Princeton's Kindle pilot results highlight possibilities for paper reduction Princeton, N.J. -- Managers of Princeton University's semester-long pilot of the Amazon KindleDX electronic reader are calling the project a success, with results showing that student participants reduced the amount of paper they used to print course readings by almost 50 percent. However, e-readers must be significantly improved to have the same value in a teaching environment as traditional paper texts, participants said.

Students and faculty surveyed this month at the conclusion of the pilot expressed appreciation for the e-reader's portability -- and the fact that it almost eliminated the printing and photocopying they did for their pilot courses -- but they also said the ability to highlight directly on traditional text, to take notes and flip pages for ease in navigation suffers in the e-reader.

"With enhancements to their annotation capability, display of page numbers, and content organization, e-readers and related technologies may help contain and ultimately reduce the amount of printing done by students at Princeton and elsewhere," said Serge Goldstein, the University's associate chief information officer and director of Academic Services, who is one of the pilot project's managers.

"They may make it possible to eliminate paper as the primary medium for delivering textual materials to students," he said.

With hopes of assisting industry with the refinement of e-readers, and providing useful information to other academic institutions considering the devices, information and data from the one-time pilot have been compiled on an Office of Information Technology (OIT) website, www.princeton.edu/ereaderpilot.

Princeton launched its pilot in the fall to help determine if e-readers can reduce the use of paper at the University without adversely affecting the classroom experience. Fifty students in three courses agreed to participate in the voluntary project -- titled "Toward Print-Less and Paper-Less Courses: Pilot Amazon Kindle Program" -- managed by OIT and the Princeton University Library in cooperation with Amazon.

Labels: amazon, kindle

  ¶ posted by Jimmie Geddes, Editor @ 2/22/2010 11:51:00 AM