Faculty Stick with Print, But Doing Digital, Too

For the first time, more than half of faculty (56%) said they were very to extremely comfortable with using digital content for their courses. Even so, 19% rated their comfort level with digital materials at “slightly” to “not at all.” Not surprisingly, professors who teach online-only courses or who are in an inclusive access program were more likely to be at ease with digital course materials.

Comfort, however, is not the same as preference or actual usage. Faculty Watch turned up some interesting disparities.

When it comes to preference, despite their growing comfort, just 16% of faculty would rather adopt digital-only materials for their classes. But that figure is up from 10% a year ago, and 8% three years ago. A more telling statistic is the 49% of instructors who said they preferred some version of print materials (print only or print plus digital components). That’s a big drop from 60% last year and 70% the year before that.

So if a slight majority of faculty are comfy with digital, but not quite half still hanker for some kind of print, which format are they actually using in their courses? Both, as it turns out.

Some 86% of instructors used print materials for at least one class in 2018-19, compared to 88% last year and 93% for the 2015-16 academic year. At the same time, 53% of professors used digital e-books for at least one course, compared to 45% last year and 37% in 2015-16. Many faculty used both formats for the same course. Digital is clearly growing, but print isn’t fading away.

Instructors seem to be more aware of affordability in choosing course materials, with 80% assigning some kind of materials that students didn’t have to pay for directly. Of those, 31% (up from 25% the previous year) said the free materials replaced paid materials. Reducing costs for students was the primary reason for faculty who opted to utilize open educational resources (OER) for their classes.

Yet 35% of faculty also said they hadn’t participated in any affordability initiatives on their campus, and the No. 1 reason was that they didn’t know where to start or what to do. That might offer an opportunity for campus stores to build closer relationships with faculty by working together on affordability. About 55% of faculty described their relationship with the campus store as “transactional” and only 20% called it “supportive.”

The full survey report, Faculty Watch: Attitudes and Behaviors toward Course Materials 2018-19, provides data and analysis of professors’ preference and usage of print and digital formats, OER and other free materials, and inclusive access in the past year, along with trends over several years. The report also covers how faculty view their campus stores and whether they recommend the store to students.

Included with the report are data tables with cross-tabulations of responses showing breakouts by school size and type, professors’ years of experience, and other criteria. A digital copy of the report is $499, but it’s available for $199 to any NACS store/institutional member and $399 to any NACS affiliate. Go to OnCampus Research to order a copy. For details, contact Brittany Conley, research analyst, at bconley@nacs.org.