UTD will be piloting a system for the spring 2008 semester that will allow students access to ISBN numbers and other useful information for the texts they need for their classes.
According to UTD professor Marilyn Kaplan, who has worked closely with Student Government (SG) and the provost's office on the project, SG has tried in the past to set up a system with the UTD Bookstore and Off Campus Books that would allow students to view ISBN numbers for required texts online, but was unable to find common ground with either bookstore to set up a feasible system to do so.
UTD's solution, according to Kaplan, is to use a system similar to WebCT that will allow professors to ensure their book orders are accurate and give students weeks of lead time to either order their books online or shop for the best price at traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores.
"Part of the problem with getting the UTD Bookstore and Off Campus Books to post ISBN numbers online is that a substantial number of faculty were not ordering their books accurately, so the bookstores needed to do additional work to find the correct text," Kaplan said.
The benefit of the new system, Kaplan said, is that once a professor enters the information on the selected book, it will return a photo of the cover, probably from an online bookseller like Amazon.com, which will allow professors to determine if they've ordered the correct text.
Professors also will be able to include notes on their book lists relating information to students such as "students may use any edition of this book," or "don't use the international edition," Kaplan said.
Kaplan said she wanted to stress that UTD is not creating its own online bookstore, but is merely creating a way for students to get accurate information about the books they are required to purchase.
The system will be tested in a pilot program this spring by professors on the faculty senate. According to Kaplan, if the test run is successful, the system would probably go campus-wide at a date yet to be determined.
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