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Horner floats e-book proposal

The Kobo, Kindle and iPad could all be used in the year ahead to lower the high cost of student textbooks, according to a plan from Alberta’s advanced education minister.

The Kobo, Kindle and iPad could all be used in the year ahead to lower the high cost of student textbooks, according to a plan from Alberta’s advanced education minister.

Doug Horner, who is also deputy premier and MLA for Spruce Grove–Sturgeon-St. Albert, unveiled his plan earlier this month and said the government hopes to bring together an online clearinghouse where students could download textbooks and course packs on to eReaders.

Horner said the plan is only in the early stages, but he believes it could be a great way to help lower the high cost of post-secondary education.

He said a lot of the technology is already in place it would just be about bringing it all together.

“Digitization of textbooks is not new, it is the ability of students to access them anywhere and a more standard textbook,” he said. “You pay probably half of what you would pay for in hardcover.”

Horner said beyond just building the technology he would like to see some use of standard textbooks across institutions in the province, especially for introductory courses.

He said this is something students are looking for to help with the high cost of education.

“It is something that the students and I have been talking about for a while.”

With the system being publicly funded, Horner said it made sense to try and find ways of reducing costs wherever they might be available.

“We fund our public post-secondary as a province and taxpayers do that, so our role is to try and get efficiencies and affordability for students, but at the same time we get efficiency and affordability for the taxpayer.”

Horner said it’s just an idea for now, but believes it is something worth working on this year, though he couldn’t say exactly when it might be up and running.

“The vision is there and everybody has a good grasp of the things we are trying to deal with and now we have to knock them off one by one,” he said. “You want it to be ready to launch when you are ready to launch and not push it faster because then it will crash.”

The need for eTextbooks is more pressing this year because of expected higher copyright fees that are expected to come into effect this year.

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