As opposition mounts, SPARC has answers about what will happen if the second and third largest textbook publishers are allowed to merge.

Digital-first. Open source. Subscription. The way textbooks are bought and sold is changing—with serious implications for higher education.

Phil Hill's blog - making sense of EdTech, bringing together insights from people you can trust.

The biggest education company in the world is moving away from a production model that has been one of the main drivers in the rising cost of ...

Faculty and staff don’t often know how hard it is for students to get their course materials. Students choose whether and how to acquire textbooks.

Students who can't afford their course materials—along with a rogue professor—are taking on the system.

Arizona State University agreed this week to mount an independent investigation of a professor’s allegations that students were forced to pay for ...

Analysis commissioned by advocacy group documents how major companies' business strategies could help them lock up research and learning data that colleges and scholars need.

Late last week, an economics professor at Arizona State University sent an email to students that quickly went viral arguing that he is being ...

When an Arizona State professor accused the university of an unethical partnership with Cengage, the university denied it received grants from the company. But there was a financial relationship that

ASU officials have rebutted an economics professor's claims about unethical practices, but the school has changed course on some previous statements.

A college is accused of making it nearly impossible for students to opt out of a program that automatically bills them for textbooks -- a potential breach of government regulations.

Publisher Cengage has been accused of “trampling on its authors’ rights” in a class action suit filed in New York Monday. Textbook authors David Knox and Caroline Schacht are leading the lawsuit, which asserts that by adopting its Cengage Unlimited subscription model, the publisher has frustrated authors’ ability to collect royalties from sales of their textbooks and "wrongfully" and unilaterally changed the compensation structure for its authors. The authors say that receiving a cut of the subscription fee rather than a share of the revenue from the sale of their textbooks is a breach of their publishing agreement and will "substantially" reduce their royalties. The plaintiffs asked the court for compensation and to require Cengage to get authors' permission before including their works in the subscription package. David Slarskey, who is representing the authors, said they hoped the lawsuit would spur "deeper discussion" about the pros and cons of Cengage's subscription approach, which, he warned, could "completely transform" the incentives in textbook publishing by "pitting authors against each other in competing for their share of a fixed subscription fee base." In an emailed statement, Cengage said that it had “communicated clearly with our authors that the subscription service is consistent with the terms of their contracts, which we continue to honor” and accused the plaintiffs of seeking "to perpetuate a broken model of high costs and less access" for students.

Last May, major textbook publisher Pearson indicated it was mulling a sale of the U.S. portion of its K-12 business, which includes print and digital ...

Cengage has announced "Cengage Unlimited," which is being described in various outlets as the "Netflix" or "Spotify" of curricular materials. It's an all-you-can-eat digital subscription service to Cengage's complete catalog.

Hundreds of colleges are signing on to publishers’ programs, with apparent savings to students. Some applaud the movement, while others are skeptical.

AMHERST — After just three years on campus, the retail behemoth Amazon will end its run as the virtual textbook store for the University of Massachusetts Amherst.The company has decided that in December 2018 it will opt out of its five-year contract...

"Our books are too expensive!" "I know what'll fix it, DRM!" said nobody ever.

The company, known mainly as a bookstore operator, scores a potentially lucrative deal with the digital education consortium Unizin that could help it make its mark in the predictive analytics market.