Hi folks
Appreciate your passion for improving equitable access to educational resources.
We are a very small, not-for-profit teachers’ association rather than a major commercial publisher like Jacaranda or Oxford. Our subjects (VCE Sociology, VCE Politics and 3-10 Civics) are very small, so we operate on a thin margin. We have eBook editions available for each of our textbooks at around $40 each (about as low as we can get away with).
With this in mind – could you please remove our textbooks and/or any copyrighted excerpts thereof from your site (atar.rocks)?
This includes…
VCE Politics
VCE Sociology
Let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers
Hi there,
Thank you for reaching out.
I love the work SEV is doing in supporting the teaching of Sociology and Politics for VCE, especially for being the only publisher providing resources for the subject. I also appreciate the competitive price being offered for digital texts.
I don't want my site to undermine the hard work being done, but rather for it to support the non-profit's mission and values.
I believe confidently that the loss of textbook sales from my site is very slim, while the potential for disadvantaged students to gain access to educational resources is very high. I know this is a strong claim to make, but my reasoning is very simple. I intentionally make decisions that distinguish students who are unable to purchase textbooks from those who are, helping to mitigate loss to authors.
Last year I took the textbooks offline during the end of year school holidays which is the main textbook buying period. Students would have no option but to buy their textbooks before school starts, and anyone remaining would be going without. When I made the textbooks accessible again, the disadvantaged students gained access to resources they otherwise wouldn't have had.
If these students were never going to purchase a copy, you wouldn't have lost revenue and a kid is no longer going without. Students from a low socioeconomic background are already at a disadvantage to their peers, and denying them access to resources only perpetuates this disadvantage.
From my understanding, SEV is a non-profit so most of the revenue produced from textbook sales would be rewarded to the authors and what remains is used to fund SEV's operations. This is in contrast to a business like Jacaranda where profits would be distributed upwards and author remuneration may not be as high.
SEV are the sole provider of Sociology textbooks for VCE and have no competition in this space. There's only an average of about 1.5k students enrolled in Sociology every year which is very low. However, if SEV are the only business operating in the market and they can produce a textbook that will sell to almost every student and teacher for four years straight, I expect SEV to be unscathed if some students access their textbook freely.
Regarding the SEV politics textbook hosted on atar.rocks, I don't think it is relevant as the quality of the file is very low. There isn't a single student capable of buying the textbook who will settle for a bad quality scan of the textbook without any bookmarks just to save some money. That file is really only accessed by desperate students who cannot afford a copy. Also, it was only uploaded in Nov 2023 and will no longer be relevant after 2024 following the study design change.
Having this file available could be seen as beneficial, the reach from my site helps promote SEV to more students and if they like the look of the textbook they can buy a usable copy. Similar to how some publishers (e.g. Jacaranda) show page proofs of their texts to students considering purchasing.
Here's an extract from SEV's advocacy page in response to government fee hikes. I think SEV share a mutual interest in supporting educational equity and the concerns expressed in this media release are similar to my own concerns for the removal of these SEV texts. The availability of these resources may align with SEV's values and mission.
This proposal is unfair because fee increases send an unacceptable price signal that discourages studying humanities and related courses, in turn penalising young people, particularly those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and communities traditionally under-represented in tertiary education.
Sorry this email ended up being so long. Hopefully that is reflective of my genuine interest and concern. Please follow up if you have any questions or complaints. SEV are a non-profit so I feel that removing these resources in the interest of the organisation's profit goes against non-profit ideology and isn't a very desirable outcome for either of us.
Many thanks.