Thanks to a $300,000 grant from the Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, The University of Wisconsin is creating a new e-textbook that will give professors greater control of what their teaching while saving students money. As the program stands now, certain classes are already seeing book prices drop to as low as $15, down 500% in some cases.

          M. Ryan Haley, an associate professor of economics at the University likes the idea. He sees it as an opportunity for professors to meld their specific teaching styles and techniques with amendable textbooks - so they can better serve their students. Each professor can now leave room for their colleagues to add or subtract from their previous work to suit the needs of specific classes, making the learning experience much more effective.

        The benefits of this resource do not stop at the department’s edge. Mr. Haley says that professors from other departments that generally share students with his department can also provide content. This creates a mechanism where different disciplines can now work together to improve the overall learning experience. The program has also included measures for quality control, ensuring that standards of e-text books match up with those of traditional books by involving both internal and external review.

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