Part of the original purpose of the eText/IPM initiative was to make required course materials more affordable for students. For its part, the College advertises a goal of 50% savings off of the cost of traditional textbooks. The total amount of savings varies from publisher to publisher, with ranges being cited as high as 35% of list price (i.e., 65% discount) to no, or almost no discount, over the course of the program. Total savings to students is a challenge to calculate because it is a partially theoretical exercise: assumptions have to be made about what IPM resources are being compared to so that a savings number can be calculated, but this may not necessarily reflect real world resource acquisition scenarios.

Choice

One of the main tensions between stakeholders revolves around the eText/IPM initiative’s effect on choice, specifically the choices involved in a student’s consideration of resource acquisition. Both faculty and institutional leadership are split on the question of choice: some argue that part of treating students as adult learners is giving them a choice on what course materials they purchase; others argue that the IPM’s removal of choice isn’t a compelling argument since students are aware of the mandatory course materials fees when enrolling in an eText/IPM program at the college. For their part, students are clear that the choice they are looking for is to be able to not purchase a resource through the IPM, though not necessarily because the resource may not be useful. Instead, students point to the availability of similar resources or the same resource through, for example, public libraries; or, the availability of the same information through Internet resources. Students and faculty especially noted other ways to acquire resources, including buying online and buying used, and how those were impossible with an IPM model. Used resources, they noted, already came at an appreciable discount, and as well, could retain some residual value and be resold—none of which is a consideration of IPM resources.

Access to course materials

In addition to lowering the cost of course materials, part of the motivation behind the IPM was to allow for a student to have immediate access to course materials through what essentially amounted to the College providing a loan to the student. In a non-IPM scenario, while tuition fees can be deferred or paid late, course materials costs presented a large upfront expenditure. This meant that if a student had restricted cashflow or their financial aid hadn’t yet arrived, they may not be able to purchase all of their required resources. Course materials charged as IPM fees, however, could be deferred, like tuition, to be paid later in a given semester. Some members of the institutional leadership believe this to be a key feature of the program, such that even if current state IPM were to be ceased, that other processes should be put in place to maintain this functionality. In a discussion with Algonquin College’s Financial Aid sector, it was cautioned that integrating course materials costs as compulsory fees and adding them to a student’s account may lead to more student encumbrance, i.e. a student having money owing to the College, which would negatively impact their ability to graduate.

Use of required resources

Though not necessarily the case, a major motivator behind the student push to retain control over the choice to acquire required resources is linked to the lack of use of required resources in some courses. Given the quality and availability of current data, it is difficult to tell how widespread a phenomenon this is, i.e. how often required resources are well-used (or not well used). Our exploratory analysis using the required resources score from the student course feedback survey yield no statistically significant difference in resource usage scores between IPM and non-IPM course. One interpretation of that result is that IPM resources are being used at least as well as non-IPM resources; similarly, there’s no evidence to suggest that they are more well used than their effectively optionally purchasable counterparts. For non-IPM courses, where students are free to make the choice to purchase a resource or not, the point is less important; because the IPM mandates the purchase of resources, this issue is critical. All stakeholder groups recognize the importance and impact of the issue, but students are the ones that are most directly affected by it, being forced to pay for resources that they say they get no value out of.