MetaText offers Web-based versions of textbooks in liberal arts, science, math, and social sciences. A subsidiary of netLibrary, which delivers electronic book collections to libraries, MetaText has partnered with publishers like Houghton Mifflin and Jones and Bartlett to convert textbooks into digital format. Professors can annotate material and add links to relevant sites. Customers include Purdue University, Berry College, and Luzerne County Community College. XanEdu allows instructors to collate articles from journals, newspapers, and the ProQuest database to create course packs.
Students receive a special URL to access the pack online for the term.
The cost depends on the amount of material included. Participating institutions include George Washington University and Wellesley College. Kent Hodson, a biology professor at Santa Monica College, used Thinkwell last year to replace his Biology Life textbook and found that students learned faster and retained more from the CD than from traditional reading. He's decided to use Thinkwell for two more sections this spring. His students' major complaint was that it took too long to listen to the lectures.