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[SRG01]

This happens a lot in law, the humanities, or graduate studies simply because the resources for a certain topic may not actually exist outside of the professor's own works or a student's PhD thesis... so it's a little more justified.

However, for the sciences, it's a little scummy because there are literally hundreds of resources on any given topic.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Many times it is scummy, sometimes (usually in history and anthropology) the professor may be the only person to have extensively researched and written about a particular subject, or at least recently. Usually a professor's own book heralds a big change in the historiography of a subject. At least that is how it was the handful of times I got assigned a book by a professor.

 

[Bilix]

I think it depends.

I had a physics professor who used his own book for the class. In this case it was good because the book was really cheap and easily available as used on campus for even cheaper. Don't think he was much of a profit on the books or even at all.

At another university, I had a professor make a binder that contained Xerox copies of his power points mandatory for the class and it was slightly pricey at $40. So not only do you have to buy a regular textbook at the normal high prices that they are, you have to buy this useless pile of paper that could've easily been made available online and the professor was making a profit on it for sure.

Professors should be doing what they can to help students, not gouge them.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

I had a professor that required buying her economics book NEW. She arranged the adquisition herself so she knew who bought it new and who didn't. The oned who didn't were required to pay a fine of 3/4 the price because of "copyright". She's super rich.

I don't think that's how things work.

Has she heard of a library?

I was lucky, my discrete professor wrote his textbook with some other guys and gave us the download for free, and the option for a physical copy for $30. It was a great textbook too!

 

[Random Painted HIghway]

the positive thing about using the professors book is that you are likely to have a better idea of what is expected examwise than a prof that has to supplement the book with his or her own thoughts. My recollection is that my law school profs who used their own casebooks would donate the proceeds to shelters or back to the school.

Disclosure: my wife is a tenured prof with a book forthcoming (very niche), I couldn't tell you what the royalties are, but I would expect that we will donate the slim profits back to her university.

 

[SURGEdude]

Didn't mind as long as there are copies available in the library and the course is not structured in such a way that you need the book the entire time. I never bought a single new book after my first year at University

Yeah checked that, and also for used. None out there even on Amazon.

 

[Einbroch]

Pretentious but harmless.

 

[Facism]

I had a prof that not only assigned his own book, but used pages out of it for his projected presentations. You could get the whole book via ppt file from the unit page on the uni's net, week by week.

 

[SURGEdude]

This happens a lot in law, the humanities, or graduate studies simply because the resources for a certain topic may not actually exist outside of the professor's own works or a student's PhD thesis... so it's a little more justified.

However, for the sciences, it's a little scummy because there are literally hundreds of resources on any given topic.

There are a handful of books on the subject both older and newer. I can't obviously yet say for sure if they are better or worse. Thankfully the book is cheap.

 

[SteveWinwood]

I have two textbooks written by my teachers this semester. One put it up for free in some link, the other one said you didn't need it and if you really didn't want to buy it from the bookstore "it's out there on the internet".

I dunno seems like one of those case by case things.

 

[mclem]

We did use it extensively and in great detail. And since, when I took the course, the Second Edition had just come out, he also would award fun-size Mars bars for people who spotted printing errors and other mistakes!

 

[CMojicaAce]

I don't really care which textbooks professors choose to use if I can find them for cheaper online. Fuck those custom edition textbooks that are hundreds of dollars and can only be bought at the University.

 

[woolley]

I ran into this the first time last semester. My professor required to buy her book that was $45 and the only way to buy it was digitally from some website. Never used it and was never referenced in class, good thing I only buy books when I actually need them.

 

[Tesseract]

it's scummy but that's just the way it is

awgh yeagh

 

[Coconut]

Considering your instructor is meant to be an authority in whatever field they teach I'd hope they'd have faith in there book. The big problem would be if that was the only thing they referenced.

 

[p2535748]

My father wrote an economics text book, and it's one of the two major textbooks for that particular class. For years, he would assign the other one for exactly this reason. There were a few years, though, where he felt that the coverage of a particular facet was lacking in the other book, and so he switched to using his book for a time.

As a side note, when I took the class in college, the professor mentioned that they were explicitly using the other book because I was in the class. I'm still not sure if he was joking, but I did notice most other years they used my father's.

I would say about a third of my classes used some sort of book from the professor. Sometimes it sucked, and that was frustrating, but if the book is good, I don't really care who wrote it.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

It's sketchy.

I had a, funny enough, business ethics class where the instructor mandated that you buy his textbook. He would walk around and check each book to make sure it was the latest edition, and if you didn't have the correct edition, he made you leave the class and you weren't allowed back until you had it. He claims that it made it impossible to sync up during lectures if we had different editions.

Well, my brother had taken his class 5 years earlier than me. I compared his 4th edition to my 9th edition, and it was identical. Everything was exactly the same.

It pissed me off so much that I dropped his sorry little class, complained to the university, and when they didn't do anything I transferred. They have a business ethics professor just scamming the crap out of his students.

 

[teruterubozu]

I enjoyed my professor's book, plus we got plenty of insight into her methodology, research, problems, anecdotes, etc. It all depends on the prof, really.

 

[Dougald]

Yeah checked that, and also for used. None out there even on Amazon.

All of my lecturers actively ensured there were several copies available in the library. Those who don't are just cash grabbing

 

[Jorok Goldblade]

If they actually use the book, and it saves you from buying six other books that you only need for one chapter each, then I have no problem with it.

 

[Vermillion]

 

[Easy_D]

Had this happen once, but he was nice enough to bring a stack of books for everyone to be purchased at a pretty nice discount :lol. It was a good book though!

 

[pantsmith]

Not the same thing, but a buddy of mine put one of the graphic novels he had just written a paper on into his classes reading list. Makes for a better discussion to slip things the teacher is especially interested in, I think.

If anything, you at least know your teacher is super informed on the subject material, and qualified to teach it. Whether or not you agree with them is another thing entirely.

I had a, funny enough, business ethics class where the instructor mandated that you buy his textbook. He would walk around and check each book to make sure it was the latest edition, and if you didn't have the correct edition, he made you leave the class and you weren't allowed back until you had it. He claims that it made it impossible to sync up during lectures if we had different editions.

THAT is super shady.

 

[davepoobond]

Give your professor money or give it to some multi billion dollar publisher instead.

What about those ethics?

 

[ZackieChan]

I dunno. I had a course on The Third Reich and the Jews, taught by Saul Friedlander, a survivor of WWII, who wrote the one book we used for the course (among others). I mean, the guy was an expert in what he was teaching. The book provided more detail and context for his lectures. I had zero problems with it.

 

[Casimir]

I never bought a single one of the required reading books at my uni. Having to write a piece based on a professors book sounds super shady to me.

I took a look at a couple a friend bought and it was absurd, they were never needed to pass, everything we needed was in the course notes. No idea why they were assigned at all except to make a few quid.

Has anyone ever bought one of these and found it necessary for passing the module?

Yes. But they were usually more collections of otherwise obscure and untranslated primary and secondary sources. But those and most science texts I needed could also be found in the Library stacks.

 

[Risible]

I say this as someone who teaches at a college, albeit as an adjunct. The practice is horseshit. It's so fucking shady and self-serving and should not be allowed.

 

[mdubs]

If I was a university professor and had written books on the subject matter I was teaching you bet I would be having my students buy that book

 

[cyclonekruse]

Had a professor do that as well. Though to avoid the ethical issue, he said he arranged it so he got no money from the sale so long as it was purchased from the book store on campus. Supposedly, the book was cheaper there than anywhere else because of it. I never looked into it but I have no reason to doubt it.

The book itself was fine. No issues with it.

 

[ZackieChan]

I say this as someone who teaches at a college, albeit as an adjunct. The practice is horseshit. It's so fucking shady and self-serving and should not be allowed.

What if the book specifically discusses the course material (as in my previous post above), but provides more detail and context than a lecture could? How is that in any way shady?

 

[genjiZERO]

Eh, it's not big deal. It's probably more efficient for them to teach from especially if it's a textbook. Also, if textbook, they don't ever make any money off it.

 

[DUFFMCWALIN]

I always found it pretentious. Especially because the "books" were sold as printed pages hole-punched into a binder. Sometimes they were just loose pages sealed in plastic wrap and we'd be responsible for binding it. Said books could never be resold either. Ugh.

Holy shit I had the exact same thing happen to me. So stupid.