Nine Universities Join E-Textbook Program

(Press Release) San Mateo, Calif., August 4, 2010—CourseSmart, the world’s largest digital course materials provider, today announced the first group of colleges and universities that have been selected to participate in the company’s Faculty Instant Access program. The program provides instructors with convenient, instant access to more than 90% of core higher education textbooks as eTextbooks from within the campus systems they use every day. The select higher education institutions, which are widely regarded as innovators, span a diverse array of public, private, four-year, two-year, large and small institutions across the U.S. including Arizona State University, Auburn University, Case Western Reserve University, LeTourneau University, Minnesota State University—Mankato, Savannah College of Art and Design, Texas A&M University, the University of Central Florida and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

These leading edge universities are taking advantage of the Faculty Instant Access program, as it is the first time ever that all instructors at a participating institution can have free, immediate, online access to the most popular textbooks available in North American higher education. The program will provide faculty members with seamless, immediate, single sign-on access to an ever-expanding library of digital content while connected to an institution’s Learning Management System or Campus Portal, creating a significantly more efficient way for them to find out about, access, evaluate, and use complete eTextbooks and other digital learning resources from the world’s leading academic publishers.

“Up to this point the task of assembling a set of texts and comparing coverage of materials has been tedious at best, and these costs to faculty have been one factor causing them to use the same material year after year. CourseSmart’s Faculty Instant Access Program allows faculty to easily compare texts across a broad set of providers, thereby introducing transparency into the course content decision, making it much easier to select the best material for students and to change rapidly when circumstances warrant,” said Dr. Philip Regier, Executive Vice Provost and Dean, ASU Online and Extended Campus.