Jochen Wirtz is pleased to describe himself as a best-selling writer. He has co-authored a textbook on services marketing that he not only uses as professor at the National University of Singapore Business School, but which has sold more than 700,000 copies.

约亨•维尔茨(Jochen Wirtz)乐于称自己为畅销书作家。他与人合著了一本服务营销的教科书，在自己的课上（他是新加坡国立大学商学院(National University of Singapore Business School)教授）使用，不仅如此，这本书已经卖出了逾70万本。

However, he was so troubled by the $263 list price set for the last edition released in 2010 that he resolved to find a cheaper way to get the book made.

然而，这本书2010年发行的上一版标价263美元，这让他十分困扰，他决心找到办法让这本书更便宜。

Last month he released an updated hardback version selling for $118 and a paperback for $50.86, having found a new locally based publisher.

在找到一家当地出版商以后，他的著作上个月发行了新版本，精装本售价118美元，平装本售价50.86美元。

“When students are having to pay over $200 for a book, it impedes learning,” Professor Wirtz says.

“如果学生们不得不花费超过200美元的价格来买一本书，这会阻碍学习，”维尔茨教授说。

He notes that he makes minimal amounts from writing textbooks. Most of his income comes from teaching, so the lower price makes little difference to him. “For me as an author it is more important that the book is being used.”

他指出，他从撰写教科书中得到的收入很少。他的大部分收入来自于教书，因此书价降低对他没有什么影响。“对作者来说，有人使用这本书更重要。”

The rising prices of textbooks appears to be reaching a tipping point, the professor adds. The latest US Census Bureau statistics show that textbook prices increased more than 800 per cent from 1978 to 2014, more than triple the cost of inflation and more than the rate of increase of college tuition.

维尔茨教授补充道，教科书不断上涨的价格似乎即将到达临界点。根据美国人口普查局(US Census Bureau)的最新数据，从1978年到2014年，教科书价格上涨幅度超过800%，是通胀速度的3倍多，超过了大学学费的增速。

Concern that prices are now just too high is pushing both academics and business schools to seek alternative methods for getting material into students’ hands.

考虑到教科书价格现在已经太高，学者和商学院正在寻求让学生们获得课程材料的替代办法。

MBA course organisers at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management have made a policy of replacing “wherever possible” paper textbooks with electronic versions, which only contain the chapters that will be necessary for the students. To facilitate this, all Desautels’ MBA students are issued with an iPad during their orientation.

麦吉尔大学(McGill University)德索泰尔商学院(Desautels Faculty of Management)的MBA课程组织者制定了一项政策，“尽可能”用电子版教材替代纸质教材（电子版教材中只包含学员需要使用的章节）。为了方便起见，德索泰尔商学院会在迎新过程中给所有MBA学员发放一部iPad。

At Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management, use of books on the masters courses has been replaced with digital case studies and articles are available through the school’s university library, which pays for the copyrights. As a result, students will not have to pay extra for the material.

在伊拉斯谟大学(Erasmus University)鹿特丹管理学院(Rotterdam School of Management)，硕士课程已不再使用纸质课本，而是改用电子案例研究和该院图书馆中已付版权费的文章来教学。这样一来，学员就无需为教材额外付费。

In 2009, HEC Paris became one of the first higher education institutions to start offering reading material, alongside videos and other online content, through Apple’s iTunes U network.

2009年，法国巴黎高等商学院(HEC Paris)成为第一家通过苹果(Apple)iTunes U提供阅读材料、视频和其他在线内容的高等教育机构。

That year the school also issued about 500 iPads to students to encourage them to experiment with accessing the material. It has since switched to putting the material on its learning management system, which can be used on any tablet device or mobile phone.

同年，该校也向学员发放了约500台iPad，以鼓励他们试着获取材料。后来，该校又转为将材料放在可在任何平板设备或者手机上使用的学习管理系统上。

Going online has encouraged students to look further afield for information that can support their studies, according to Karine Le Joly, HEC’s director of innovation for executive education.

巴黎高商高管教育创新主任卡里纳•勒若利(Karine Le Joly)表示，转向线上鼓励了学员去探索更多可能有助于他们学习的资料。

“It changes the behaviour of learners because they now have access to a wealth of information,” she says. “It then becomes part of our role as educators to incorporate this information into the teaching we provide.”

“这改变了学习者的行为，因为他们现在有机会获得丰富的信息，”她说，“因此，将这些信息纳入我们所提供的教育中，就变成我们教育者的职责的一部分。”

Although Ms Le Joly believes the technology has enhanced teaching at HEC, she admits demand for the textbooks has not dried up just because the information is available online. “Students still prefer to have the paper version,” she says.

尽管勒若利相信技术加强了巴黎高商的教学，她承认，可以通过网络获取信息，并未使对教科书的需求消失。“学员们依然更倾向于拥有纸质版本，”她说。

Lillian Cheng, adjunct lecturer at the NUS Business School and a marketing consultant, is preparing a case study on textbook pricing. She likens the academic publishing market to that of prescription pharmaceuticals, where the person prescribing the use of the product does not incur the cost of usage and the person using the product is left bearing the captive prices or not reaping the benefit of the product.

新加坡国立大学商学院兼任讲师、营销咨询师Lillian Cheng正在准备一个有关教科书定价的案例研究。她将学术出版市场与处方药市场相比：开处方的人并不承担使用成本，而使用产品的人或者是承担他们无权选择的价格，或者是没有从产品获得益处。

The problem with challenging the status quo in textbook publishing is that students are already learning to pass exams without paying for textbooks, she says.

挑战教科书出版现状的一个问题是，她说，学员们已经在学习如何不花钱买课本就通过考试。

Kent Monroe, a pricing expert and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, claims that academic books have risen above the “acceptable price range” such that most students now find alternative ways to access texts.

伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-尚佩恩分校(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)荣誉教授、定价问题专家肯特•门罗(Kent Monroe)主张，学术书籍的价格已经超出“可接受的范围”，以至于大多数学生现在都在寻找获取课本的替代办法。

“The problem then becomes that the individual student becomes less interested in learning because of the cost,” he says.

“因此问题就变成学生因成本太高而减弱了学习的兴趣，”他说。

Some unofficial disruption of the textbook market has been going on for years, Prof Monroe notes. “You hear bookstore owners say they know when an exam is coming up because they see students reading the books in the aisles of their shops then putting them back on the shelves.”

门罗教授指出，颠覆教科书市场的一些非官方努力已经进行了许多年。“你会听到书店老板们说，他们知道学生们什么时候快考试了，因为他们看见学生们在书店过道里读书，读完再把它们放回书架上。”

In one of Prof Monroe’s MBA courses there has been an international version of a textbook that was significantly cheaper than the official American edition.

在门罗教授的一门MBA课程上，有一本教科书的国际版比官方美国版的价格便宜得多。

As a result, he says, significant numbers of his students buy the international version from online book retailers based overseas and have it shipped to the US. One of his students, from India, bought two editions, sending one home to his father, with whom he would also share his class notes, Prof Monroe recalls.

门罗教授说，因此，有相当多的学员从海外网络图书零售商那里“海淘”该书的国际版，将其寄送到美国。他回忆道，一个来自印度的学生买了两本，将其中一本寄回家给他的父亲，他还会把课堂笔记与父亲分享。

“His father was effectively taking my course in India. He was not just disrupting the book publisher, he was disrupting me as the tutor.”

“他的父亲相当于在印度上了我的课。他不仅是在颠覆图书出版商，他也在颠覆作为教师的我。”