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[doctorblurg]

Yeah it's utter shit thankfully once I got further on in school that kind of shit became less common and all of my books were much much cheaper and there wasn't any access code trash. they really want to milk you for all your worth at the start in case you don't make it much farther.

 

[SummitAve]

I go to the largest public university in the country (ASU, woooo...) and literally every bit of fuckery in this topic I've experienced, and then some. It's terrible.

I just can't see how anyone could actually justify these practices if pressed.

 

[Ghazi]

Three of my courses have these codes, I try my best to avoid buying textbooks where they aren't needed but it's obviously impossible to avoid doing so in these cases. The best part is that the online homework requires a calculator but my higher level math courses do not permit the use of a calculator in class.

 

[n64coder]

I have a daughter who is a junior in HS so I guess I have two years to prepare for my wallet to get raped.

Only experienced those and silly clickers in intro classes.

So what do these clickers look like and they're only for the purpose of attendance?

I graduated from a very large public university in 2012, and I fortunately didn't run into any of this. I mean books were still mostly a ripoff but professors generally took that into consideration when developing their class and required cheaper alternatives instead. I would have chewed out any professor or department head willingly going along with this shit followed up by a trip to my student union to make a stand. It is unacceptable.

Which university did you graduate from? Are there any schools that do not use the practice of access codes/new editions of books/etc to make a concerted effort to keep costs down?

I've been going on college tours so I'll have to remember to ask people questions on this stuff to see what the university's practice is.

 

[Maxim726X]

For STEM classes, get the international version. It's a whole lot less.

For a lot of my STEM classes, this wasn't possible.

They'd either make a custom edition with HW that only that book had (which was school specific, and couldn't be returned) or they would just remove a piece of that textbook, add their own HW questions, and then sell that.

Oh, and HW would be worth 10% of your grade... Or it would be a bonus.

 

[Shaffield]

The departments/professors choose the books to be used. Complain to them. There's no one forcing them to use access codes.

Exactly. Any math professor assigning online-only homework is lazy and doing a great disservice to their students.

 

[platocplx]

I think its way beyond time this practice is big news like the epi-pen price gouging.

This is insane they are pulling that shit to people.

 

[gwarm01]

For STEM classes, get the international version. It's a whole lot less.

This is exactly what I did. I saved hundreds of dollars on my anatomy & physiology textbook and the only difference was it being printed in black and white.

I would also buy previous editions of the text if it was for something like chemistry where the big concepts won't change.

The online codes were a complete joke. Only the laziest, least motivated professors used them.

 

[Nestled_Grizzly]

I know the pain. I had to buy one this semester.

 

[Syncytia]

Luckily the only classes I had to do this crap was physics, chem, and ochem. Physics had like a $120 sub for a full year that gave you ebook which was fine. I'm fairly sure chem stuff was overpriced.

If you aren't in a huge lecture hall class, you shouldn't have to be doing this.

 

[Enduin]

By Junior and Senior year I was only buying like half my books and just bumming off other people when totally necessary. If not I could normally find them in the Library.

Thankfully History, Poli-Sci and Philo really didn't have much in the way of text books but just lots of smaller paper backs that went for a few bucks a piece on Amazon. At most I'd have like two books in a class that cost over $40 and may one books a semester that cost over $100.

 

[Loxley]

Thank Christ I (apparently) graduated before this was a thing That's incredibly fucked up.

 

[Ghazi]

I have a daughter who is a junior in HS so I guess I have two years to prepare for my wallet to get raped.



So what do these clickers look like and they're only for the purpose of attendance?

Attendance in large courses and to ask questions for a grade in said classes.

 

[N.Domixis]

Fortunately for me I stopped having these once I hit higher classes.

I haven't bought or rented since.

Everyone I know just searches for PDFs. Which is illegal.

 

[Smokey_Run]

So what do these clickers look like and they're only for the purpose of attendance?
.

It's a very basic looking remote with like 6 buttons, at least the one I had to buy in my last semester of college. A,B,C,D and a button to connect or whatever to the program running in the room. I was only asked one question a class, but your response counted as your attendance.

The worst part is the coolest adjunct professor I had was the one who implemented it. She was super cool and her classes were super easy, so a lot kids took them. She had an attendance problem and thought it would help. She later apologized cause she barely ended up using the damn thing. However, out of all of the professors I had, she was certainly at the top for actually trying to make a connection with her students and trying to help kids outside of the classroom.

 

[SexyFish]

So what do these clickers look like and they're only for the purpose of attendance?

These are the newer models. Can be used for attendance but most of my classes use it for quizzes/extra credit.

I personally haven't been screwed by access codes yet. Most of the time I'll purchase the access code separately and see if it comes with an ebook. If it doesn't, I'll just purchase an access code from the site and pick up a used book on Amazon if the book is necessary.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

The departments/professors choose the books to be used. Complain to them. There's no one forcing them to use access codes.

It's kind of cute how you're pretending like every major university in the U.S. isn't in bed with Pearson and forces the departments to use access codes.

This shit goes way deeper than individual professors or specific departments.

Exactly. Any math professor assigning online-only homework is lazy and doing a great disservice to their students.

Again, not really accurate. Our department, for example, would need to hire another 30 tenured faculty members to teach the courses that we offer. Since that's definitely not happening (I wish it would, but that's just not going to happen), we use graduate students to teach. As a department, we aren't going to just let grad students run these courses though, especially since they have their own workloads (typically, each grad student has about 150-160 students per semester).

That's not getting done without online homework. So the options are:
1) Hire a ton more professors (too many for any budget).
2) Let grad students run the courses on paper (either they never assign homework or they fail their own classes; this is all assuming they even do a proper job, which is not guaranteed).
3) Online homework.

I feel like most posters are arguing from the position of students and not really thinking about why these things are like this. And I can only laugh when people go to conspiracies; if Pearson was offering a kickback, I missed the memo.

 

[Africanus]

I just entered college for the first time.

Already have to deal with buying access codes for math and spanish 😦

 

[Mattlikewhoa]

Last year I had to buy a subscription to an app that took ATTENDANCE. He'd put a code on the front room and we would have to open the app up and plug it in or we were considered absent and attendance was 10%. It was like $36 just to take your attendance.

Holy shit!

Seriously has to be the worst cash grab I've ever heard about...

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Holy shit!

Seriously has to be the worst cash grab I've ever heard about...

Better than clickers which can cost even more.

 

[pdog128]

My school has almost completely outlawed codes. We won't allow instructors to require them at all, except in certain circumstances.

That being said, blame the publishers not the schools. Most publishers don't leave you any option anymore. Most of the online resources they used to allow access to for free, are now behind a paywall. It it indeed fucked. Thankfully, most of my courses have older, archived resources that are still up for free.

 

[ethanny2]

they usually have an option to let u buy the code online without the book, its not cheap but ita cheaper... After that get the PDF online, I already pay tution and all ur fking fees (student happiness fee?
really smh ) so yea it does feel unfair

 

[n64coder]

Again, not really accurate. Our department, for example, would need to hire another 30 tenured faculty members to teach the courses that we offer.

When did your department start this practice? What has changed that you now need to have online access codes?

Are you offering more courses than before?
Enrollment has increased but the budget has not?
Faculty staff was laid off?

When I went to school, the only time graduate students were involved was to help with the recitation classes. These were smaller classes (30 students) in conjunction with the twice weekly lecture classes taught by the professor.

 

[Chaos]

Can someone explain this a little more? What do the access codes do? I don't understand how a textbook can use an access code or how that is being used for class.

Pear$on are the worst for this, there books are normally twice the price of a book with simliar topic and it has drm in the form of an access code.

An example is a book that teaches programming, you need the access code to download the source code to work through the examples in the book. A new tactic that is being used is to not put some chapters in the book and you need to go online to read them which requres the code from the book. After a year the code expires.

I wont buy any of there books again.

 

[ezrarh]

Extortion by private companies that own a large segment of the market. You can't participate in this economy unless you have a degree. You can't get a degree until you pony up all this cash for things that shouldn't cost that much.

 

[shoreu]

I work at Pearson and I feel bad.

Demon lol

 

[Zeusy]

luckily i have none for this semester but last semester alone i think i spent $200 alone just for the fucking codes for 3 classes. I hate them with a passion.