What's the advantage of distributing iBooks via Casper as opposed to using the iBook Store

[catesr]

We are in the early planning stages for next school year and some of the science teachers want to use iBooks (on our students mba's) textbooks instead of the old hardcovers they are using now. I was just wondering since you need a password for both the iBooks store or if you download the same book from Self Service what's the advantage of using Casper?

Thanks

[Chris_Hafner]

Well... assuming that you have the licensing, you can control HOW the iBooks are distributed. You can automatically distribute behind the scenes. You can use Self-Service and granularly control the distro. You can simply use self-service to point to the iBook store. There are a lot of options. How's your schools internet connection? If you use the Casper suite then all of that happens on site (I'm not sure how caching server deals with iBooks by the way). In any event, any advantages are going to depend on your specific site and your requirements. Here are a few questions

•) Do you have proper licensing for the iBooks already?
•) If you don't, are you having the students purchase them?
•) Will students need to maintain ownership of the texts?
•) Do you know if there are iBooks available for the specific texts you want and have you checked for epub, pdf and other types of etext files where applicable and have debated the merits of each? (Most can still be used like iBooks).
•) Did your school develop your own iBooks?
•) How is your internet connection?
•) Is there anything else that might make this situation unique?

Sorry, I know these are broad but they might help me think of reasons why you would choose one method over another.

[catesr]

Thanks Chris. These questions will be very helpful as we go forward with our textbook implementation.