emtilt

Is this data published (or to be published) anywhere in an actual study? Those sound nice, but it is hard to tell what they mean, if anything at all, without a comprehensive description of your methodology and statistical testing for significance against control.

And if you write your own, how do you feel about making it open source, like Princeton Election Consortium does?

This isn't really how an AMA works. You aren't supposed to just advertise your service; you are supposed to answer people's questions here.

I hate textbook gouging as much as you, but this doesn't capture some of the positive sides of the access code stuff. For example, I just taught a course in which I used one of Pearson's online tutorials/assignments packages (Pearson brands these "Mastering[Insertsubjecthere]," e.g., MasteringPhysics or MasteringAstronomy or MasteringBiology).

Instructors are not required to assign these at my university, and, indeed, most senior faculty do not (and these are the faculty you'd expect to be doing it out of laziness or the like). However, these interactive tutorials are actually fantastic ways of teaching difficult, abstract concepts while giving on-the-fly feedback to the students, and most of the younger instructors that are more aware of modern education techniques (and also put the most effort into their courses) use them because they demonstrably work when used correctly, even to the extent of being one of the most effecitve pieces of pedagogy even in very well-taught courses.

These are also things that a university instructor cannot make on his or her own, and cannot easily replace (like how, for example, a textbook might be replaced by custom course notes or the like). They require construction of graphical assets, web programming, and user testing over substantial periods of time. It also requires a centralized instructor interface, so I can see where my students are struggling, spending the most time, etc - I as the instructor get as much feedback on the student progress as the students do. A well-designed course in many subject areas should be using these sorts of things - along with many other types of teaching.

Personally, I hate Pearson's textbook that they market with the online part (I don't follow it at all), but the online part itself is exceedingly useful when used right. I have only taught in one subject in the physical sciences, so maybe it is more exploitative in other subjects, but the ones I use are much more than just pre-made online ways to implement laziness while charging money - they serve a purpose. Of course, they may still be overpriced (the one I use is $60 standalone or comes with a new textbook which is about $125), but I honestly don't know about that because I'm not sure what the development costs are like.

It's also worth mentioning that many of the instructors in my department survey the students about the various pedagogical tools used in the course once the course is ending, and the online components frequently rate among the students as the most useful part of the course, even when they started out annoyed at having to pay for it.

It should be noted that you are talking about a very narrow slice of astronomy. I, for example, do extragalactic astronomy and cosmology and have no geology background, and broadly speaking, most astronomers in the traditional sense do not.