Caseley, Gavin B.2011-03-242011-03-242011-03-24http://hdl.handle.net/10539/9221MBA - WBSHigher education publishers increasingly invest in elaborate supplementary digital textbook packages in the competition for textbook adoptions. This supplementary digital content ranges from video demonstrations for instructors to online practice exercises for students. The research study was designed to examine how textbook adoption decisions are made at public universities in South Africa and the role played by supplementary digital textbook content in these textbook adoption decisions. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty-four faculty members responsible for making textbook adoption decisions at two public universities in Gauteng. It was found that the quality of textbook content was the single most important criterion currently applied in textbook adoption decisions followed by the cost of the textbook to students. Supplementary digital textbook content was not found to have an important influence on textbook adoption decisions for most faculties included in the study. The research did find, however, that supplementary digital textbook content can be expected to play an increasingly important role in textbook adoption decisions made at public universities in South Africa with implications for both faculty and higher education textbook publishers.enTextbooksEducationUniversities, South AfricaThesis