Uni Scraps In-Person Learning For Digital, But Not in the Way You're Hoping

Words by Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

After taking an unmoving stance on in-person learning, fighting a continuous battle against students wanting lecture recordings available across the board, Te Herenga Waka announced just before mid-Trimester break that they will no longer be providing printed course readers. 

According to a university spokesperson, the “issue of printed course packs came up in 2020 and then again in 2021 as part of [a] compulsory course costs review.” In 2021 it was decided to make all course material available through Talis, and to begin moving away from printed course material. 

The closure of Vic Books earlier this year spurned the university’s choice to not look for an alternative provider for printed course packs. Instead, students’ course material will be exclusively available online.

“This decision is not cost-related,” the university claims. “However, it will be cheaper for students to print their own papers if they don’t have to pay on-costs to a third party provider.”

The decision, however, may have negative implications for students’ learning. Salient spoke to a VUW lecturer with a background in English Literature on how the change may affect their teaching.

“I absolutely understand the financial imperatives behind this decision, especially as students are increasingly opting to use digital resources rather than printed ones,” they said. “Still, I do regret the decision”.

“There's real evidence that students learn more readily from printed texts than from on-screen ones. From my own experience, digital texts encourage a practical approach –– scan the text quickly and grab the information you want –– rather than the kind of slow, thoughtful, emotionally engaged reading that's associated with books, and is especially appropriate to studying literary texts”.

The university remains comfortable in its decision claiming that “most schools have already implemented the change back in 2021 or 2022”, and “this change should have no negative impact on student learning, if implemented well”. 

Students can take solace in the fact that their digital material should not come at an extra cost, and in the coming Trimesters, there will be less course material to buy.