities and schools, e-readers makers also found support from the governments. US government has recently announced that school systems nationwide to replace textbooks with e-readers, like iPads, Kindles and Nooks and intends to but more e-readers and expects that every American student will have an e-reader by 2017. Governments see significant cost savings in terms of printed textbooks costs and believe that e-readers are more cost effective means for both universities and schools. Government is also encouraging the textbook publishers and University presses to publish more eBooks in formats that are accessible for students using any type of device like iPad, kindle, nooks or any e-readers. Most of the publishers and university presses are seeing significant part of the revenues coming from the sales of eBooks and digital content and are seeing fall in sales of hard covers and printed textbooks. E-textbook sales highlight the fact that students are also adapting to the eBooks and are comfortable in reading them. Since the usage of the e-readers are being encouraged  in the schools for the children the future generations will be well versed with the e-reader usage and by the time they reach the universities they wish to have most of the curriculum available on the e-readers.

E-Readers vendors like Amazon took more than a year to launch the new Kindle Fire in September 2011 which is a tablet with multi touch display and runs on Google Android Operating system and the device included access to Amazon App store that has applications for note takings, pdf readers, office applications, etc that drastically increases the device functionality. The latest version of e-readers have added most of the functionality that students and faculties wished to have on their e-readers for them use it effectively in their academic learning. Kindle Fire has been well received as evident in sales of millions of units during the holiday season in 2011 and the continued good sales in the first quarter in 2012. Even Apple launched its updated version of iBooks2, iTunes U and other education related apps like iBooks Author and tied up with educational text book publishers in January 2012. Apple has strongly placed its iPad 2 tablet as a strong player in the e-reader segment and is planning to push it into the education sector into schools and Universities. Apple also was running its iPad pilot programs in various schools and universities in US and with positive response has launched more education applications. But one of the major concerns is that the e-readers are tied totally to the device maker’s stores and access and distribution of the content is tightly controlled and users cannot share eBooks freely between them. Purchasing programs are also not user friendly as students and governments have tighter budgets and they need specific discounts and pricing particularly for the textbooks.

Both Students and faculties in universities and teachers in schools should be comfortable with the e-reader and have complete understanding of the functionality of the e-reader so that the device can be effectively used in the classroom environment. Faculties and teachers should be able to develop the course content and presentation materials for the classroom easily without any hassles and students should be able to access all the course materials easily, buy the necessary books easily at fair prices and use them effectively in their learning. The E-readers definitely have the capability to address the above said needs but the device makers should provide the device at a reasonable cost, provide the necessary digital content again at affordable prices and work closely with the users to further improve the device in terms of reader’s experience. There will be tough competition from tablet computers but the market for e-readers will be there in near future as the universities, schools and education sector will try to adopt the device due to its core functionality of ease in reading and learning. The fact is e-readers should not try to replace the laptops/desktops which are more productivity devices but make e-readers as good learning devices with excellent output for the users.