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Education

Will Digital Textbooks Tattle on Students Who Don’t Study?

Nov. 16, 2012 3:15pm Liz Klimas

CourseSmart Launches Beta Program That Analyzes Student Engagement Through Digital Textbooks

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

Students might have been able to lie their way around how much they’d studied to mom, dad and even teachers, but technology is changing all that. Electronic textbooks that are able to track how often a student cracks the digital pages could reveal just how much time they put in to preparing.

The Chronicles of Higher Education reported that the company CourseSmart, which sells e-textbooks, announced earlier this month a beta test of its analytics program, which would track student engagement. CourseSmart described the technology in its announcement as a “proprietary algorithm that evaluates standard usage data such as page views, time spent in a textbook, and notes and highlights taken by a student, and assimilates them into an overall assessment of students’ engagement with the material.”

Using this information, educators should be able to identify students who might need extra help before it gets to a point where grades start slipping.

“We have long believed in the benefits of analytics as a means to improve learning outcomes, increase retention and graduation rates, and help lower the costs of higher education,” Sean Devine, CEO of CourseSmart, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to bring these benefits to reality through our CourseSmart Engagement Score Technology™, which will provide faculty with meaningful metrics about students’ engagement with digital course materials so they can offer guidance to maximize student performance.”

The Chronicles of Higher Education asked the question we’re all thinking though: Isn’t it a bit creepy to have textbooks watching their users?

“Not if it helps you succeed,” Devine said. “We do understand the Big Brother aspects of it.”

Thankfully, Devine said an opt out feature is included for those not interested in data sharing.

Universities involved in the pilot program include Texas A&M, Villanova, and Rasmussen College.

Featured image via Shutterstock.com.

(H/T: Gizmodo)

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Comments (27)

ingeborg00
Posted on February 3, 2013 at 5:21am
Indeed, ebooks will do better to educate your child and as well as guidance from parents that will help the kids understand on what they are reading. Reading teaches alot and so with educational ebooks where you can get from http://bookboon.com/ for free. You can choose different ebooks according to your need in educating your kids properly.

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Twinspeedr
Posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:24am
Well, good morning Big Brother! What’s that? Yes, yes it is indeed a Brave New World here in Gattaca. Oh boy, it smells like my wife has some Soilent Green cooking downstairs for breakfast! Well, gotta’ go, we’re going for a run with our friend Logan later today…

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ClarityPlease
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 1:00pm
Their are a few things that bother me about this. 1. The company will want more money for the etext. 2. Then of course the university will need to pay for the server space. 3. No reference material on how it was decided on what constatutes effective learning. 4. Nothing indicated as to whether the teacher/instructer has influence over what is considered effective learning. 5. Nothing to indicate any direct feedback to the student by the book/software.
1 and 2 will drive up the cost of educations, 3 and 4 are scary because they can be used to drive learning to politicaly correct/social/radical (indoctornations) directions. Also no mention of any critical thinking education (sorely lacking in todays education). While the student can opt out, what happens when educators decide you have to opt in or you can not get a grade? What happens when you are studing the material in a way the instructor does not approve? Now 5 is important to me. I like to study things on my own and the feedback would be great. In order to be of use I would like to see as a student, 1 access to the information on reading device, 2 access to set the paramaters to what I consider and want to learn from the text. 3. Complete references to source materials and citations. This would facilitate better understanding of the materials and critical thinking. This would need to be built in without the need to go to a server. 4. Since would know info, you should be able to get college credit without taking cours

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- christianUSA
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 8:24pm
  Opinion considering that it only cost pennies to electronic duplicate a etext ebook is it not very strange that ebooks cost sometimes More or at least half as paper books! Corporate Common worker, earning far much less than professors, all intellectual works and rights claimed by company but government paid public college professors get double paid for their time; first supposively for class teaching, but some rarely show up, than for book royalties! These books commonly cost as much as tuition there by doubling the cost of college at the benefit of these few professors. Farther more modern text are filled with errors and useless social ideology garbage Having nothing to do with facts or subject matters, books often checked by grads but prof get all the pay and credit but grads blame; it not uncommon to find text contradicting it self within a single chapter. While it fair that cost of research be covered and to author receive some reasonable compensation currently it is a rip off we can not afford.
  
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Junter
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 5:57am
We already use something similar at my work for continued education. It’s not my style of learning as I prefer an instructor I can ask questions so I rarely use it. Oh and our supervisors regularly check up on us. Welcome to the future!

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Shoot2Stop
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 5:12am
Communists, and the other dictators of the world, are found of rewriting history to fit their agendas of the moment.

During the seventy year life of the Soviet Union it was a common practice to retouch photos and rewrite paragraphs, pages and chapters of the history books and send the errata sheets out to all the schools and libraries where they’d be taped over the original pages. People and events would simply disappear from history.

From Calvin Coolidge through George W. Bush – BO, and his minions have been editing the past president’s official biographies to insert ‘The-One’ in important events throughout history.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/15/President-Obama-White-House-biographies Plus some photos that I’m sure the Whitehouse is working on: http://obamainhistory.tumblr.com

With the advent of WiFi enabled E-readers tomorrow’s students will see history change right before their eyes. Think of the confusion that will be caused when a student turns back to a previously studied chapter, to verify something, only to find that chapter different from what he/she had originally read, or gone altogether.

.

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- glassaudioguy
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 11:27am
  As they used to say in the USSR- “The future was always known. It was the past that kept changing.”
  
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- chikonabike
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 2:04pm
  that’s EXACTLY what I was thinking. you read my mind.
  
  Report this comment
TeslanEdison
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 6:23pm
I remember hacking the first digital archives in my high-school, I wrote and added another Sonnet to Shakespeare archive complete with the proper meter and language. Won’t it be fun when the kids add to their text books or even better when Govt changes the texts on the fly to reflect the political ideology of the moment. I could imagine whole chapters vanishing… this was accomplished in the old days by the teacher saying we will not be covering chapters …. through…. I still read them all, and yep most of the time it was conservative info that was being left out, teachers trying to put students into the liberal democrat ideology through outrage, and disaffection,, now you probably won’t even see the chapters the teacher doesn’t deem fitting to their ideology. Smart parents should enable their children to access multiple text books and compare and contrast the fiction that some publishers create for the communists controlling public schools.

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- rickc34
  Posted on November 16, 2012 at 6:39pm
  How much will these books cost the taxpayers? You know a kid in college can’t afford them.
  
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christianUSA
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 5:24pm
Opinion while digital books can be a great learning tool this 1984 big brother control amounts to enforced indoctrination enslavement enabling liberal professors to fail all who do not comply; it is evil and unconstitutional infringement on privacy; what is next putting youth in chairs with they eyes forced open watching brainwashing videos? Socialist have forced great amounts of political ideology and lies into curriculums to twist Christians and others to their ideology it is sick but by this there will be no escape to get degree in coercolleges!

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- Female
  Posted on November 16, 2012 at 6:42pm
  Liberal Profs don’t use books, it requires work..they just talk alot
  
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JeffMT
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 4:41pm
It ought to be very interesting when this technology starts becoming standard fare at colleges and universities across the US. Then we will see what these mind numb liberal college students think about that.

You know, those kids who think they have it all figured out at age 18, 19, 20 and insist on voting for candidates who bring more government and more regulation into our lives. They seem to think that is great – now.

Let’s see what they think about it when they have Big Brother looking over their shoulder for many hours a day, every day and when their future then depends upon how responsive they are to Big Brother’s requirements in order to attain ‘academic success.’

So, as the cost of college tuition continues to skyrocket, the students will discover what they are really paying for is constant monitoring of their lives by the very technological world that most of them worship.

I can’t wait to watch this play out!

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- JeffMT
  Posted on November 16, 2012 at 5:05pm
  I’ll add this thought: Most college students need student loans to be able to attend college. Who now controls the entire student loan market? That’s right, the federal government.
  
  So, envision this, current and future college students: As a condition of obtaining a federal student loan, an applicant must agree to have her/his ‘study habits’ monitored electronically via these e-textbooks. If you refuse to agree to this, you do not get the loan money.
  
  In order to log on to the e-textbook, the student will have to use a mouse-like device that detects and records each specific student’s fingerprints for identification purposes. Then, the student will have to activate the computer’s built-in camera for facial recognition purposes, also to verify and record a student’s identification. Their ‘attendance’ can be monitored in real time or it can be recorded for future reference.
  
  These steps will prevent a student from ‘gaming the system’. And should a student get caught gaming the system anyway, they will be booted out of school, their student loans will be immediately due in full and they will be subject to possible federal prosecution for breach of contact and fraud, among other things.
  
  Some of you are saying, “Nah, this will never happen in America!” Ok – let’s wait and see. These liberal kids who voted for more government and regulation in their lives, they are about to get their way.
  
  Be careful what you wish for because you might just get
  
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fastfacts
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 4:37pm
Problem is, youth need something that interests them. They need something that will attract their eyes and are entertaining. Yes it shouldn’t have to be entertaining but it will effect them more efficiently if they have a reason to look at it and play it. I created a card game much like this. It takes the place of Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, and Magic: The Gathering and gives them a game that is widely enjoyed by all ages, parents like it, and it educates while entertains. Check it out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fastfacts/historical-conquest-card-game-of-the-future-and-th?ref=card

We need to use tools like this to win back the mind and hearts of the youth vote. Especially so we don’t get burdened with a President like Obama. We need to work to bring back the youth. What else can we do?

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 4:35pm
Maybe if they stopped trying to play mind games with educational material, it would be so easy to track success, even a cave man could do it?

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Rowgue
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 4:14pm
“Studying” is just the cryptic way to absolve teachers of actually having to teach and relegating them to evaluating how well the students are doing at teaching themelves.

Every year there is more and more homework assigned. Every year there is more and more emphasis on studying. Every year there are more proposals to lengthen the school year and school day. And every year our education system produces students dumber than the ones the year before.

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- TheBurningTruth
  Posted on November 16, 2012 at 5:04pm
  You’re so unbelievably wrong. Nobody gets “taught” anything, they LEARN it. Some people need less time with the material than others, but NOBODY get’s “taught” anything. That’s the big myth teachers have propagated and you have fallen into. Teachers are baby-sitters that are trying to force kids to learn.
  
  That is the biggest difference between high school and college: in college the profs provide the students with the material and expectations of what they have to LEARN and walk away. It is the student’s JOB to learn it. Of course, the belief is that those that go on to college actually understand this and really want their degree so they will be interested in and learn the material. Unfortunately, as we let people into college that have to business being there, they don’t bother to learn.
  
  People LEARN, they’re NOT TAUGHT.
  
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- JeffMT
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 5:42pm
  The Burning Truth:
  Huh? I read your post three times and I still have no idea what you are saying …
  
  The best guess I can make is that you are trying to claim that children are just presented the alphabet and they “learn” to pronounce the letters on their own. Then they learn to use those letters to form words on their own and they learn to use those words to form sentences on their own and etc. Really?
  
  The same is apparently true with numbers and math – they are just given the numbers and they just “Learn” the rest on their own.
  
  Where did you go to college where the professors just introduced the material and walked away? Just curious.
  
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taxpro4u03
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 4:13pm
‘Learning’ is the regurgitation on ‘standardized tests’ designed to ‘test’ one’s ability to TAKE and ‘pass’ a test. The ability to THINK (critical thinking) and APPLY what one KNOWS for sure that just ain’t so is the real world is, in fact the ‘test.’ In the digital world, we see more and more evidence of this at the highest levels — :-)

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- TheBurningTruth
  Posted on November 16, 2012 at 5:06pm
  One can’t THINK about something unless they’ve learned something about it first. You’ve got it entirely backward which is how the Progressive Liberals work. They think they can send high school failures into college and they’ll become the next Plato just because the attended the school (and not even the classes).
  
  Thinking without learning is like expecting your computer to generate results without a program.
  
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red_white_blue2
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 4:09pm
Whatever happened to engaging the child in class and using your educated gut to figure who needs more help? Tech can be gotten around, has pitfalls, and is not as reliable as instinct..ie-TSA vs Israel with profiling.
The technology is interesting but is merely and exercise in logistics more than it is measuring metrics of input and output.

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Individualism
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 3:50pm
What is great about any of the technology fields is that instead of writing tests, you actually do stuff as in projects and create something to show you know your stuff and for your own benefit and use. I like the hands on learning and the creation of stuff. stick with that and abandon lecture and test.

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Eastinfection
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 3:49pm
Homeschooling.

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RabidPatriot
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 3:32pm
They have something else that gauges studying, tests and grades.

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Zundfolge
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 3:31pm
Brilliant … so what they’re saying is that a student that can cobble together a halfway decent script (or download one off the internet) can look like a super student without ever studying.

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Gourdy
Posted on November 16, 2012 at 3:26pm
Students could game these feature so easily! The only reliable methods of gauging involvement are testing and in-class participation.

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