re: Textbooks
1. In two recent courses, I was required to use the online component, at very high cost.
2. Like others here, I found some content or answers incorrect. The tech was also very glitchy. Like others here, I found the publisher was unwilling to repair any of it; they seemed entirely unconcerned. In my case, the two teachers also didn’t give a crap about the content errors or impact on mark.
3. I was a small-time publisher. One day, I received a note explaining that a sociology textbook had published one of our articles, without our permission. After thousands were printed, the article’s owner was due $150, but that was payable only if x, y, z additional conditions could be met, which they couldn’t because too much time and [events] had passed. This is how textbooks are compiled?? We develop content and make it available for free, someone pastes it into a uni textbook, and the author is never paid? Gross.