From a discussion that was very briefy kicked around tonight. I find undergraduate tertiary text books abysmal, at least in electrical engineering, and hearing from others it appears to be across the board.
I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc
sibeen said:
From a discussion that was very briefy kicked around tonight. I find undergraduate tertiary text books abysmal, at least in electrical engineering, and hearing from others it appears to be across the board.I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc
Huh?
Missy went through science/biology/genetics at Uni recently, and started an accounting course over the internet.
The textbooks for the accounting course are abysmal, not worth the paper they were printed on. Well, to be honest, they weren’t books at all, only lecture notes. Any connection between the lecture notes and the practice of accounting is tenuous at best.
When I had a looked through Missy’s University textbooks later, they seemed to be about a 50/50 mix of excellent and average. By average I mean contained nothing that I didn’t already know. Some of her University textbooks are superb, I was startled by how good one of her two geology textbooks is.
There is the perennial problem that some lecturers don’t read their own textbooks, and that the information in those textbooks bears no resemblance to the information in the lectures and the exams.
My sister has written a university textbook, on food science. It isn’t hardbound, or thick. OK, it’s more like a set of lecture notes, but I think it’s excellent. She wrote it because there weren’t any good textbooks about food science.
> I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc.
There are two radically different types of non-fiction books. One type, like the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics,, is what I call a reference book. When I need information I flip to the appropriate page and there it is, but I wouldn’t ever read it cover to cover (OK, I have, but I don’t recommend it). The other type I call the tutorial type, are intended only to be read cover to cover, and trying to find any information in them is impossible because facts on one page rely on definitions or equations on earlier pages, which in turn require definitions or equations from still earlier pages, etc.
It is exceedingly difficult to write a textbook that is a combination of both tutorial and reference types. They make the best textbooks.
And – there is a revolting tendency when one good textbook has appeared for other authors to copy it almost exactly and put their own name on it. The classic example is the “Mathematics for …” books. Most textbooks that have titles like “Mathematics for engineers”, “Mathematics for bioscience”, “Mathematics for neuroscientists”, “Mathematics for economists”, etc. are identical clones of each other.
Another problem is that textbooks go out of date but are never updated. I’ve noticed this mostly with high school textbooks, but the same applies to University undergrad textbooks. Particularly chemistry. When I went through high school in 1975 I was taught about the plumb pudding model of the atom, pipe clay triangles and litmus paper. Imagine my horror at finding them still being taught in high school some 35 years later.
There are disciplines where no good textbook has ever been written. The one that immediately springs to mind is not an undergraduate but a postgraduate subject – computational fluid dynamics. Up until at least 1990 when I stopped trying to find textbooks, there was no textbook that covered more than a fifth of the different techniques used, I had to rely on computer manuals.
How to improve it without being Draconian, ie, “White a textbook covering these topics or go to jail”? An out of the box possibility is that perhaps each textbook needs to be written by a committee. Shock, horror. By that I don’t mean every chapter written by a separate individual, like conference proceedings, far too many postgraduate textbooks are written that way, and mostly (but not always) they are very awful, being useful neither as a reference nor as a tutorial. What I mean is have a coordinator who has a thorough knowledge of both the history the most recent developments in the field of interest, such as a department head. He lays out the scope of the book, and edits the submissions down into a coherent whole. Have someone who is a knowledgeable top non-academic practitioner in the field who is able to remove from the scope topics that are of no practical current use. Commission world experts on the various components of the scope, preferably not too young, to write about them. Have a professional technical writer bash the language into shape. Then get everyone to review every part for the final version. Some industry reports from CSIRO were written that way, sort of.
The alternative is to get someone with a huge font of enthusiasm, experience, intelligence and writing ability to write the whole lot. The best textbooks I know were all written this way, I could easily name a dozen. But people with the ability to do this are exceedingly rare.
mollwollfumble said:
At the considerable risk of being seen to support an opinion of yours:
i think that you’re right. A good textbook, whether for university or elsewhere, is usually one in which the author’s love of and enjoyment of the book’s subject shine through. The flame of their enthusiasm can carry you along, lighting the way through the more difficult parts. But, as you say, people who have the necessary combination of talents are comparatively rare.
Unfortunately, some text books are written by people who are ‘eminent’ in a particular field, and who often seem more pre-occupied with demonstrating and maintaining that ‘eminence’ than with making their work useful to students.
mollwollfumble said:
At the considerable risk of being seen to support an opinion of yours:
i think that you’re right. A good textbook, whether for university or elsewhere, is usually one in which the author’s love of and enjoyment of the book’s subject shine through. The flame of their enthusiasm can carry you along, lighting the way through the more difficult parts. But, as you say, people who have the necessary combination of talents are comparatively rare.
Unfortunately, some text books are written by people who are ‘eminent’ in a particular field, and who often seem more pre-occupied with demonstrating and maintaining that ‘eminence’ than with making their work useful to students.
sibeen said:
From a discussion that was very briefy kicked around tonight. I find undergraduate tertiary text books abysmal, at least in electrical engineering, and hearing from others it appears to be across the board.I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc
To save money you can look for “free” online PDF versions of them.
My son whose in 3rd year civil engineering says most books aren’t even needed and hasn’t bought any since first year.
Cymek said:
sibeen said:
From a discussion that was very briefy kicked around tonight. I find undergraduate tertiary text books abysmal, at least in electrical engineering, and hearing from others it appears to be across the board.I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc
To save money you can look for “free” online PDF versions of them.
My son whose in 3rd year civil engineering says most books aren’t even needed and hasn’t bought any since first year.
Gosh, that must be affecting both the authors and the university bookshops. A decline in the sale of astronomically-priced textbooks must be showing up in the balance sheets and royalty payments.
Cymek said:
sibeen said:
From a discussion that was very briefy kicked around tonight. I find undergraduate tertiary text books abysmal, at least in electrical engineering, and hearing from others it appears to be across the board.I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc
To save money you can look for “free” online PDF versions of them.
My son whose in 3rd year civil engineering says most books aren’t even needed and hasn’t bought any since first year.
our lecturers have a varied approach.
Some rely heavily on the book, and use them as part of the ‘testing’ requirement.
Others just use them as weekly readings and either reiterate or expand on that information within the lecture.
Still others use them for weekly readings, background knowledge and not refer to them ever.. which seems lie the biggest waste of money when thy could use online refs.
of course we also have a lot of online refs as additional reading – which is why semester time sees me putting aside all other reading for pleasure so I can get the reading for the week done (I also make notes)
Printed notes are usually in the form of tutorial exercises with readings attached and ‘homework’ to have done before the tutes (although many people rarely do them before hand which usually leaves me chilling in class while others catch up)
the lecturers are varied as the text books are.
captain_spalding said:
Cymek said:
sibeen said:
From a discussion that was very briefy kicked around tonight. I find undergraduate tertiary text books abysmal, at least in electrical engineering, and hearing from others it appears to be across the board.I’d like thoughts on what could be improved, what’s wrong with the current system etc
To save money you can look for “free” online PDF versions of them.
My son whose in 3rd year civil engineering says most books aren’t even needed and hasn’t bought any since first year.Gosh, that must be affecting both the authors and the university bookshops. A decline in the sale of astronomically-priced textbooks must be showing up in the balance sheets and royalty payments.
we don’t get ‘free’ online PDF versions. Often part of the text is ‘free’ then they skip pages to make you buy the online version. But the advent of online bookselling would make a difference in uni bookshops and, of course, online swaps and onsells.
Arts said:
captain_spalding said:
Cymek said:To save money you can look for “free” online PDF versions of them.
My son whose in 3rd year civil engineering says most books aren’t even needed and hasn’t bought any since first year.Gosh, that must be affecting both the authors and the university bookshops. A decline in the sale of astronomically-priced textbooks must be showing up in the balance sheets and royalty payments.
we don’t get ‘free’ online PDF versions. Often part of the text is ‘free’ then they skip pages to make you buy the online version. But the advent of online bookselling would make a difference in uni bookshops and, of course, online swaps and onsells.
I am not sure if they are official PDF’s of the book or someone has put the effort in and scanned the entire book
My experience is the same as Arts’. Two of my tutors had written the textbooks. Being an online-only student, all my required readings were available online, but I had to buy the textbooks. I’ve kept a few, sold a few, and will probably sell a few more too.
Both my u’grad courses relied heavily on ‘Readings’ (material copied from textbooks, mostly) with an occasional journal, and exercises / examples of the lecturer’s own creation.
I was not particularly worried that the kids’ textbooks were out of date (in the STEM subjects) because they would go from January to December without ever being opened, and the books were sold on in mint condition for the next year’s kids to not use.
/* most books aren’t even needed and hasn’t bought any */
/* they would go from January to December without ever being opened */
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