Financial Ties to Textbook Publishers

The production of textbooks involves far more people than just the author(s). The acknowledgment section of an introductory physics textbook will typically list a host of editors and production assistants along with an even longer list of reviewers. While the role of the reviewer has varied over the years, the current most common practice is for a publisher to send a reviewer one or more chapters of the book prior to publication. The reviewer provides feedback regarding general issues (content, style, appropriateness of level, etc.) as well as specific issues (passages that are unclear or wrong, end of chapter problems that need rewording, etc.). A careful job of reviewing may take a few hours for each chapter. Publishers generally provide a monetary incentive, known as an honorarium, to reviewers.

Among the people most commonly asked to review a textbook are those faculty members who teach a course at whom the textbook is directed. These faculty members are most likely to be aware of their needs and those of the potential student users of the book. At the same time, these faculty members are also usually responsible for deciding which textbook will be required for a given class. This creates the possibility of a financial conflict of interest: the people who are deciding what textbooks to adopt may also be getting compensated by publishers for textbook reviews.

Conflicts of interest arise frequently in professional situations. Under ideal conditions, they could be avoided. The reality is that in many cases they cannot be avoided, so the next best action to take is to manage them. Managing a conflict of interest involves taking reasonable steps to minimize the conflict while at the same time disclosing the conflict. Given that experienced instructors are needed for quality textbook reviews and experienced instructors are also likely to make textbook adoption decisions, the resulting conflict of interest would appear to be unavoidable. In the spirit of managing the conflict of interest, beginning in 2007 I will disclose any financial ties I have with publishers. It is worth noting that my letter of agreement from Thomson Learning contained the following language:

“The honorarium is in recognition of your valuable input, and there is absolutely no obligation to adopt any Thomson Learning textbook or other materials.”

Publisher	Textbook	Date	Honorarium
Thomson Learning	Chapters 10, 11, and 12 in the revision of Serway/Faughn/Vuille's College Physics	June 2007	$150