As the use of electronic textbooks continues to expand and we approach the point where dominance of digital over print is becoming increasingly inevitable (Reynolds, 2011), research is needed to understand how students accept and use the technology. This is especially critical as we begin to explore the electronic format for required textbooks in higher education. The current study evaluates university students' experiences with electronic textbooks (e-textbooks) during a pilot project with two textbook publishers, Flat World Knowledge (FWK) and Nelson Education (Nelson). Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a framework, we examine the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the technology. While previous research suggests that students have a general preference for textbooks in print rather than electronic format (Allen, 2009;Parsons, 2014;Woody, et al., 2010), our study suggests that preference may not dictate the likelihood that students will seek out and use print options. Our study also indicated that student experience with the open/affordable textbook (FWK) was very comparable to that of the high cost commercial text (Nelson). Despite overall positive reviews for the etextbooks across both platforms, students experienced a drop in enthusiasm for e-textbooks from the beginning to the end of the pilot.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential tensions between academic freedom and open access policies. Given that not all OA policies are created equal in terms of the potential constraints they place on researchers, this paper will outline a variety of open access policies and some of the relevant conditions of those policies that may impact academic freedom. Drawing on previous scholarship I will suggest two conceptions of academic freedom, a negative version of freedom, or freedom from external barriers, and another conception based on positive freedom or researcher autonomy. The potential interactions between varied OA policies and conditions and academic freedom will then be considered, as well as how these concerns might be mitigated. While the relationship between academic freedom and the variety of open access policies and conditions examined in this paper warrants careful attention, all of the OA policies can in principle be harmonized with the principles of academic freedom. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE1. Librarians are often strong advocates for OA, but in our enthusiasm for achieving OA to research we need to ensure we don't overlook concerns of faculty have regarding academic freedom in the process. 2. OA policies can be a powerful tool to help make OA a standard part of research practice, OA advocates seeking to develop policies on their campus need to be prepared to address researchers concern's that OA policies conflict with their academic freedom. 3. In order to position themselves to help address these concerns, libraries and librarians need to understand how academic freedom is defined at their institutions, and how different types of OA policies and OA policy features may interact with this conception of academic freedom.