<p>Many of you mention that content doesn’t change that much in 2-3 years in most disciplines and that’s probably true. However, I had an interesting discussion with one of my publisher reps today about access to instructor resources and the modification of end of chapter material in textbooks today. She said they make an effort to alter the homework with new editions because the instructor resource downloads for solutions manuals and test banks get out into the mainstream and students find it easier to get access now than in the “old days” when these resources were only distributed in print form. This discussion came about because I’m doing a professional development about cheating with a colleague on Friday and it’s amazing the efforts that some students will put into cheating instead of learning the course content. Now that these things are out in digital form, they are much more easily shared.</p>
<p>The development costs of test banks, solutions manuals, and other resources are another part of the fixed costs associated with textbooks that I mentioned in an earlier post that may not be immediately obvious.</p>