{"id":181135,"date":"2016-09-20T18:19:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T23:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/09\/20\/the-brave-new-world-of-technological-innovation-its-another-way-to-f-the-students\/"},"modified":"2016-09-20T18:19:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T23:19:00","slug":"the-brave-new-world-of-technological-innovation-its-another-way-to-f-the-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/09\/20\/the-brave-new-world-of-technological-innovation-its-another-way-to-f-the-students\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brave New World of Technological Innovation, It&#8217;s Another way to F%$# the Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Greg Mankiw, who teaches Economics 10 at Harvard has decided to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecrimson.com\/article\/2016\/9\/20\/mankiw-praises-online-textbook\/\">inflict an overpriced online license for course materials<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">For the first time, students in the College\u2019s introductory economics class must purchase a $132 access code to an online textbook and set of online materials\u2014a course requirement that many have criticized as making the class too expensive. But the course\u2019s professor and the textbook\u2019s author, N. Gregory Mankiw, said the new system is worth the pricetag. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When Greg Mankiw says that this is, &#8220;Worth the pricetag,&#8221; means that this makes him money, because, even if he cannot <b>directly<\/b> profit from Harvard sales, a standard setup at universities, it creates sales at <b>other<\/b> institutions, which <b>does<\/b> benefit him directly.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Students enrolled in Harvard&#8217;s introductory economics course must now purchase loose-leaf copies of N. Gregory Mankiw&#8217;s &#8216;Principles of Microeconomics&#8217; as well as a code to online materials.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Unlike in previous years, students in Economics 10: \u201cPrinciples of Economics,\u201d the foundational course for the Economics Department, cannot purchase used textbooks, which often offer a cheaper alternative to the new books. Instead, they must purchase access to the MindTap learning system, an online platform developed by the textbooks\u2019 publisher that includes test preparation materials, problem-sets, and quizzes for the course. An online copy of the textbook is included on MindTap\u2019s website, and students also receive a loose-leaf hard copy.<\/p>\n<p>The access will expire after 12 months, so students can not resell their textbooks, Mankiw said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>How convenient.<\/p>\n<p>The Douglas Adams phrase, &#8220;A bunch of mindless jerks who&#8217;ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,&#8221; seems an apt description of both Dr. Mankiw his fellow travellers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greg Mankiw, who teaches Economics 10 at Harvard has decided to inflict an overpriced online license for course materials: For the first time, students in the College\u2019s introductory economics class must purchase a $132 access code to an online textbook and set of online materials\u2014a course requirement that many have criticized as making the class &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[941,775,761,765,766,801],"class_list":["post-181135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-academe","tag-business","tag-corruption","tag-education","tag-evil","tag-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}