Student Success and library-provided e-textbooks: initial results from a student survey

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries have been running a program for the past two years to offer unlimited-user e-texts of required course materials to students in classes where those texts are available for us to purchase with an institutional license. This program is called eCATs, an acronym for e-Course Assigned Texts. A survey was sent to students in courses where eCATs were available to assess the impact of the availability of the texts on student success as well as understand student practices in relation to textbook acquisition and usage. Some surprising results emerged regarding student definitions of success and the prevalence of piracy of e-textbooks. This poster presents a description of the program, a summary of the findings of the student survey, initial conclusions, and next steps.