If this should be under ethics then feel free to move it but hopefully james will see this because i would be very interested in his opinion. My question is: Is it ethical for a lecturer to set a book that they wrote as a required text for a class? My sister and i were discussing this today and there are 2 reasons i feel its really not ethical. The first is that its a conflict of intrests in that they are making money from the book\s and there for this has the apearance (at least) of there duty to the students who are either directly or indrectly paying for the course and there for there wages. The second is in my opinion the more serious problem, that is that they are restricting the breaths of the knowlage that a student is reciving. Say there are 2 set texts set for a subject. There for under normal conditions you would have three sources of knowlage because the lecturer is also surposed to be an expert in there topic. However if both the texts are written by the lecturer then you only have one source of infomation. for instance we had a lecturer who disagreed with some of the material that was written in the texts she had set. This ment that it was up to us to decide if we belived her or the texts or something compleatly different. However if she had written the book it and she probably would have just said nothing about the conflict.
Is it a good or a bad textbook. If it is a good one, and the author who has extensive knowledge of its content is my teacher, it would be great. I also doubt that the professor constrains his students to one source. There are research papers, and long lists of references usually.
If he wrote a book and is a professor, his opinion on the subject is valid. As valid or maybe moreso for that course, than the other books written by other professors not teaching that course. If he nominates only his own book that would be bias. However, if I am working with a professor who has written a book on a subject he is teaching me, it would be highly stupid if I did not reference it anyway.
A professor usually has far more knowledge of his subject than he can possibly share with his students in lectures. Therefore it is beneficial to augment the lectures with written material. The information transfer rate of reading is two, three or more times as fast as listening to speech. As to whether he can require students to pay for his book, thereby engaging in an indirect financial transaction with them, that's up to the policies of the university. Since the bookstore is getting their share of the proceeds, it's unlikely that they will complain. Writing academic books is not the road to riches, so don't feel put out that you're subsidizing his Ferrari while you're reading his book on the bus. It's not easy to peek behind the veil of the publishing industry, especially academic publishing, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's receiving far less than one dollar per copy.
FR i dont nessarly disagree but it does APEAR to be a conflict of interests. Take a made up example, there are god knows how many Anat & Phys books. If the lecturers name was to apear as the author for that book how can I have confidence that the lecturer has chosen that book on its merits, rather than the fact that either they wrote it or they are getting finantial gain out of it. As i said this is less important than the conflicts between the material and the lecturer. For instance in that paticular example the lecturer said that she didnt belive in chronic stress and anxiaty. Now stress and anxiaty are well documented and her arguments didnt really sway me that she was right. Should she had hid that conflict because she could set her own texts? I would say no, that conflict is important in science
If you're taking his class, you get his input. If you think he has no merit, you're wasting both your time. The way I see it, if I write a book on something I've researched and studied extensively, its only natural that I would refer to it as a teaching tool. Rather than someone's elses work. If I don't have more confidence in my own work then I should find another profession.
so you dont think there should be conflict in science? especially in area's like health psychology, sociology ect where resurch is more limited and opinions more prevelent?
I'm more than a little curious, Asguard, what "conflict" is it that you're so worried or concerned about? Is it just the monetary issue of him making money on the books that he "forces" the kids to buy? Or is it the issue of some conflicting opinions in the book itself? What's the conflict? Baron Max
i was talking about conflicting opinions. For instance lets look at the recent changes to the resus guidelines, it used to be 15:2 and now its 30:2 lets say for an example that the lecturer belives in the 15:2 (or the other way around, it doesnt matter). They use there own books, there for the difference between the 15:2 and the 30:2 is only presented from one angle. Now what if the conflict wasnt mentioned at all and it was just left that the ratio was 15:2 and thats it. How many uni students are that well plugged into the current lit themselves to know to look for resurch on the value of a change to 30:2 unless we know that conflict already exists? doesnt this sort of conflict define achademia in that view points are constantly being challanged? This isnt high school where teacher = god and its not tafe where the teacher has the skills to pass on, this is surposed to be university (ie RESURCH) based education
Now you're just talking about updated info used in the book, not using the book itself as a study aid/guide. The lecturer could correct that in any book, including his own, if the books aren't all updated. And remember, all textbooks are not always updated with current info ...not just this one book! No, that argument doesn't hold any water for me. Try another approach. Baron Max
no actually im not talking about how up to date certain info is, not all infomation is in the form of resurch sadly. Look at sociology or ethics where its based on opinion, should principles based ethics be taught at the exclusion of utility based? Or should marx be taught over durkhime? The wider the infomation sources, the wider the knowlage base. No one has all the infomation no matter how good they are. That goes both for lecturers and for authors. It also goes for real life. Hell one lecturer was pointing out to us this week that if you walk into recus every person there will have something they can teach you and you will have something you can teach every person there be them doctors, nurses or whatever else.
Yeah, but see ...now you're talking about the quality of the lecturer, NOT about the book. If one has a lousy professor, then the book is probably not going to matter much. If you have a good professor, then the book is only a guide and not the real source of info or knowledge. But either way, I still see no conflict due to the book itself. Baron Max
