Vital Source Technologies / Course Smart
reviews and complaints

I don't understand what everyone is complaining about. This website allows you to rent or buy books. I never had an issue and its nice to read the book on my computer instead of having to carry the book around.

I have used Coursesmart twice and find it cheap and convenient for texts. Most texts you will never use again as much as you think you will. It is so easy to find things by searching. I was always faster than my classmates to locate something in the text. It makes locating the information for assignments easier too. If you really want to print off an entire text then you should rethink renting an e-text. Also this is a rental. You can rent hard copies of texts too. You can also buy ebooks (Iike kindle for example). So if those are things you would rather do (or buy a paper text), then do that, but don't complain about the company if it is really not the format you want because they are out there.

The Coursemart books I've rented have all been very good. The system isn't as good as an e-book PDF, in my opinion, but for reading a book it is fine and I'd rather save the money and have to do things a little different than pay more.

I'm on my third book and will definitely use them for any other books that are available vs. hard copies. Additionally, I don't ever plan on referencing the text after my class is finished, and I really don't need books I will never read again sitting on my bookshelf. I already have way too many of those.

The worst. I can't believe Pearson actually supports this company. The preview is crystal clear, but once you pay, the text is blurry and fuzzy. Pages crash all the time, and print is tiny. This company sucks and students should not be victimized by places like this. Shame on you, Pearson, for supporting such criminal activity.

my conclusion after reading some of these comments and thinking over course smart limitations or policies;
course smart sucks!
I'd rather go buy the book itself than pay course smart

The work-around to keep your books it to print to pdf. Unfortunately, you can only do this 10 pages at a time but once you have the total book, you can combine it into one big pdf (using Preview on a Mac). It took me about 30 mins and I couldn't remove the mark that is at the top. So, obviously you can't share it with other people since your name is on it but you can at least keep the book for yourself.

If you are considering purchasing a CourseSmart product I recommend that you either learn from my mistake and DO NOT BUY ANY BOOKS from CourseSmart or check out the free trial before you decide to purchase.
After I paid $104 for a microbiology textbook thinking it would be a convenient way to have all my heavy text books with me where ever I go, I found out that there are so many cons it was not worth all the trouble. I ended up feeling ripped off after my 180day online rental.

PROS:
-light weight; don't have to carry heavy text books
-each chapter is organized by quick links on the side
-easy to look up chapters, terms, and page numbers
-allows you to copy, highlight, take notes, print, or share selected text (*with limitations)

CONS:
-too expensive; not worth it
-after a short two week time frame from the purchase date you will no longer be able to return or sell this book back
-it is NOT VERY USER FRIENDLY!
-must log in multiple times because the program will sometimes log out without warning
***username and password cannot be saved in browser history
-can highlight but hard to select the exact area that you need highlighted
-can copy and paste but you must first select the area of text that you would like to copy, then press the copy button at the top of the screen, then a new window will pop up, then you must reselect and copy the text that is inside the new window
*short-cut commands will not work (for example: pressing control+c on your pc or command+c on your mac will not copy the selected text)
***if the font was bold, italics, etc. in the text it will be changed to a default font in new window where it is no longer bold, italics, etc.
***if copying multiple paragraphs the paragraphs will no longer be neatly separated
***not allowed to copy or paste any images/pictures or tables from the text
-only allowed to print 10pages at once
-when taking notes your notes are only visible one note at a time after you have clicked the notes tab, and selected the note that you would like to view
***cannot view notes while simultaneously viewing the text
-while reading only one page is visible view at a time
-there is no option available to view two pages at once like in a printed text
-if you need a text-to-speech application it WILL NOT work
"The Apple OSX VoiceOver system can be used with CourseSmart to provide text-to-speech capabilities. Users with experience using VoiceOver on iOS devices can also use it on the iPad and iPhone. CourseSmart cannot support users in the use of the Apple products"
***quote taken from CourseSmart help page

...If the cons listed above are not issues for you then by all means enjoy your experience with CourseSmart. My expectations may have just been too high for an online text.

Sincerely,

AN UNSATISFIED STUDENT

Overall Rating:
Avoid It

Recommended:
No

coursesmart is not all that BAD!
I had no issues. so convenient to read ebooks

wow i was just about to buy a book, seriously all i need to do is press this last button conferming my information and i would have gotten ripped off :(.

thank you very very very much. i will just pay the 85.00
-Desmond

This company is horrible. They charged me twice for a textbook and it took them about three months to refund me after four phone calls. In addition, I also bought two textbooks back in 2010 as the "permanent download option" and they told me I would have access to them forever. Since then they changed their policy and now only offer online rentals, so my books dissappeared. You know what I call that? FRAUD! They can't take delete my textbooks because they change their company policy. That's not what I bought! DO NOT BUY FROM THIS LOSER COMPANY! I'm reporting this fraud to the government and I encourage others to do the same.