Columbia Southern University (CSU) is committed to helping you achieve your goals through affordable education by offering a tuition that fits your budget and providing learning resources at no cost to you.
In an effort to improve and enhance learning, CSU is expanding the number of courses that do not have required textbooks. Integrated Learning Resources (ILR) courses contain library resources, labs, lectures, faculty created materials, and video presentations. Consequently, courses may have extended study guides or interactive material that will enhance your learning experience, and these resources can be printed if you desire.
ILR courses are similar to eTextbooks in that they offer a number of the same benefits that improve your educational experience. For example, the course materials are delivered within the course to your computer or other mobile device. As a result, you can access all of the resources through your course in Blackboard the day the course launches. Another benefit is that both eTextbooks and ILR courses are stored digitally, allowing the need to carry around large textbooks or book bags to be eliminated!
The most appealing attribute of these courses, however, is that the design of these courses can be more focused on the specific outcomes of the course, rather than writing to a textbook, which offers you the greatest opportunity to learn and grow in your discipline in a practical way.
Integrated resources in courses is not a new practice at CSU, however, you will begin to see more of your courses with these kind of materials.
Once again, thank you for your feedback and for choosing Columbia Southern University.
I understand the money side of this. However, being able to write in a book notes, highlight, etc. while reading and studying is an important part and is needed for most. Please understand and consider this. I would rather buy a book myself than be FORCED to use only the computer. Thank you.
I was thrilled with the etext in my current course for several reasons:
The highlight and notes feature
The ability to copy and use notes in a word document
A text to speech reader can be used to help when my eyes get tired of reading the screen
I could enlarge the print
The search feature worked well to locate a topic
I did not like it for the following reasons:
Once a topic was searched – if you closed the search pane – your highlighted search terms went pages away sometimes.
The program logged me out something like very half hour and I lost my place frequently (There needs to be a way to bookmark where you stop reading. I find myself rereading many pages.)
Over all I still think its better than a text. I look forward to its improving as we go along.
Hello, My name is Patty Cagle and I have some issues with the classes that don’t have a book. Some of us need to have the material for the class in front of us to understand what we are reading and writing. I know that we all learn in different ways and I was wondering if you could at least give us the option to get the books for the classes that don’t have any?
Thank you,
Patty Cagle
To solve the issue with the books I believe that it would be a good idea to give us the option of having the books for the class. We all have certain ways in which we retain information and for myself I can learn the materials better if I have the book in front of me. Plus trying to find your information online spending way to much time on one assignment, and then when you have found it you don’t have enough material to even do the assignment. They are a lot of us that rather have the books so we can do our best in our classes. Please take in consideration of giving us the option of having the books.
Thank you, Patty Cagle
Hey Patty!
Some courses will have the option of have a book or an ebook as well as other resources. Before enrolling in a class, you can find out about the material requirements and options.
Thank you very much for the information about the books. This is going to help So many of us.
For clarification, “In an effort to improve and enhance learning, CSU is expanding the number of courses that do not have required textbooks. Integrated Learning Resources (ILR) courses contain library resources, labs, lectures, faculty created materials, and video presentations. Consequently, courses may have extended study guides or interactive material that will enhance your learning experience, and these resources can be printed if you desire.”
Integrated Learning Resources (ILR) courses will not offer the option for a textbook or eTextbook.
I agree with Patty I learn best with a book that I have right in front of me. I also like to keep the books for future reference. I think there should be the option of book or e-book. However, I would like to see lectures as part of my classes; any class. Especially the business classes in my field of study HRM. I think that would be a nice addition to the learning experience.
I, like many others, would prefer to have a book (even an e-book) rather than dealing with the Integrated Learning Resources (ILR) courses. Unfortunately, I do not have internet access to do my required reading while at work and am extremely busy after work and on the weekend. This is compounded by often having difficulty in locating the required reading and often not being able to locate appropriate articles to use for the assignments. In order to work on my homework/required reading while at work I must print out the reading materials….a waste of paper, ink, wear and tear on my printer and a HUGE waste of time. I would definitely prefer the option to have a textbook (if not a by book grant then through the Loan-A-Book program). I have checked all of the courses required for my major and am disappointed to find that only three of the courses will have textbooks. I fear than by the time I get to those courses they will be changed to ILR courses. Based on my learning style, I am definitely having difficulty adjusting to the ILR courses and wish I had a choice.