In the US, 80% of US schools use eBooks or digital textbooks (1). In a 2019 research study, 95% of students at two UK universities said that they “relied most heavily on ejournals for their study” (2).The average student might take one or two physical books out of the library to complete an essay or some research, with the rest of their study and the rest of their sources being conducted and found online. But setting simple online-ready versions of essays and books aside, eBook technology itself has had a positive impact on education and through this digital process education has been made more interactive and engaging.
The benefits of a simple online article, essay, or book are easy to outline. Instead of hauling several books of limited supply out of the library or having to spend all day and all night perusing the shelves for the right essay, students can, with only a few clicks, find any book desirable. These books can be word searched to find exact quotes, cited with ease (particularly in the case of reports found in journals), and viewed by many users at the same time.
But accessibility isn’t the only boon eBooks in education provide. Think of primary and secondary education. Much in the way the interactive whiteboard enhanced the visual learning aspect of teaching, eBooks help engage students from an early age. Interactive feature, multimedia functions, and more adaptive learning experiences: eBooks are used in education to make learning more fun and – more importantly – more effective.
There are, naturally, some issues with the use of eBook in education, all of which need rectifying before anyone can truly, wholeheartedly, recommend eBooks. First and foremost is usability. Most students will say that, whilst they use eBooks for the bulk of their sources, they prefer to have a physical book in front of them when it’s particularly important. The ability to quickly flip through a clearly bookmarked physical copy is one that has yet to be replicated with eBooks. This, combined with the fact that some studies suggest students learn less reading eBooks, the awful pricing models publishers use to deliver eBooks to teaching organizations, and the lack of standardization (as discussed in my last blog post), has prevented eBooks from becoming the dominant source of information education in schools and in higher education.
eBooks have proven to be extremely useful when used to educate. They have, in many ways, changed students experience with and of the library, and made studying and research easier by extension. But their use doesn’t come without some major issues, some of which will take serious innovation to overcome. Nevertheless, eBooks are, and will remain, a key tool in education for the foreseeable future.