Quotes from recent student surveys
Many instructors wonder if their students will like zyBooks. Don’t students want a hard copy? Will students be unhappy about having to pay? Will the animations and learning questions really help students or are they just gimmicks?
Though we have various research studies, perhaps the best way to answer those questions is to hear from students who have used zyBooks. Of course, nearly every educational publisher can find and post a couple of nice quotes from students. Instead, below we provide every student comment, whether positive or negative, so you can see for yourself what students really think. The responses are to our end-of-term survey question: “Please share your thoughts on zyBooks”.
We have not filtered to only show positive responses. See notes at the bottom for what we have done, and for discussion about the responses. We show 1000 responses — don’t try to read them all (that’s too many), but rather we encourage you to jump around. The point of this webpage is this: No matter where you land, you will see mostly positive comments.
In fact, try this: Pick a number between 1 and 1,000, and search for and jump to that number in your browser (Ctrl + F on Windows or Command + F on Mac) — you’ll almost certainly see overwhelming positive responses no matter where you look.
Scroll to the bottom of this page for further discussion of recent survey results.
| #Â | Please share your thoughts on zyBooks |
| 1 | It's convenient and streamlined. |
| 2 | I am really enjoying it. The animations are very helpful, and I like that everything relates to something in real life so I truly know that learning this will be useful in my every day life. I am not just learning it because I need to for my class, but I am actually WANTING to learn it. That makes a huge difference. |
| 3 | It is a fun and interactive tool to help me study |
| 4 | This site is great! It is so organized I know exactly what need to do and can easily see my progress. |
| 5 | I love the interaction while I learn. I also love that if i get a question wrong I can go back and try again. Also I love that if there is a question that I don't fully understand I can show the answer and Work backwards if I need to. |
| 6 | It's a bit on the expensive side. I think the financial team should rethink it's margins and what they profit |
| 7 | zyBooks makes it easy to go back section by section and go over specific material with exercises and slides. |
| 8 | I thought it was a very good way to help me learn C++. The interactive content helped me develop a better understanding of C++. |
| 9 | Very easy to interact with, great material |
| 10 | It's just like any other text book except a bit more interactive. |
| 11 | Sometimes the coding "do it yourself" problems were very difficult even after reading the context. |
| 12 | Fun to use because assignments are baked into the reading. Sometimes DIY coding probelms are too hard. |
| 13 | The way zyBooks explains concepts was great for me. They provide a short, but in-depth explanation. The animations are also useful. |
| 14 | zyBooks has been an incredible resource. It is so much easier to go through a chapter with interactive examples and questions to reinforce the concepts. |
| 15 | It could sometimes be annoying but regardless it has been the best assisted learning tool I've used in my college career |
| 16 | It was good for learning because i wasn't just reading, or just activities at the end. |
| 17 | zyBooks was helpful in reviewing or getting ahead in the class. Allowed me to be better prepared for lecture and tests. |
| 18 | I took this class the previous semester, and for the entire time, I really just had no idea what was going on in terms of how I could implement what I had learned in class to solve a problem. The approach zyBooks took me through to learn the same material was leagues ahead of my learning experience last year. |
| 19 | Generally enjoyable assignments |
| 20 | I find that learning with interactive material on zyBooks is more beneficial than just reading examples and notes. |
| 21 | It was a very helpful and organized tool that helped with the material for my class. |
| 22 | It is easy to use and to learn. |
| 23 | I thought it was a good way to further learn the material that the professor has presented. |
| 24 | Very interesting to see an interactive part as the centerpiece of instruction |
| 25 | Typos are no ones friend. |
| 26 | Usually turned to zybooks for clarifications from my other lectures. Made new concepts easy with the interactive slideshows and problems |
| 27 | I think the lessons are extremely in depth and informative, and especially given the new precautions with the "Covid-19" crisis not allowing me to go to school, I've been able to gain a great understanding of all the material through the zyBooks service. |
| 28 | I really liked zyBooks. I had to retake CSIS 1400 because the first time I didn't really learn as much as I hoped. It was much easier to absorb this class thanks to zyBooks. |
| 29 | It has great exercises throughout that help quiz on the material, so it isn't all just reading. |
| 30 | The mix of participation and challenge questions really help with learning material. However, I believe the book does not go in-depth in several areas that would be helpful for solving the questions. |
| 31 | Explanations of concepts are clear and concise. |
| 32 | Being able to code then and get instant feedback was very helpful! The lessons were also super engaging because there were interactive parts dispersed throughout each reading. |
| 33 | Presents material in a way that is easy to follow while providing activity questions/examples with amazing explanations as to why an answer is wrong or correct. Zybook is amazing! |
| 34 | The user interface was very simple and easy to interact with. Overall the quality of the service was high. |
| 35 | I really like the interactive nature of zybooks and the questions throughout the notes. |
| 36 | It helps me understand the topic better |
| 37 | I think it is a great way of learning code! |
| 38 | I really like the way zybooks is laid out and some of the activities are helpful, but I find the lessons don't prepare me enough for the big challenge questions at the end. The generic examples and the primary use of flow charts instead of code used as examples makes it difficult for me to practically apply what I've learned. I get to the end and feel like all I've learned is how to do math. I took a python class online with _____ and that approach helped me better understand how to code more so than zybooks, where I learned more about applying math to problems. |
| 39 | Its interactive |
| 40 | Really cool program. I wish there was an option to choose a specific problem, and try it again with different variables though |
| 41 | There were a couple of parts or sections that contradicted what the professor told us, but other than that I appreciated zyBooks. |
| 42 | The interactive nature of zyBooks helped me remain engaged with the textbook and retain a surprising amount of new information very quickly. I think this is a wonderfully effective tool and am very excited to have been introduced to it. |
| 43 | Very good way to engage with material. I wish there was some more help with labs but overall a great service. |
| 44 | I definitely love the layout of Zybooks, it makes it easier to learn and understand a concept on your own. Everything is explained and defined in detail even when you miss the question on the assignments. I absolutely love it! |
| 45 | sometimes correct answers are made incorrect because it is not the answer the book wants. this is refering to code |
| 46 | I like the format of teaching and then testing. Sometimes the lessons are a bit long and confusing, so by the time you get to the challenge questions there is just too much information, but overall its a good system. |
| 47 | I love zybooks, I am so tired of using normal text books that take up space and get lost. |
| 48 | Very descriptive. |
| 49 | It is very helpful as a reference |
| 50 | Fast learning experience and easy to understand materials |
| 51 | Zybooks has given me a deeper understanding about Java. |
| 52 | I like zybooks but I am not a big fan of the challenges. |
| 53 | It was convenient to use, it complemented my web and technologies course very well. |
| 54 | zyBooks seems like an improvement over most attempts by textbook companies to make me pay to submit my homework, but at the end of the day, that's still what it is. |
| 55 | Not a big fan. I dont like the way the lessons are taught or the exercises. They do not have clear instructions or teach what to do clearly |
| 56 | It has clear instructions and enough information that anyone, if read all the way, is able to complete it. |
| 57 | It was really easy to navigate, very informative, and useful. |
| 58 | It is a very helpful tool |
| 59 | I have always struggled with math and this year I wasn't doing so well. Once my professor decided to use zybooks I had something that worked for me. With zybooks I was able to get the practice and explanations that I really needed and I started doing a lot better on my exams and quizzes. |
| 60 | Showed material in great depth with a step-by-step guide to walk you through difficult material. |
| 61 | I think that zyBooks is a very good tool for learning how to code for people that put the time into it. I'm ashamed to have done less than I wanted to, but the time I did put into the course I got a lot out of. |
| 62 | It helps greatly. |
| 63 | I like the interactive exercises compared to traditional textbooks but I like a physical copy of textbooks that I can use without electricity though |
| 64 | Very useful and concise information |
| 65 | I enjoyed zyBooks because it is interactive. The multiple examples and exercises are great practice. |
| 66 | I enjoyed that this site came with interactive activities and review questions that helped me retain important information for my course. It explained things in a fun and descriptive way as well. |
| 67 | I think that it's a great educational tool |
| 68 | I like how straightfoward and easy to understand the course material |
| 69 | Bunch of formulas that is hard to follow |
| 70 | I enjoyed the challenge questions they provided and the fact that they always bolded key terms in my text |
| 71 | I like it, it helps you learn great |
| 72 | The material takes a bit to understand, and the question at the bottom is harder and different from what was taught at the top. |
| 73 | showed me what I needed to learn, and it provided several examples |
| 74 | I think its good, but I wish it went into more detail of explaining. |
| 75 | I really enjoy the examples and the short activities within each lesson. It works well to portray exactly what is necessary. I've never had an issue when using zyBooks. |
| 76 | I liked zybooks. |
| 77 | I love the interactive learning. |
| 78 | The questions are very straight forward. |
| 79 | Interactive assignments within the text, easy to understand instructions. |
| 80 | I enjoyed it because it helps to learn more about the topics. |
| 81 | Its super helpful for my programming classes, being able to work through the coding and have it graded on the spot is awesome. Though it would be nice if on some of the more difficult problems there would be hints or something to help push us along. |
| 82 | It was really helpful to see the examples and gave a clear and concise explanation on how the Java works. |
| 83 | Good |
| 84 | Excellent resource aside from minor errors in code. |
| 85 | I liked it a lot, it helped me study the best I could |
| 86 | I love it! |
| 87 | It is the best online textbook system I have seen so far in college. |
| 88 | Its gotten a lot better. There some issues on the CS courses when solving for problems. |
| 89 | enjoyed using |
| 90 | It help a lot on practicing and familiarizing the computer language |
| 91 | I think it helps me to understand the class materials because it has very good examples. |
| 92 | I've enjoyed Zybooks because it tests your knowledge and retention immediately to ensure you are grasping key concepts. especially for someone like me that is not very quick with information about technology and computers this allows me to focus on key information and not just get through the material without actually learning and applying new concepts. |
| 93 | It is pretty useful for learning ans studying, but sometimes the assignments on here are over material we never really went over. |
| 94 | User interface was my favorite part of zyBooks, very easy to flow through the material and the graphics used for the chapter examples really helped me understand the material I was studying. |
| 95 | It is very easy to follow and very organized. |
| 96 | I like how it is formed and lets me do the things I need to in order to learn. |
| 97 | I enjoyed using zyBooks. It was the first online textbook I enjoyed more than physical textbooks. |
| 98 | It's well designed and the interface is nice. The animations are a bit slow(an itemized list of the operations would work better for someone like me) and I wish there was an easier way to see deadlines. |
| 99 | There is so much useful information packed on here that it really eases the stress that comes along with the class. It really prepares you with its activities and is an overall great addition to this already great site. |
| 100 | It's easy to follow and learn from |
| 101 | I love the concept, particularly fitting for computer science. Would have loved to used zybooks for one of my psychology courses. |
| 102 | It was very fun and easy to use for learning the more complete parts of C++ but I still had a lot of fun. |
| 103 | Fascinating and shows all steps slowly love it!! |
| 104 | There was very little help and the instructions made little to none sense. Our teacher didn't even know what the chapters were about. |
| 105 | My favorite of the online textbook solutions |
| 106 | I really enjoyed using the interactive textbook. I thought it made the content more enjoyable and harder to lose focus while reading. However, I do believe that some of the feedback messages could have been more descriptive/helpful when writing the practice codes. |
| 107 | I think zyBooks made the information very digestible and interactive. |
| 108 | Overall I found zybooks to be helpful these past two semesters as the way the lessons were provided, helped give a low risk environment while still being able to teach. The participation activities actually encouraged me to look through the passages, because messing up on a question doesn't negatively affect you, I was able to learn in a comfortable environment. |
| 109 | I find the Participation Activities to be a great way to reinforce my learning as I read. Also, the way it's set up, there's no pressure to get them right because you can answer multiple times. |
| 110 | Much more engaging and helpful than a physical textbook |
| 111 | I think it's a really good way to learn and reinforce the basics |
| 112 | It's a lot of work but it teaches you the information you need to know to understand |
| 113 | I think a little more help on challenge activities would be good. |
| 114 | It's a very useful website with good technology that helps learning with answering questions |
| 115 | I love it! It provides examples and a framework for topics that make it easier to learn the material. |
| 116 | All reading material was readily available, due dates were clearly written and sections were clearly broken down which made completing homework assignments in multiple sessions very bearable. |
| 117 | Zybooks is a very concise place to get information but sometimes the explanations are too densely written. |
| 118 | It was helpful, organized in a good, easy to understand way |
| 119 | It has been very helpful in provding a solid way to learn introduction to C++. I used it several times to look up questions or to just learn more. |
| 120 | The first textbook I've actually used in my college career. The utility is superb. Text could be broken up better. |
| 121 | IT's a fantastic interactive learning platform. |
| 122 | I have access to zybooks anywhere as long as i have a decent connection to wifi. It has helped me grow as a code developer. |
| 123 | I think zyBooks is really helpful, I used it for this and a previous class and I learned a lot from it. I think the reading material combined with the interactive participation is an outstanding setup for learning. |
| 124 | I wish the whole entire zybooks sections were graded. |
| 125 | An easy and effective method to learn the material! |
| 126 | I liked how the site was but some of the coding problems were really difficult and we should not have deadlines on the homeworks. |
| 127 | It made my online learning experience very lucid. |
| 128 | Zybooks is a great intereactive textbook however it is easy to not learn much since most of the time the answers are either given or multiple choice. |
| 129 | The interactive learning segments and in-text quizzes allowed me to really grasp a deeper understanding of the text I was reading. I have never experienced another resource that met my needs as well as zyBoooks. I would definitely recommend this to professors who are looking to improve their students' metacognitive skills. |
| 130 | It was very helpful in my learning process, especially because the 2019-2020 school year was moved online. It provided a solid learning process through this unsuspected development. |
| 131 | I like how zybooks is a hands-on way of learning where I'm applying what I read immediately, which helps to better ingrain the material to my memory. |
| 132 | zybooks lays out the material in a flow that makes it easier to understand and view |
| 133 | I love how y'all provide extends |
| 134 | it is helpful, especially the demo activities. |
| 135 | I did not expect the level of learning which I did from zyBooks. It was a great experience and I wish that all of my courses implemented it. |
| 136 | It is quick and to the point. It gives me a very good understanding of the material we are going through in class. |
| 137 | It as almost self teaching, which is probably the best book I have read since it allowed me to take the interactive mini quizzes and what not during the chapters. |
| 138 | It is very resourceful in the way that it is much like the textbooks I would use in grade school but with the accessibility of being online. |
| 139 | I appreciate zybooks for allowing me to run my code before I submit. However, in some cases, I feel that with larger coding assignments, zybooks makes life harder for me. I usually have to use an IDE just to make life easier. If there was any implementation of highlighting things that are wrong, or when hovering over a variable it gives you info about it, like Microsoft VS does, that would help immensely. |
| 140 | Zybooks is great but the only thing is that I wish some of the challenge activities were more simple like the practice problems. |
| 141 | It really helped me learn more about Python |
| 142 | This is an amazing application. I loved that the book was interactive it made it easier to learn and understand. |
| 143 | it's kind of annoying to program in these text boxes with no linting or auto completion of brackets/paranthesis, etc. I don't think the material was that bad, it was pretty comprehensive for what I needed to learn; however I think my dislike came from the fact that this is the only way our professor gave assignments and it became INCREDIBLY tedious to finish all the labs. |
| 144 | It's much better than other online textbooks. The participation and challenges are very nice |
| 145 | I love how simple the program was to use |
| 146 | A very convenient platform to access information about the course. Notes and exercises provided are sufficient and easier for me to understand the course better. |
| 147 | I'm enrolled in a Data Science class that was just offered for the first time this semester. The zyBook is more available than a textbook, and the interactive modules are more efficient than flipping to an appendix to see what was right or wrong. We actually would have had no textbook for this class originally, had the zyBook not been offered, so I also appreciate the hand-curated course content that would otherwise have been unavailable. I would use this if I were a professor. Very thorough and bravo zyBooks! |
| 148 | Learned a lot new materials |
| 149 | not reliable at times. There were some homework hosted on zybooks that were very difficult to understand how to do. |
| 150 | Though it was useful the challenges were very hard to read through and complete |
| 151 | Very useful |
| 152 | Not in depth enough |
| 153 | It's a good opportunity to understand the material easier. |
| 154 | I enjoy zyBooks more than other textbooks as the assignments are engaging and the labs are relevant and decently challenging. |
| 155 | I like zybook and the fact that the sections are pretty condensed while still giving you interactive practice. I think its a good aspect to have in the classroom. It works well paired with in classroom teaching etc. However in light of COVID-19 I have not found it as useful but that is partly my fault partly because zybook is not something that is tangible and in front of my face therefore I tend to forget about it. Also my professor in oparticular stopped teaching via web meetings he just posted videos. Makes it a lot harder on the student to make sense of all of the material. I understand that is more of a personal problem rather than zy book but my point being is that zyBooks wasnt as helpful to me as it would've been if in person classes had continued. |
| 156 | I really enjoyed doing my homework on zybooks because it helps me understand what I am doing. |
| 157 | It costs too much money and should be available always. Answers should not disappear after moving to the next page. This makes studying a nightmare. |
| 158 | Good material, good examples, good practice |
| 159 | I find the website easy to use |
| 160 | I thought it was good for learning the material but sometimes the challenges needed stuff to be in a very specific format, which could be tricky. |
| 161 | I loved using ZyBooks. It was so easy to navigate through the app. It also let me go back and redo my questions unlimited times. It really helped me to achieve that A+ I aimed for in this class. |
| 162 | Some spelling errors, i liked that they listed out a bunch of different functions to use. I thought the videos were the best partipant activities because I had to watch those instead of skimming or skipping over the text. |
| 163 | I find zybook to be a great way to study the material for the class, and I enjoy its organization and inclusion of practice problems. |
| 164 | They are very informational and the example pictures of code along with the challenge problems are helpful with understanding syntax and actually formatting the code. |
| 165 | I neither dislike or like zybook, but I find the format more useful than other forms of online instruction. |
| 166 | I have used online textbooks before, and zyBooks has actually been my favorite. Usually, I find them un-engaging and hard to follow, but I was extremely pleased with zyBooks, especially all of the in-chapter activities that make sure to keep users' focus. |
| 167 | I liked examples of code and found them very useful. I did not enjoy the in-zyBook programming assignments. |
| 168 | It's great |
| 169 | It is a great platform for a class such as CSE which is computer-based |
| 170 | It's a good way to learn but discourages professors from teaching. One professor just reviewed what was on the zybooks. |
| 171 | Very concise and organized |
| 172 | I think they are good but for my class they are bad. |
| 173 | I love it! |
| 174 | It was highly useful while I had access to it because it provided information in a chronologically manner appropriate to understanding the overall material being discussed. |
| 175 | Zybooks is a great source for practicing and testing your skills. However it is no substitute for someone teaching you about abstract concepts. |
| 176 | Easy to understand |
| 177 | Quite intuitive and useful for my learning in that each lesson was comprehensive and interesting. |
| 178 | Its amazing and walks through step by step. |
| 179 | I heavily rely on zybooks for learning to code, and it has not only been a great learning tool, but it is also a resource I find myself very often turning back to when problem solving in programming. Some of the participation questions are tedious but the examples are super helpful.The overall structure of the course is also very well organized. |
| 180 | Was really intuitive and ran smoothly, basically what an interactive textbook should strive to be |
| 181 | My instructor created mandatory reading assignments (not bad!) and had specific due dates for chapters (still not bad!) but instead of giving us assignments on them, he would just check that we had done these in-book assignment things that we could just click through, so I never gave a shit about the readings. |
| 182 | Zybooks is nice to force you to read and learn. Reading zybooks is pretty easy too. |
| 183 | I enjoy the interactive modules. One thing I'd improve would be saving the work done on some of the examples upon completing. When reviewing the examples I completed, the answer I wrote is erased after logging off or refreshing the page. it's hard to go back and study those examples when my answer was erased. Also, if there were more in-depth details on certain topics, it would be greatly appreciated. |
| 184 | Zybooks is a great online resourse to learn hoe to code. Zybooks was the reason why I changed mi major to a computer related area |
| 185 | I love using zyBooks. The problems throughout the text are extremely helpful. I wish more of my classes used zyBooks. |
| 186 | Pretty good, liked how it really showed the steps and you had to work through it. |
| 187 | Zybooks is a great way to learn your subject and I feel like its a new evolution to the way you learn comparing from a textbook. |
| 188 | The textbook has had some issues. One of the challenge activities gave wrong answers for the questions, and chapter 7 had the sections out of order. In spite of this, I have enjoyed the experience of learning through zybooks. It is far superior to _____. |
| 189 | I think its a better alternative to online classes since it explains things relatively concisely however, i prefer actual classes. |
| 190 | I found the graphics extremely helpful in understanding how everything interacts in an operating system. |
| 191 | zyBooks is a great interactive learning tool that helps fill in the gaps between my lectures. |
| 192 | Some of the variables it asks for were not booked which made it difficult to understand sometimes what was asked. |
| 193 | It's helpful and interactive. I learn well through it. |
| 194 | Very interactive and helped me learn the fundamentals of Java programming |
| 195 | The zyBook is great to use as an open resource for class. There is some things that may not be taught the same format for coding in the zyBook. Some stuff may be easier to find but other material can be hard to find. |
| 196 | Zybooks made learning C++ easy. It is very easy to understand and the examples made the code stick. |
| 197 | The textbook industry is too bloated with big companies who have little to no interest in actually proving useful material, only to make a buck with forced overpriced textbooks. It is an incredible thing to have a publisher actually care about the student's education and provide the books at a reasonable cost for once. The field our textbook is based off of is an extremely fluid subject, so unfortunately some small portions were out of date; which were only a year out at the most. When we encountered such issues our instructor was able to contact the author of the textbook had have them fix that. In my opinion, Zybooks puts big name textbook manufacturers to shame. |
| 198 | It was an effective way to learn the material |
| 199 | It is much more engaging than reading a 1,300 page textbook. By being shorter sections it sometimes trades off some depth for much quicker intake of the material. This is ultimately okay because after having a foundation to work with, it is easier to build upon it with more formal material or more technical explanations. |
| 200 | I think it is an amazing platform, it helped me learn a lot! specially with our current situation at the moment! |
| 201 | Very easy to follow, and informative. Well done. |
| 202 | I love this software because it teaches and helps when incorrect answers are input rather than just saying you are wrong. |
| 203 | Zybook is a very easy to use, instructional book which can give a lot of information in a short amount of time. |
| 204 | I thought zybooks was really helpful! It really helped me understand the material and I loved that it was an interactive textbook. It kept me engaged and it made me actually remember the stuff I learned in the textbook. |
| 205 | The website is useful with its interactive questions |
| 206 | i dont like it the assignments are too long |
| 207 | Tedious |
| 208 | I have been having an enjoyable time learning the material the way zyBooks presents it. |
| 209 | I think the material itself was a hard subject, thus it was hard for me to learn. However, I think there may be some parts of the book that could be rewritten to make it more engaging to the reader. A lot of the references to other parts of the book were hard to understand (where the reference was actually pointing to was hard to grasp.) Also, I would have preferred that this book be available for print and save as PDF. I am disappointed that this wasn't the case. Also, a little more information in some areas of the text could have been more helpful. |
| 210 | It was easy to navigate. |
| 211 | Could be tedious with spacing. I would get concepts right because of the spacing I would have to retry the problems until I got them right |
| 212 | It's actually a good platform for learning |
| 213 | There are many typos in the solutions, and the solutions should accept a wider range of inputs. for example entering '5' should not be marked wrong because the answer it is looking for is '5.0' |
| 214 | It has good questions |
| 215 | I find the graphics to be extremely helpful in learning. |
| 216 | Pretty easy to use, although the sensitivity to white spaces was rather unnecessary |
| 217 | It was good, I like how there was no penalization for getting the wrong answer creating better learning environment. |
| 218 | Very helpful videos and illustrations when learning complicated Data Structures programs. |
| 219 | zyBooks is very easy to use, user friendly, and provides great learning tools. I hope future online classes use zyBooks. |
| 220 | zyBooks are great because they are interactive and explain concepts in detail. They help me understand things better. |
| 221 | a good source for clearing up the textbook |
| 222 | 95% of the time the program worked well and I was able to learn the necessary content. |
| 223 | useful but show answer made it easy to skip through |
| 224 | I like the organization of the textbook including the animations to demonstrate the subject matter, all in all this is a useful text that should be integrated for all subjects. |
| 225 | I think zyBooks was practical and different from your usual traditional textbook. The fact that it reinforces your learning with practicable examples helped me learn programming concepts better with zero programming experience. |
| 226 | I really enjoy it. One problem I have would be the video portions seem to be a bit time consuming. I feel they could go a bit faster. |
| 227 | It is a very useful, easy to use resource for learning the course material. |
| 228 | I think it is a helpful resource that allows me to learn at my own pace and work through things slowly without worrying about my grade dropping |
| 229 | I liked that it was interactive and had a lot of useful material to help me learn. |
| 230 | I did like the fact that I shows you what you need to learn and the trial by error factor. Also it shows you in most cases how it got the answer. |
| 231 | Pretty good learning platform, has been pretty useful. |
| 232 | just a better ui for the transitions with fsm simulators, would be nice |
| 233 | I am using another textbook for this course as well and I find the other book to be more straightforward. |
| 234 | It is far better than just reading a textbook, and for me actually less time consuming than just reading. It makes it much easier to focus on the material. |
| 235 | Overall, the participation activities are fine. The coding portion of the assignments is awful. This course is teaching students that you must follow code down to the last newline argument instead of rewarding them for creating functional code. I spent more time chasing down formatting errors in lab and challenge activities than I did actually learning. I lost a lot of points because of formatting errors. The overall construction of the grading rubrics for code is awful. |
| 236 | I think its the best place to learn even for those does not enjoy reading big books because the book only have necessary objects |
| 237 | I love zyBooks but it can be hit or miss with some courses. |
| 238 | A good online textbook that helps you learn more than a physical one. |
| 239 | It was a very useful tool when it came to learning C Programming. |
| 240 | It allowed me to try concepts and questions and get immediate feedback I could learn from |
| 241 | Nice Textbook |
| 242 | preferred over other textbooks, better value for money |
| 243 | Not a big fan of online books |
| 244 | I appreciated the points system and the multiple checkpoints granted for the chapters; however, I wish that some of the content was more linearly explained. |
| 245 | Good |
| 246 | Very helpful for studying! The interactive portions are awesome and I love the visual aids! |
| 247 | Useful to learn without having to use google. Trustworthy source. |
| 248 | It explained the concepts well and provided good practice for each concept as well. |
| 249 | I think it is helpful for me to understand. |
| 250 | nothing breaks, easy to use |
| 251 | It is very helpful for material |
| 252 | It was decent for the majority of the time. However, submitting autograded code was a pain sometimes, forcing me to wait a couple minutes between each upload because the code wasn't exactly how Zybooks wanted. This was often frustrating. |
| 253 | smooth, good supplemental material |
| 254 | gives the answers for the challenge problems, so if the user doesn't know the answer, the user will be able to see and understand the problem better, and the user will do better next time. |
| 255 | I very like the interaction part of Zybooks. Also, the explanation of the concept is pretty clear. However, the only drawback is the price since it's a bit expensive for the use of 1 school quarter only. |
| 256 | Nice and easy to use. |
| 257 | The animations are a bit clunky and slow sometimes, and $75 is a bit steep for one-semester licence to a digital textbook, especially when lost of courses are moving to open textbooks |
| 258 | I don't think zybooks did a good job of explaining some of the bigger factors, or the more in depth aspects. The chapters would show how to read a string or add one item to a dictionary but would never show how to read over multiple. There were other areas too, this is just the one I can remember off the top of my head. I did enjoy how I could search zybooks content. |
| 259 | It is good for learning, but very specific in its requirements, not allowing different strategies to answer the challenges. |
| 260 | zyBooks helps you learn in an interactive way |
| 261 | I thought zybooks is a wonderful way to learn python. It presents the material in an easy to understand way and looking back on the assignments is a great way to review material for tests. |
| 262 | Zybooks was very organized and the presentation of the material was very easy to digest. |
| 263 | I love the interactive nature of zyBooks and I think they do a great job of explaining the material. I especially enjoy the exercises at the end of each section as I use these to study for the exams. |
| 264 | Zybooks had a very easy to understand and gamified learning experience which made understanding high-level concepts a bit easier. I benefitted from the many exercises in coding and reading/solving code outcomes. |
| 265 | It's a helpful interactive textbook for online schooling but with in-person teaching it becomes even more effective. |
| 266 | Zybooks is the best learning tool i have ever used |
| 267 | It's been a nice applicable method for teaching people programming in Java |
| 268 | It was helpful for learning Java. I liked that it was conceptual and interactive. The repetition from typing in answers helps reinforce Java syntax. |
| 269 | zyBooks is a very good platform for educational purposes. My only complaint with it has less to do with zyBooks itself and more about the length of the content. |
| 270 | some instructions can be explained better |
| 271 | I specifically asked my professor to provide us with Zybooks since COVID-19 started and we couldn't have in class lectures anymore. The interactive portion of zybooks is incredibly useful in learning new material. Definitions are clear and there is no additional information that might distract students. |
| 272 | It is easy to use and the explanations are clear |
| 273 | I actually enjoyed most of the zybooks activities, challenges, and explanations. I will be honest that the section on Linked Lists has been kind of confusing, but I think in the end I figured it out. |
| 274 | Very effective learning material. Easy to navigate. |
| 275 | ZyBooks is a great interactive online platform that made coding very easy to understand. Since syntax is an important aspect of coding, zyBook's activities make for a valuable tool because the material is more enticing than the traditional textbook format. These hands-on segments made it easier to grasp the content and helped me to become a stronger coder. |
| 276 | very useful for more in-depth explanations |
| 277 | I like the interactive aspect of Zybooks. The active activities do aide in learning the material. I am however, a fan of an old-fashioned textbook but this is a good alternative. |
| 278 | It is an effective learning tool. |
| 279 | ZyBooks helped me learn about coding since I struggled a lot in the lecture class. |
| 280 | Worked decently - for the big stuff I mostly copy and pasted from my own editor though. |
| 281 | I think that it is beneficial to my learning, but I learn by doing more than reading, such as labs. |
| 282 | first i think that zybook is one of the best way for learning computer science since it gives you explanations when you did some questions wrong. second it also helps the instructor on seeing how students in this class do. |
| 283 | Zybooks brings a different perspective and different approaches to learning the material outside the classroom. |
| 284 | I really enjoy Zybooks. I think it helps the student to really learn the material and feel engaged in what is being taught. |
| 285 | Could be interesting, however, the material is often redundant, and already covered. I wish there was a way to skip through unnecessary animations. I wish the tasks were more creative and more challenging. A person like me who passes interviews for companies every day, this was not interesting. A great book has to be interesting to every level. I also wish that for $80 there was a better coding tool with autocompletion and other features. Overall, my main concern was the lack of advanced material. If you are talking about string streams or vector::sort, then talk about internal implementation as well. Some may skip the advanced part, some will find it useful. You also never talked about memory and underlying representation. Anyways, there is a lot to work on. Oh, one more thing, it was extremely annoying to solve a problem, when the only thing wrong with my program is that I printed out two spaces instead of one. Change your testing methods. |
| 286 | For me, zyBooks has always made classes exponentially easier. Their use, compared to traditional reading, requires less time and is less monotonous, as well as often being easier to understand. It is also a lot easier to review and practice material |
| 287 | zybooks does a good job at explaining the material, but doesn't help much when you get stuck on a challenge. |
| 288 | The animations and mid text quizzes seriously help reinforce and sometimes clear up readings and help cement the readings in my head |
| 289 | Far more helpful than the lecture, and was likely the main reason I'm doing as well in the class as I am. It was incredibly useful for reviewing concepts as well as reinforcing them. |
| 290 | Zybooks is very clear and helpful with ever concept. The interactive parts help me understand the material the most. |
| 291 | At first I thought having to pay for a book for coding was really dumb since almost all information is available on the internet anyway and my class already has a structure and planning but honestly zyBooks did help nail down some concepts but what it did most was let me see things in different forms then what my instructor did and that gave me a better understanding of how things work and better let me form my own system and ideas on how to format and use code. |
| 292 | Having the participation challenge and labs helps me to remember and connect with what i just read. and taking so many classes at a time that is critical. |
| 293 | Very helpful and useful examples |
| 294 | I enjoy how simple, organized, and straight forward it is. |
| 295 | very useful especially when we do not have our textbooks |
| 296 | I believe that zyBooks is the best way to learn, because it is an interactive textbook. I like the way it gives you multiple times to correct you answer. The questions are very challenging. |
| 297 | I thought it was very helpful, and I liked the way that the lessons were structured. Sometimes the reading was difficult to understand, but other than that I enjoyed zybooks. |
| 298 | I thought it was very useful because a big part of learning computer science is by doing, and through zybooks I was able to practice my skills as I learned the concepts. |
| 299 | I really like it and it is helping me to learn. |
| 300 | This was a really helpful way to helping me learn |
| 301 | Input is very confusing. It is unclear when you are supposed to enter your own input or when zyBooks is running the input. |
| 302 | Very interactive and helpful! |
| 303 | zyBooks was an amazing service that helped me practice and understand harder topics within this curse |
| 304 | I think that it is a good way to teach the material |
| 305 | Great information. I love the participation and other activities. Really helps retain the knowledge. |
| 306 | I love how as soon as you learn a topic you practice using it. |
| 307 | Zybooks feels easier to understand than I thought it would be. I think the one issue I have with it is just that occasionally the challenge sets feel much more complicated than is to be expected. |
| 308 | Helpful practice problems |
| 309 | I really like the interactive part of zyBooks |
| 310 | I thought Zybooks was going to be like _____, but I actually liked it better than _____, I found it easier to use and navigate. |
| 311 | zyBooks has been an effective way for me to learn. The fact that there are actually things for me to interact with (as opposed to a traditional textbook) helps a lot. |
| 312 | The zyBooks e-textbook is one of the best e-textbooks I have ever used, with progress checks that are actually substantive. However, I truly wish the book wouldn't disappear after the semester. |
| 313 | Helpful since it shows answers rather than leaving a practice activity with confusion |
| 314 | Easy to use with helpful content |
| 315 | The format for Zybooks on the parts that are the blue areas, are confusing, and honestly, some of the examples are very hard to follow when you have to scroll down the page and back and back and fourth. I dont love the format |
| 316 | Zybooks is a great learning tool that teaches the concepts of topics very well. |
| 317 | It is very helpful, I used it for two semester. |
| 318 | I appreciated the ability to have instructors supply their own material. With these submitted assignments, I was able to better correlate what I actually learned in class with real world usage. The zyBooks reading materials felt very difficult to trudge through. |
| 319 | Works very well. First online course material I have used my whole life that has done well keeping attention, explaining info easily and showing how to use it |
| 320 | I've only got through the intro so far but I think the concept and instructional method will be of much help. I would suggest prompting the survey later in the learning as it will provide more value-added responses from learners versus premature opinions, such as mine. |
| 321 | It's written way better than my standard textbook. The activities help me to truly learn and understand the material instead of just reading lots of theorems that take forever to understand. |
| 322 | One of my only requests would be to be able to purchase a book. I know that Zybooks can be printed however-the cost of printing with a home printer is too costly. |
| 323 | zyBooks has made it possible to interact with my learning and apply what it has taught me. I think Zybooks is an excellent resource and makes online learning something to look forward to. |
| 324 | The metrics about how much progress is made and during which time frames is incredibly helpful. The labs are good. |
| 325 | The C++ module with Professor _____ had labs created by him that requiring skills not covered in the participation and challenge activities. This web Design class has been a little better. |
| 326 | It was extremely helpful in providing structure to my studying and general learning practices. It helped me understand everything so well. It helped me learn with the readings and then practice/ apply my new-found knowledge with the labs. |
| 327 | No thoughts |
| 328 | It is helpful for learning and studying the material in the class |
| 329 | n/a |
| 330 | Overall great, but it will be better if there are more explainations |
| 331 | It is overall a good source but the only thing I suggest is adding a chat option with the professor |
| 332 | Easy to use, the content was good. |
| 333 | I am more of a text book kind of learner. I would be far more successful if there were a more comprehensive text book that accompanied the online course material. |
| 334 | It was beneficial to my learning |
| 335 | Even after going through the material several times I still feel lost on the labs. I really dislike the labs. |
| 336 | Not enough information |
| 337 | It is not my favorite software to use, but it is definitely helpful when it comes to reviewing materials with the challenges and participations |
| 338 | Better than regular textbooks |
| 339 | This was my first time using zybooks and I was very pleased with how the platform worked. I found it easy to use and a great help. |
| 340 | It's really helpful, but the professor used only zybooks to teach, instead, it will be helpful if he used board teaching and then assign zybook questions at the end of the chapter. |
| 341 | to long and need to be able to go back to the previous easier and better named |
| 342 | helped me learn better than just reading my textbook |
| 343 | At times the software would not save current progress if you didn't get a perfect score. |
| 344 | The educational content is good. I found that the compiler was "pickier" than the compiler I use for c++ while also not having an easily accessible debug function for submitting lab code. It would be nice to have more debug data available, however, if the assignment was started and completed well before the due date, the professor was able to help with errors that the compiler threw. Because the participation activity completion was not part of our grade, I did not use them except for some cases where I wanted to solidify my knowledge on a topic. |
| 345 | It was interactive so I was actually able to conceptualize the things I was learning as I was learning it rather than reading it without understanding. That is really useful for me having such a short attention span |
| 346 | The practice sections were very beneficial. Seeing multiple ways to use the tools during the reading as well as at the end of the chapter were extremely helpful when working on the week's assignments. Being able to make mistakes was useful too as it helped to build an understanding of how to address things that didn't work as expected. |
| 347 | I thought zyBooks was a very helpful tool in learning coding for Python. As it was my first time programming, it provided a clear and organized comprehension method allowing me to catch onto concepts and the language quite quickly |
| 348 | It was very helpful and the practice problems were very well designed. |
| 349 | The examples helped me do the challenges and labs a lot. |
| 350 | I believe it is very useful for interactive learning |
| 351 | zyBooks can be more useful than some textbooks or other resources for learning. I've often found myself choosing to look back at zyBooks instead of googling a question I had. |
| 352 | Zybook is clear and easy to understand. The participation activities make sure that you fully understod the concept. And the challenges test your abilities in figuring out the solution. |
| 353 | good for explaining stuffs |
| 354 | It was very informative |
| 355 | I think it is a great interactive tool to teach mathematics. It is easy to use, works in all browsers even with ad-block, and has great teaching methods. |
| 356 | zyboks provided aa way to not only understand the material but to step through the code |
| 357 | It is a great software for students to utilize while taking college courses. It was of great help when there was something I did not understand about a certain topic. |
| 358 | Pretty decent imo |
| 359 | Its an amazing tool to use for classes, it helps greatly by making the material very easy to understand. |
| 360 | I appreciate all of the practice problems and interactive examples. |
| 361 | The content is great and is easy to use. Though I would love if there would be an easy way to access table of contents at the left side of the screen so I can open it even when I am doing the chapters |
| 362 | Personally, it's difficult sometimes but I always walk away feeling as if I've learned something. |
| 363 | Easy to use, has little fluff text, and provides great visualizations for complex concepts. |
| 364 | I found it overall a great platform to use, especially for a CS class |
| 365 | i feel it is very coveient and modern vs toting a book around with you and selling them back to the bookstore for near to nothing |
| 366 | It was very easy to use although I still found myself using repl.it to create my code for its visual error notifications. |
| 367 | zyBooks provides organization and clarity for your assignments, due dates, and other activities that you have to do. It is easy to see what you have to do and when you have to do it, which makes it really convenient. |
| 368 | very good |
| 369 | Not a bad platform or way of learning the material but for the actual coding examples it would be nice to be able to get the answers if you are really stuck. |
| 370 | Initially, when we switched to remote learning, I thought that having a mandatory textbook requirement would be a nuisance; however zyBooks is actually a really good resource. Not only does it help with my classwork, the modules and quizzes are very helpful and I'm grateful that the quizzes show the correct answer. |
| 371 | Zybooks is interactive but it would be better if there is a lecture video before the topic and then the interactive section |
| 372 | Well designed, thoughtful activites |
| 373 | I think zybooks is pretty good. good paced. |
| 374 | I don't think our teacher's teaching style was compatible with Zybooks, though I do like the exercises. |
| 375 | good examples |
| 376 | I didnt really like it, it doesnt explain the concepts really well. |
| 377 | It's good. Sometimes, it takes too much time to do some questions or labs because the requirements are not clear |
| 378 | zyBooks is a great platform with a clean interface, useful animations, and great text. |
| 379 | I loved zyBooks |
| 380 | It provides an easy way for us to study the material. |
| 381 | The system is very glitchy. A couple of times I had the code correct but zyBooks insisted that it was wrong. Huge waste of my valuable time. Not to mention the frustration. As well as the Lockdown Browser being torment to work with. I got so upset about not being able to access an exam, that my PTSD kicked in and I don't remember even taking the test. I did very poorly on that test. I like the idea of the labs. I learn better in a hands-on environment. It would be helpful if the print function worked. Being able to make notes directly on the labs would be beneficial to studying for exams. |
| 382 | It's pretty simple and intuitive, however on some fill-in the blank answers, there were a couple times where it was extremely and unnecessary tedious and frustrating to use. |
| 383 | I thought it was excellent; No real complaints. |
| 384 | Very good for someone who is just starting. However, the material did not relate to the assignments. So, this would be great to use on the side, but wouldn't be helpful for the assignments. |
| 385 | Satisfactory if tedious. |
| 386 | It's very helpful with my learning. |
| 387 | The content on zyBooks is amazing, but the coursework in my class does not always relate completely. I would say it is a great tool to expand beyond the scope of most courses, but not that helpful in directly assisting in the actual course. |
| 388 | It's a great resource but reading the lessons is more time consuming then I would like - I wish I could make it move a little faster |
| 389 | Easy to learn from |
| 390 | It is helpful in learning the material. Reading and homework exercises are well thought. Interactive. |
| 391 | I love zyBooks, especially interactives. |
| 392 | I like that zyBooks can be used to review for an upcoming exam. It's easy to use and easy to read the material. |
| 393 | A good tool to learn if you put the work in. Also good for reviewing content in one place. |
| 394 | Not very engaging |
| 395 | Great learning and practice material. Very detailed. |
| 396 | awful |
| 397 | Zybooks is a great interactive textbook. Giving virtual examples of concepts was extremely helpful. Where my instructor lacked code examples, zybooks picked up that slack. |
| 398 | The website is easy to use and the lessons themselves are useful as a supplemental resource along with my course classes. |
| 399 | I liked zyBooks but the labs were a lot harder than the assignments |
| 400 | Zybooks gave a more in depth look at lessons, which I appreciated. |
| 401 | Super easy to use, no technical difficulties. The material was explained clearly, and the participation activities, challenge activities, and labs reinforced what I was learning. One of the best designed textbooks (electronic or paper) I have ever used! |
| 402 | I think it's really cool to learn like that I like the activities. |
| 403 | Zybooks is good as supplementary material, but for the class I'm currently taking right now, it's the only material being taught. I noticed that the questions after each lesson tends to be extremely vague at times and I even get asked questions that isn't talked about in the lessons above. |
| 404 | it works well |
| 405 | I like how the material is followed by exercises to reinforce what was learned. |
| 406 | I am usually against the use of online textbooks, I find them hard to navigate (I also dislike looking at a computer screen for long periods of time reading but that isn't relevant). However, I found zyBooks to be an exception to my vendetta against online books. Zybooks is more then just a textbook. I loved the interactive exercises in the textbook, it made it really easy to learn the material. The sections are also broken up into easily digestible parts. The labs were also fun! I enjoyed writing code to solve the problems given. I intend to extend my subscription so I can finish the book over the summer as well. I also plan on recommend zyBooks to any one wishing to learn coding or other lessons that are available. |
| 407 | I thought it was an extremely helpful learning tool. I enjoy the flow of the lessons. By that I mean that you are doing activities while you read as opposed to reading the chapter first, then doing exercises. |
| 408 | Pretty Neutral really.. I do not have much of an opinion on this. |
| 409 | Great extra resource to have, though would love for there to be a mobile version. |
| 410 | I appreciated the way examples can be generated to ensure you can practice as long as you want. I also like how the instructors can automatically check you progress which makes the grading process easier. Overall, it is an easy and efficient implementation of an online textbook, especially compared to similar services. |
| 411 | It's easy to understand. |
| 412 | Simple but accurate ways to learn introductory classes. |
| 413 | I found zyBooks reasonably good at learning complex concepts. I find having participation activities in between content is effective in reinforcing new material. |
| 414 | I really enjoyed the interactive platform and challenge activities made sure I really understood material |
| 415 | It's an interesting way of having a textbook, but it seemed to work well. |
| 416 | It is alright. I like that it is online and you can work out lots of different problems, but I have had an issue with some answers on those problems and had to contact support about them. It isn't bad, but I wish the problems were in a bit of a different style, and that all the bugs were worked out fully. |
| 417 | The way it checks labs can be annoying, but readings are great |
| 418 | It is very interactive, so it helps me learn much better. I am retaking a Computer Science class that I took last year and failed. Last year, it was a lot harder for me to learn, because we did not use ZyBooks. The course was not interactive at all. However, this time around, I feel like I am actually learning because I am getting feedback on my programs from zyBooks and I am actually able to check my learning with the questions and activities in the course. |
| 419 | From my experience of using zyBooks, I feel that it is a great tool for learning java. |
| 420 | it is nice |
| 421 | It was really good at explaining topics and the exercises were helpful in learning the material |
| 422 | Great way to learn! |
| 423 | It is very helpful about Computer Science |
| 424 | It's fun and simple. I love that it is interactive, that helps me learn and actually remember the context. |
| 425 | I enjoy the progress bar and the participation question that allow multiple tries, It lessens the stress of getting it right the first time for a 100% grade. |
| 426 | Not bad, very good, very interactive. |
| 427 | Very insightful and well structured program. However, would run better with videos and more help on the activity challenges on the bottom of the page. |
| 428 | Helpful and interactive |
| 429 | overall decent but the participating activities need adjustment some of them take more time than they should to go through them just because of the animation and some are just plain repetitive |
| 430 | My first CS class and also my first time using zyBooks. It was great since it had a bunch of examples and showed you different situations with every topic. first experience was really positive. |
| 431 | I think zyBooks is a very easy program to use and is very convenient since all of it is online. |
| 432 | Very helpful curriculum |
| 433 | I really like it and the interactive activities |
| 434 | Very informative. I appreciated the exercises, drills, etc. I would, however, recommend reviewing the order of information. For instance, I realized the declarative knowledge regarding some concepts were presented after the procedural knowledge was presented (i.e., how to use it was presented before the background info containing its purpose and use). Also, scaffolding opportunities would be extremely helpful with the ending coding exercises. (Supporting the student with feedback that guides their learning process is needed; otherwise, they may give up and find the answer online. After all, completion of these assignments is for credit and on a timeline.) |
| 435 | It's a well organized and useful tool in studying, as long as the teacher follows the guidelines and doesn't rely on it for the sole method for the students to learn. |
| 436 | I like they way it's structured but feel like I would have done better if the feedback from the labs had more detail to them. |
| 437 | The material is concise and easy to follow. |
| 438 | Easy to use, good tutorials and plenty of examples |
| 439 | It surprisingly helped so much with understanding basics of java. The different assignments it has and the step by step vid steps are great! |
| 440 | Zybooks was good. |
| 441 | I think the tool is great. I used to take an introductory programming course when I was still in electrical engineering but that was structured terribly for first-time programmers. But this, zybooks has completely changed the way I think about programming and how I approach the problems. I love the way the lessons are structured and each topic or concpet has enough examples to help you understand. It also provides enough practice with the in-text questions and challenge questions at the end. Zybooks is great because it does not expect you to know anything about programming. It doesn't just expect you to know how to code a sudoku solver or a maze solver. |
| 442 | It's okay. |
| 443 | It was confusing at first when I needed to buy my textbooks at the beginning of the year since the ISBN wasn't recognized, but this tool is pretty helpful and engaging. |
| 444 | I thought it contains super helpful tips and tricks. The reading could be a bit confusing in places. |
| 445 | i liked it good visuals and information is correct |
| 446 | I thought zyBooks platform was very easy to understand and find information. I love the search tool. I think having the activities throughout definitely helps strengthen and visualize my understanding of the material. Very pleased with this form of textbook, which I've never encountered before. |
| 447 | zyBooks is helpful and informative and largely possesses more pros than cons when it comes to learning this material |
| 448 | Its easy to use |
| 449 | The platform is very easy to follow. I enjoy doing the participation activities as I read. It keeps the material interesting. |
| 450 | First half was good and then it accelerated a bit fast for me |
| 451 | I like how its interactive. |
| 452 | At first I was very hesitant to using zyBooks. Professors in the past had used some sort of online homework method and more often than not it presented problems in grading, ended up actually shutting down the conversation to learn more, and added to self-doubt and confusion about the topic. ZyBooks was nothing like. It has a clean interface, that is easy to navigate, and the way it steps through concepts is tremendously helpful when going back to hear them in Lecture as well as reviewing material for a program or before an exam. I was very pleasantly surprised! |
| 453 | I think the challenge problems are a bit confusing. |
| 454 | Decent learning, the best advise I can give is that the information at the top seems disconnected from the activities, it might be useful to bring some tips or formulas down to the questions so I feel more motivated to actually use them. Also providing a few more exercises at the very bottom, both simple and difficult, would be helpful. |
| 455 | It provided an intuitive system for extended education beyond the traditional in-class lectures. With the unfortunate events of COVID-19, it provided a reliable source of learning. |
| 456 | $75 after the fact as a pop up "oh were gonna use this " is probably the most annoying thing, considering as a college student we pay for literally everything even existing is expensive so 75 dollars plus tax was the icing on top really. |
| 457 | I think it's a cool interactive way to learn, but I don't think it's for everyone. But many things in life aren't. |
| 458 | During studying computer architecture, I always crave to know the exact flow of the computer(with animation or sth). zyBooks actualized it. |
| 459 | Zybooks was easy to navigate through and showed me a list of when my assignments were due. However a reminder either through email would have been helpful. |
| 460 | Its a good resource but the program assigns homework quickly negating the full advantage of the online textbook. However resources in the book including interactive opportunities to compile C++ helped me pick up skills quickly but were at time frustrating to use due to adding whitespace out of habit that would mark answers wrong. This does not feel to me to be a design error but mostly a technological limitation. I have no formal experience though and could be wrong. |
| 461 | It's a decent software that helps you learn the material most of the time. |
| 462 | I am enjoying the activities and challenges that are throughout the chapters. I believe they are helping in making sure that I am comprehending the material. The feedback for each question, whether it was answered correctly or not, is helpful. |
| 463 | Makes students review lesson learned |
| 464 | The zybooks allow the student an interactive way to complete homework assignments and learn the material. |
| 465 | It's easy to navigate and helpful. I'm very pleased with the interactivity, which helps my engagement. |
| 466 | It is easy to learn with and work through questions with |
| 467 | I thought zyBooks was a nice website and had good directions but it just wasn't for me. I am used to in-class assignments and online assignment messed with me. |
| 468 | Zybooks is great |
| 469 | It worked well and it explained concepts well enough. There's no real complaints to be had about it on the side of zbooks. What we were doing on here wasn't aligned to what we were doing in class, but thats not zybooks fault. |
| 470 | This is my first time using zyBooks. I'm finding it very helpful especially with the illustrations and animations. Some concepts like Linked-Lists are very confusing to grasp at first especially understanding pointers but the animations made it very clear for me. |
| 471 | Great presentation to learn the code. Interface is really intuitive. Especially since we transitioned online. |
| 472 | I think Zybooks is really great. It explains material well and I like the exercises that help you understand the material as you go along. The animations are also super helpful when trying to understand a concept. I don't think I have any complaints except that we lose it once the subscription for it is over. |
| 473 | It's a nice way to learn (especially during the pandemic) and is generally good at explaining concepts. |
| 474 | I really liked the platform, material presentation followed a logical progression |
| 475 | Very well done material, however a little tedious for people already familiar with the material. |
| 476 | The activities really helped with the understanding of the topics. They were a great practice to learn the materials. |
| 477 | I can learn things in detail. |
| 478 | Zybooks helps reinforce concepts taught in class without being overbearing. |
| 479 | Zybooks is a very good learning resource. It explains the material quite well. However, there have been a couple of instances where zybooks has mad it difficult for me to learn a specific topic, mostly because the lesson along with the challenges and participation activities introduce coding topics that have not been covered yet. For example, I think it was in the chapter about user defined functions where the challenges incorporated vectors and classes, something I that had not been covered at all previously, hence, I had a lot of difficulty figuring it out. Also, sometimes the explanations can be somewhat bare minimum, leaving me to have to do some trial and errors to figure out exactly what was meant in the explanations. |
| 480 | I definitely prefer using zyBooks over a traditional book. I have found that I am actually able to learn, due to its interactive manner. |
| 481 | I like how it explains the material. The reading activities are really helpful. Zybooks is very accessible and I like that all of my material is in one place |
| 482 | I really loved the user friendliness that Zybooks provides for first time users. I was able to understand each and every chapter with ease especially during the COVID-19 pandemic where virtual learning is a difficulty to me. |
| 483 | Informative and helpful in learning new programming languages |
| 484 | zyBooks is great. I really love the interactive labs. |
| 485 | it was very informative and really helped me understand each concept. Super easy and quick to use. |
| 486 | A very good platform that could let students interact with the book. |
| 487 | It was very unhelpful when it came to the written portion because if you wrote the wrong answer there was no help on what the right answer was so you pretty much just had to continue to guess until you got it right or just not do them. |
| 488 | It was fine to use but not my favorite way to learn. |
| 489 | zyBooks is way more interactive and engaging then a normal book, specially in topics such as computer science. I really like the way one can visualize the processes instead of looking at static images. |
| 490 | Very insightful and easy to use. |
| 491 | Zybooks is very tedious, but it really helped out with everything I saw in class. |
| 492 | It is very helpful to be able to go online and look back at the topics we've been through and reference the material for the apps I am currently working on. |
| 493 | I greatly appreciate that it incorporates extremely import reading material into real assignments, thus providing much more motivation to consume the reading material essential for understanding the subject. |
| 494 | its pretty good but sometimes when I feel like im coding to pass tests rather than to code for a purpose |
| 495 | I think it was better than reading the textbook by myself. I think it would be better if the website adds this feature that you can practice questions that you answered wrong frequently. |
| 496 | some of the animations are good, but the explanations are lacking to prepare for exercises, and many small errors or lack of relevant information made for a more difficult learning experience compared to traditional textbooks. The formatting of the material in a more portrait page layout similar to textbooks does not work well on computer monitors. For example, when trying to read an example where a diagram is near the start of the example problem, one is constantly needing to scroll up and down the page, and thus difficult to follow along the example in an efficient manner. |
| 497 | I do like having zyBooks as part of my coursework. The service is nice because I can always go back to the information and review something if I'd like. I still would prefer someone talking through something I think, but for classes that are not extremely difficult I think this works great. |
| 498 | Pretty well organized for an online Textbook |
| 499 | It is great comparing other etext books. |
| 500 | I liked using it way more than any other interactive online textbook I've used before. I'm currently using _____ for another class and hate it. |
| 501 | very helpful |
| 502 | It’s a fun learning tool |
| 503 | What I dislike about zybooks is we need to pay high prices just to rent the books. I am paying for it, I should be allowed to keep it. This feels like I am getting the short end of the stick. However, What I like about zybooks is that there is no correct or incorrect answers for the practice problems, in the sense that we can keep trying until we get it right. This is the correct approach to learning in my opinion. Zybooks is definitely on the mark when it comes to helping students understand the materials. |
| 504 | It made keeping up with my reading assignments easier because I did most of it on my phone. |
| 505 | Very easy to use and learn. My favored textbook variety. |
| 506 | ZyBooks makes learning concepts easier by providing an in-depth explanation, organized sections, and feedback on why an answer was right or wrong. |
| 507 | I enjoy that the reading material is essentially also counted as homework for my class due to the included activities. |
| 508 | I love how you guys explain the problem by pictures and gifs |
| 509 | For a computer programming course, this works wonders! I am learning a lot of new things! |
| 510 | I learn things through interactive demos and zybooks fulfilled that requirement. |
| 511 | The interactive chapters really help me understand the material and provide the opportunity for hands-on learning. Extremely helpful resource and easy to navigate. |
| 512 | It was much better than all other textbooks I've used so far. Very helpful. |
| 513 | Easy to use, reading is clear, and the challenges help a lot. |
| 514 | It is efficient and well organized |
| 515 | Its a good book but lacks detail |
| 516 | I like it but I sometimes struggle to understand what the free response type questions want specifically |
| 517 | The participation activities are a great help when I don't understand a topic all that well, but sometimes the challenge activities can be quite tough for a beginner. |
| 518 | It is a great platform to learn as zybooks allows you to interact with the material and have the best experience. |
| 519 | I find interactive activities to be very useful |
| 520 | It helps me a bit in understanding new concepts |
| 521 | Seems like busy work. I learn more by discussions or other physical interactions. |
| 522 | I liked the interactive aspect of it, though the way the information was sometimes structured was a bit confusing. |
| 523 | I think zybooks is an incredible tool that allows the students to take assignments or understand course works that they learned during their class time. It is easily accessible and can be done anytime, anywhere. |
| 524 | Easy to use |
| 525 | I found zyBooks to be a useful supplement to my college lectures. I was able to learn about the program in class which then translated nicely to zyBooks because I was able to apply what I already knew while gaining an even better understanding through the reading and labs. |
| 526 | doing assignments on zybooks are interesting. |
| 527 | I learn best through examples and homework problems. It is very difficult for me to grasp a concept through lectures or information. I learn better through zyBook's example problems, especially when I miss them the first time. I also appreciate how zyBooks are a participation grade and that I can focus on learning rather than on getting a good grade. |
| 528 | Fairly easy to understand |
| 529 | I like the user interface design and the interactive challenges and assignments. However, I felt that a lot of the solutions for the additional problems aren’t explained to their full extent. |
| 530 | I thought the zyBook was a really great way to present material and see what I was understanding based off of the questions given. I personally needed the mixture of zyBook, worksheets, and lectures to feel like I was fully understanding the material, so it was not enough for the class by itself, but it was a great resource. |
| 531 | The texts have been great |
| 532 | Zybooks has several positive and negative aspects. On the positive end, the material is easy to learn due to diagrams and other illustrations. Work is also explained thoroughly, which helps to correct mistakes that may have happened. On the negative, the same forgiving atmosphere that allows for correction also allows for laziness. Many of my friends just clicked through the program randomly until they got a correct answer then moved along. For improvement, I suggest a light penalty for missing too many questions. It does not need to be severe, just enough to encourage people to actually read the material. |
| 533 | I think zybooks is very advances and convenient to use depending on how the professor decides to utilize it. |
| 534 | its real good |
| 535 | zyBook in a great was to lean material and practice. |
| 536 | Helpful lecture content, labs and challenges |
| 537 | Zybooks would be great on its own, however in addition to a bunch of other assignments, it can be overwhelming and I feel like I'm just doing this for credit. |
| 538 | It's extremely concise for programming |
| 539 | The code grader can be a bit weird, especially for more difficult assignments, but the animated explanations of topics (particularly algorithms) are incredibly helpful. |
| 540 | I find the labs to be good and reading the book itself proved super helpful. |
| 541 | I liked the web systems design it was helpful for learning to create a website |
| 542 | i have never loved having textbooks online, but zybooks is much better than expected. I Love the activities and ability to really delve into my learning |
| 543 | It was okay, but I don't think it taught me computer science |
| 544 | It's nicely laid out and well organized. |
| 545 | It is easier to use than the previous websites I've used, but the only issue I see is that I can just click until I have the right answer. |
| 546 | The content was very thorough and descriptive. The demonstration helped clear a lot of the new material and also visualize how the code worked to get a better understanding. |
| 547 | I really enjoyed the course material and the interactive learning within the course |
| 548 | It's really thorough and the practice problems help a lot! |
| 549 | zyBooks has been an instrumental tool in my undergraduate CS courses. I love the real-time feedback on labs and challenge activities, as it allows me to catch my mistakes early on and fix them before they cause me any real trouble. |
| 550 | Its easy to use and easy to learn with it. |
| 551 | Worked well, I think its much better than any of the previous online coding systems Ive used |
| 552 | Loads of information in an easily digestible format |
| 553 | It is very helpful but the challenges and labs are sometimes difficult. |
| 554 | Zybook was SUPER helpful in learning the material and way better than reading normal textbook chapters. It was interactive and kept me engaged. |
| 555 | Slow to run programming |
| 556 | Provides great online practice with new content |
| 557 | Love how it works, it allows me to enter code and test it out here. Do wish it was more like an IDE where you could see error in missing parenthesis or such. |
| 558 | I helps a lot with the explanation of the material and then helping me understand different types of code. |
| 559 | I like how it was organized and forced the student to read and understand the material. The videos were helpful since it helped to visually watch the material make sense. Then, the follow up questions were fair and relevant. |
| 560 | It's easy to use, but it could try to give a real world problem. |
| 561 | zyBooks is great! This is my second course through zybooks both of which were for programming and it has helped me learn very well for both classes. zyBooks made it very easy to continue learning during the COVID-19 outbreak because the majority of our class was already based on zybooks. |
| 562 | Usually, I generally am okay with zyBooks for the few classes I take it with. I wish it could have audio explaining things sometimes, as I am an auditory learner. The only reason I dislike zyBooks for the class in question right now is because I feel like it does not link with the class at all, and just that overall the EE__ class at ___ is very poorly structured. So it's not even an issue with zyBooks at all. |
| 563 | I like how the activities reinforce the reading material. The reading introduces the concept and the practice teaches it. It's a strong way to learn. |
| 564 | its great |
| 565 | It's very easy to understand and do the work. |
| 566 | Honestly I really like Zybooks. The lessons were interactive and easily accessible . I was able to complete HW assignments wherever I was, and the interactive animations really helped me to understand what the book was talking about. The questions at the end were also very useful as It made sure I was prepared for my class's tests and quizzes. |
| 567 | it's not that bad but it can be frustrating when many sections are assigned at once |
| 568 | its helpful and allows you to learn online efficiently |
| 569 | Really good challenge questions and practice problems. |
| 570 | It's helpful, especially the challenge questions. |
| 571 | It is very easy to log in and complete assignments. |
| 572 | The textbook stuff is great but the coding sections could be more user friendly. Its such a hassle to write the code in the website. |
| 573 | Expensive but very helpful. |
| 574 | I enjoy ZyBooks much more than traditional books. |
| 575 | Zybooks are well organized, but some of the click-through demonstrations are boring, so I end up not paying attention. |
| 576 | Easy to access and fairly cheap |
| 577 | I love the fact that we can do activities directly from the book and that they are graded as we do them. |
| 578 | Zybooks is really cool, is a smart guy, and doesn't afraid of anything. Bad meme aside, it's been an extremely helpful and coincidental tool once my instructor strictly transitioned to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| 579 | Makes it a lot easier to learn and the exercises help with practice. |
| 580 | useful and effective way to teach the basics of coding since the content is nothing new or cutting edge, helps free up space for the teacher to teach more important/complex concepts |
| 581 | It was an interesting way to learn the material. |
| 582 | Its helpful could be more helpful with fewer assignments. |
| 583 | Easy to use and complete assignments |
| 584 | I particularly appreciated the zyLabs, but I wish the final chapters had zyLabs as well |
| 585 | I was able to understand most of the readings, there were a couple I didn't really understand. |
| 586 | It's fine... but better than the lecture in terms of learning. |
| 587 | Very easy to use and understandable. Make it easy and fun. |
| 588 | Zybooks was not required for the course but provided as a supplemental resource. So far it has been extremely useful for diving further into topics |
| 589 | The visual aspect of zybooks is really nice compared to others |
| 590 | I like the interface and the variety of questions |
| 591 | This has been very helpful during the crisis |
| 592 | Its interactive on learning basis and helps grasp the knowledge through animations and simulations. |
| 593 | [Object object] |
| 594 | Annoying but I can understand why we have it |
| 595 | I think it's really good for studying and practice. The animated examples are easy to understand and help a lot. |
| 596 | A good site to practice the material thats assigned |
| 597 | good for practice |
| 598 | Pretty convenient and easy to use |
| 599 | Helps me a lot in my study. Great tool. |
| 600 | zyBooks was really good for learning C++ because of the interactive examples and animations |
| 601 | I love zybooks. I was also told by my instructor that zybooks is on Github and I think that is amazing. |
| 602 | It is great in breaking down hard concepts as well as a form of practice. |
| 603 | It was very smooth and easy to use |
| 604 | It really helped me a lot to understand the course and made it really easy. |
| 605 | Zybooks learning materials are very clear and concise. |
| 606 | Zybooks is incredibly helpful when it comes to programming. I do not think I could have learned any other way. Great Job! |
| 607 | Becomes tedious. I start losing focus. The playing feature becomes extremely frustrating to follow along. Some topics become tedious. I do find it helpful however, I feel having some videos where someone is taking us through the algorithms will be better than us keep playing play. |
| 608 | I like the interactivity. Helps to be able to immediately practice the thing I just read. |
| 609 | It's useful as an example |
| 610 | I love zybooks!! When I miss something in lecture they are a great way to learn the code. |
| 611 | I think it is a very interesting and helpful tool. Super easy to use and has very cool visual/video/interactive examples. |
| 612 | Thought most of my learning came from zyBooks even more so than lectures. |
| 613 | good |
| 614 | It helps me learn programming very easily |
| 615 | Good for referencing but tedious and not enough coding |
| 616 | Easy interactability, helpful for computer science course |
| 617 | I really liked how topics were laid out and the speed at which they were covered. |
| 618 | Very helpful when I needed to refresh on some material. |
| 619 | It is harder moving back in forth because when you come over to zybooks -it acts like it don't want to bring up the information that you need to do your work. But it is ok stressfu |
| 620 | I love how ZyBooks performs the guided training, then the labs. It is engaging and exciting! |
| 621 | I'd rather use zybooks than zoom lectures |
| 622 | I really enjoy using the ZyBooks platform. As a beginner, I have found it teaches me at a great pace and combines reading with practice well. |
| 623 | I love it |
| 624 | Zybooks are a good way to reinforce concepts taught in class through interactive lessons and problems that give instant feedback. |
| 625 | zyBooks is very helpful and very informative. |
| 626 | Very in-depth and thorough explanations. Broke really daunting subjects down into easier-to-understand problems. |
| 627 | the challenges are hard |
| 628 | The zybook really helped me to better understand all of the topics in this class. Online classes can be difficult, but this was definitely a great resource available. I really like how the zybook has the participation activities. Overall, I really enjoyed it. |
| 629 | It was helpful to have the resource of zybooks to go back to in order to remember information and study but I would not consider it a tool when first being introduced to new course content |
| 630 | I think it's a helpful tool that is good for supplementing learning, but needs outside sources to make the material interesting. |
| 631 | It is very helpful and compliments a lecture well. |
| 632 | It was nice, for a computer science course, to have an interactive textbook |
| 633 | It has lots of information |
| 634 | I thought it was very helpful. |
| 635 | Zybooks is very hands on with activities that helps learning the subject matter alot more interesting and compelling. The interactivity and the sample questions makes the learning process much more engaging and efficient. |
| 636 | We don't really have a recitation where we use this code so Zybooks was a pretty good substitute for it. |
| 637 | Almost perfect in every way |
| 638 | zyBooks is a great platform for beginner programmers like me. It introduces material at a good pace and is a great companion to computer science classes. |
| 639 | First is a unique experience compare to others third parties learning website. I will strongly recommend this learning site to other people. |
| 640 | Its a great resource to use while coding an assignment. If i don't recall information, or the syntax to a given statement i can usually find the answer on Zybooks. |
| 641 | zyBook is really amazing and easy to use. So worth paying the amount I paid for this class. |
| 642 | I really like the way that zyBooks is set up, it is clear and helpful. |
| 643 | Good usefull program that helps with making sure assignments are actually ready for submission |
| 644 | Good source of material, but programming assignments are sometimes too easy. |
| 645 | I like the fact that it is a virtual text book that has questions to answer as you go. |
| 646 | Easy to comprehend. |
| 647 | Its great |
| 648 | I like it a lot! It prepared me very much for my class and all the interactive participation was fun to do and very helpful. |
| 649 | zybooks is helpful and covers most material in depth. |
| 650 | Its very helpful in practice and understanding the conceptual end of code |
| 651 | zyBooks, as a learning tool, is VERY helpful for people who beginning to learn how to code. The integrated interpreter and the ways it is used with the material enhances the learning experience in a very powerful way. We had issues, however, as we progressed to more advanced materials. The instructor had a difficult time providing unit tests and other 'test' mechanisms that could help us understand WHAT was wrong with our code other than the code did not pass the tests. This, I feel, is VERY opposite the way coding takes place - especially since testing your code is a VERY important part of how a successful completion of a programming goal is achieved - and having no clue what the end result of the desired 'test' is for unit testing results in massive frustration and repeated attempts to push code through the grinder until the right size pieces of code come out. In one case - I had completed a program as specified by our teacher, and when I put it through the tests ... it failed 0/9. I had tested every last piece of it. It worked beautifully. Problem was that it was too well made. I had to BREAK THE PROGRAM in order to get it to pass the testing mechanisms in zyBooks. That is right, I had to RUIN a perfectly fine working script, and then I had to ADD ERRORS to the code, no joke... I had to mess up methods in my classes in order to get it to pass. All of this without a clue as to WHAT would be considered passing... Long story short - help out the instructors for the long game. Help them to write successful unique tests by providing them with a library of testing code that they can work with to make a zyBooks course unique to them. Additionally, please force instructors to provide a WORKING SOLUTION to their tests when they write strange tests and instructions. This way no other student ends up like me with some backwards test that everyone pulls their hair out trying to figure out what the test is actually testing for... (Shaving bit after bit out of the script until it tells you that you got 1/9 points as opposed to 0/9, etc etc etc) On to my next point: You guys do feedback VERY well. When I had strange questions / issues about the material and submitted feedback, zyBooks ALWAYS responded. You guys are doing great! Thanks for listening to me then and now! |
| 652 | I actually love zyBooks because it encourages learning and doesn't penalize you for wrong answers. I also loved the challenge activities, it really helped me learn! |
| 653 | I really like it, the labs are very well explained, participation activities keep it dynamic. It's honestly one of the best learning tools. |
| 654 | So far, I like it because it's very straight forward |
| 655 | I think it is a great way to learn coding concepts in particular! It gives you the hands on experience while also still talking through it thoroughly. |
| 656 | Zybooks has been very helpful in learning the material with many clear examples. |
| 657 | Issa book |
| 658 | It's very useful and helpful to define one's errors in the work and the explanation afterwards helps a lot to know why it was wrong and a lot of activities to help one going. |
| 659 | Great way to learn material. |
| 660 | offered interactive learning that was a great help |
| 661 | I wish there was more instruction on the challenge problems to implement more learning |
| 662 | I believe that zyBooks is very essential to learning within a remote setting. I have no problems with the content and learning it. I am very happy this was the software that was chosen for my Statistics class. |
| 663 | Having to pay full price for a text and still losing access to it after the semester ends is frustrating, especially if you have to retake a course - you have to buy the same book twice. |
| 664 | I thought it was helpful, the labs and challenge activities did not provide any problems in functionality. The textbook overall could have used more detail for the contents. |
| 665 | The website was useful as learning material, and my course relied heavily on it. |
| 666 | Zybooks really helped me understand the course material for this class. Since this is the first c++ programming class that I have taken, I felt really lost on some of the topics that we went over. Being able to refer back to Zybooks sections was really helpful for my understanding in class. I also really like how Zybooks is set up. The headers for each section are really helpful in navigating through all of the material, or for navigating to a certain topic. |
| 667 | Organized, repetitive, instills learning. |
| 668 | zyBooks is great and it doesn't lag. I like the information it covers, but I do wish it was more detailed. |
| 669 | its secure, safe and easy to use . |
| 670 | It helped me to develop my basic understanding of each chapter. |
| 671 | I really appreciate the interactive style of learning through zyBooks it has really helped me learn with a more hands-on approach. |
| 672 | I like print material, it would help me to have one, with the quiz answers listed in an appendix. For what you charge, it upsets me that I have nothing left after the course for reference material. |
| 673 | I feel that zyBooks is an adequate learning tool that helps me learn on my own, rather than waiting for the rest of the class in lectures. |
| 674 | Zybooks makes it easy to learn the lecture materials in-depth, but it still makes it challenging enough that the information is really understood. |
| 675 | It is a good way to learn certain topics without getting too detailed in the explanations. Some topics are harder to understand than others, but zyBooks does its best to explain it. |
| 676 | It was helpful as a second source for different algorithms I couldn't quite get the hang of in class. The diagrams and animations really helped my further grasp concepts as well |
| 677 | ZyBooks is very efficent for learning the content for my class. |
| 678 | It was very helpful with my learning experience in my online programming class. Especially considering i have never taken a program class before. |
| 679 | Easy to use |
| 680 | Its an interactive textbook which makes it faster to learn how to visualize code in real time and allows you to code as you learn |
| 681 | zyBooks is a great learning program that helps the user learn the material that is needed, the hands-on challenge really enhance the learning experience. |
| 682 | None |
| 683 | I like it. I think the lessons are a little long at times, but other than that it does teach well. |
| 684 | zyBooks was a good introduction to learning python and made the learning process a lot smoother and easier. |
| 685 | The course work is easy to follow |
| 686 | Good learning tool, but the multipart videos are tedious |
| 687 | Its about the same as a book rental; a scam. Imagine paying $50 to have access to a book for a limited amount of time when i can find practice problems and references online. There is no point in buying a zybook if the contents just lock back after my rental has ended. Whats the point if i cant go back and read/practice the information anyway. |
| 688 | Interesting learning tool, can seem dense at times but very useful |
| 689 | The best execution of an online textbook that I've seen. Great formatting, love the interactive exercises. |
| 690 | Zybooks provided good simplified information that supplemented the lectures. It was really helpful in learning materials that were vague during lecture and a good reference point as I was doing homework problems. |
| 691 | easy to use and helpful with instant feedback |
| 692 | I like how it is very interactive and the animation is very helpful. |
| 693 | Really good interface, although the processing of some assignments is very slow. |
| 694 | It's very easy and intuitive to use.I much prefer it to a traditional textbook |
| 695 | I skimmed through the zyBooks assignments last semester, not paying them much mind. Just enough to get me through the class. This mentality has come back to bite me this semester. So since the week before spring break when all classes when to the online format, the zyBooks assignments and exercises were INCREDIBLY helpful. I even went as far as to go back to the beginning of the semester and redo all my zyBook activities for the knowledge. I feel that I now understand a lot more than I did coming into the quarantine and that the extra time has helped me fully realized how helpful the zyBook activities are when they are correctly used. |
| 696 | Has been a very helpful learning tool this semester, really helps break things down |
| 697 | Most of my professors major projects revolved around zyBooks, meaning we had to change certain things so they would work in zyBooks. This is fine, but there are tiny differences like how the newline is created in a windows notepad versus the zyBooks version (Unix I think). These small details did not necessarily make it more difficult than it had to be, but I just feel like zyBooks should not ALWAYS be used for major projects. However it's very helpful with test cases and homework and definitely teaching. |
| 698 | I like that there are challenges and that we are able to at least understand the |
| 699 | zyBooks has been a tremendous help when it comes to studying. I enjoy the interactive activities in the chapters. |
| 700 | over simplifies the concepts and the graphic things are too slow |
| 701 | Easy to use learning platform, and the challenge activities can help students learn better |
| 702 | I feel like the content is thought out and interactive. |
| 703 | The website has a very modern UI, easy to understand lessons, and has simple, yet clear graphics for the needed assistance. |
| 704 | Very useful in a supplement to lectures. While grinding and irritating at times, it truly helped me understand the material. |
| 705 | Goes way beyond traditional textbooks and is much more effective. Sometimes I rent zyBooks for classes that don't even assign it. |
| 706 | It is a lot easier to follow than a regular textbook |
| 707 | Material is good as it walk throughs the topics. |
| 708 | Very good website, instructor set up poorly, compiles code slowly for turning in questions |
| 709 | zyBooks is a great way of keeping the readers engaged in the material with the ways i'ts formatted and the embedded book activities. |
| 710 | ZyBooks makes it much easier to read textbooks, and much more fun and interactive. |
| 711 | ZyBooks gives me a very hands-on approach to learning the concepts illustrated in my class sessions and is relatively simple to navigate, sometimes however I feel like the instructions are a little lacking sometimes and leave me wondering how to do the assigned problem. |
| 712 | Although I am not a fan of computer science I believe that this was a great tool to use in practice to get better at computer science. |
| 713 | its pretty helpful. If I don't understand something and get answers wrong it lets me see the answer and helps me see why the answer is the answer. At times I rushed the participation activities but they're still useful for quick review of material before exams. |
| 714 | ZyBooks has helped me in more ways than any instructor could. Talking to professors are nice. However, you can't talk to them 24/7. With ZyBooks I can! Any questions I have are right in front of me with the answers and a great explanation. |
| 715 | zyBooks was defiantly a useful resource for me during this semester. The exercises were involved and helpful, and the material was very comprehensive. |
| 716 | More useful that the actual class and an easy way to learn |
| 717 | Overall it was fine, just a little boring to read at times. |
| 718 | This was a good way to ingest information outside of the classroom. It was a good tool that was paired with lectures and helped me learn the material. |
| 719 | The animations are extremely slow and the questions are pretty tedious but I did learn a lot. |
| 720 | Covered the topics well with visualization, text, and activities. |
| 721 | I think that it would be helpful if the examples were laid out in a different way, such as the animations for participation activities. The way they are now is really dense and difficult to understand. |
| 722 | Very nice design, very easy to navigate and operate |
| 723 | A good way to learn the information by having many participation and challenge activities |
| 724 | I think its a pretty good program. No real issues using it. |
| 725 | It was a great way to practice C++ programing skills. |
| 726 | I like the combination of the participation activities along with the challenge questions. The participation activities help me to make sure I understand the material, but it is always nice to be challenged. It is a great way to prepare for tests or exams for the class. |
| 727 | i wish i could look back at old books and do some exercises to freshen up on things, without buying it again, like a real book |
| 728 | Some parts of zybooks were confusing and frustrating at times, but I worked around it |
| 729 | Helped me better understand data structure |
| 730 | i love how clearly it explains the material as well as asking questions throughout to make sure that I also practice & understand the material. |
| 731 | We used zyBooks during each class and for any assignments. I found it more useful to take notes straight from zyBooks rather than attempting to listen and summarize what my professor stated. |
| 732 | The format of the Participation Activities is better than anything a normal textbook can do. The step-by-step visuals where you had to press play over and over felt more tedious than useful since they often didn't demonstrate concepts difficult enough to need such detailed explanations. I think ZyBook is great for a course in Computer Science, but I doubt it would work as well for other STEM courses. |
| 733 | Easily accessible and a very interactive way to learn from a textbook. |
| 734 | zyBooks assignments really helped me understand the material I was learning because of its interactive aspects |
| 735 | Good, the examples could explain a little more. It implies a certain steps which make it more difficult to understand why a step has taken place. |
| 736 | It has been a good learning tool, however my one complaint is the jump in difficulty from the chapter material to the lab material is a bit steep for me. I think an easy version of the labs that is a bit more guided would help me a lot. |
| 737 | I think zyBooks is good, I wish instructors would utilize the testing system more, CS test are hard to deal with due to subjectiveness. |
| 738 | Its a good learning tool, but the Challenge Activities dont always function in Firefox and some of the Participation Activities can be bypassed too easily in my opinion. |
| 739 | it presented everything in an organized way and provided interactive material which I believe is essential to learning computer science (as opposed to a normal textbook). |
| 740 | While easy to use it feels tedious, this is most likely because of my own interests and things of the like, not because of what it is. |
| 741 | ZyBooks packages the lessons very neatly and is easy to understand. |
| 742 | Zybooks modules enhanced my learning and understanding. There were issues in submitting assignments initially. |
| 743 | zyBooks is a good way to learn coding due to its step by step nature. |
| 744 | It was a good help for understanding new material further but now with quarantine it pretty much is fully teaching me and doing it well. I like zybooks quite a bit. |
| 745 | I think Zybook is a great program. It helps me organize what I need to have done for each week which helps me stay organized. I also like how the program allows for my instructor to add notes and comments to helps us understand the material for each section. |
| 746 | zyBooks has interactive activities that makes the process of learning more interesting |
| 747 | I enjoy working through zyBooks and find it a very good way to learn |
| 748 | Zybooks actually explains the chapters thoroughly and crystal clear unlike Blackboard or cengage. I am actually really glad my professor choose to use zybooks because she doesn't do zoom and I don't have to worry about that becasue i get all i need to know from here explained in full. |
| 749 | It is nice |
| 750 | Much more user friendly then my experience with ____ and ____. |
| 751 | It was very good to understand and helped a lot. |
| 752 | I thing zyBooks is a good program. My only negative experience was with the coding editor available. |
| 753 | Some issues with program feedback; also not sure how to solve some of the earlier problems without knowledge from later chapters |
| 754 | Good but kind of bland in presentation |
| 755 | AMAZING |
| 756 | I like the organization and comprehensive nature of the material. I find the slow pace of the animations (even at 2x speed) to be annoying sometimes, especially when there are a dozen or more so unskippable steps. |
| 757 | Very interactive |
| 758 | It was a great hands-on tool for me to learn as I go. the only thing wrong with it per se is often my Professor would assign homework due on Friday nights and not Sundays. Meaning IF I had a bust week I hadddd to finish it rushed and couldn't;t take my time to learn |
| 759 | I thought it was very engaging for the student. It allowed me to keep on track with my work through practice problems and participation throughout the entire course. |
| 760 | Great way to learn, it is engaging, it makes sense, aids in my understanding. The challenge exercises are good, they keep repeating the basic concepts until they are fully understood by the user, not allowing the user to move on until passing--great idea. |
| 761 | zyBooks is fantastic. I was already very familiar with this material so the zyBooks format allowed me to very easily get through the course. Had this been new to me I also believe the layout of zyBooks would make it quite easy to learn. |
| 762 | It was a nice view of the subject covered in this class. |
| 763 | I think it is very helpful and easy to follow. |
| 764 | The book needs more explanation of how to do things, when I was completing activities and needed guidance, there wasn't much and I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. Otherwise, I liked it. |
| 765 | I think it is for the most part good, but there are labs that are far more challenging than what we are prepared for in the lessons |
| 766 | Fantastic! By far my favorite online textbook platform, love the interactive modules and progress tracker! |
| 767 | I think zybook is better than physical books |
| 768 | Good for learning the material,TERRIBLE for going back to review it again. Can't find anything, search feature is terrible, no summaries, doesnt save the selections for questions. |
| 769 | Sometimes complicated, but overall informative. |
| 770 | i enjoy the interactive nature of Zybooks, being able to test the concepts and reference the material at the same time is very helpful. Only wish that when you paid for it, you owned it for life so you can have the reference... |
| 771 | Since it’s my first time using it I’m not quite sure about it. But I was impressed by the fact that it only cost $58 dollars. It’s much more cheaper than Cengage and I totally agree with it. I looked through it I like how I can access the textbook and do homework at the same time. From past experiences it always took me alot of time to go and look up the textbook from previous Math classes. |
| 772 | I love the zybook! So easy to keep track of assignments and presented the material in a very clear, understandable way. |
| 773 | I think it's great. It has been tremendously helpful in teaching me java |
| 774 | So far I like the interaction and feel more confident that I will understand the work. |
| 775 | easy to use |
| 776 | Excellent examples, animations, and exercises |
| 777 | Some of the errors that I got during some labs didn't make any sense. It would be helpful if the errors were specified a little bit more. |
| 778 | It has been as useful as any other traditional textbook interface, if not better. |
| 779 | It was a great study resource. |
| 780 | It was extremely useful to learn from Zybooks. The questions in the book helped me master the topics. It was such good practice. |
| 781 | I thought the material was too trivial, though I am a fairly experienced programmer and others may have been more challenged. |
| 782 | . |
| 783 | Zybook has been a handy tool and has helped me understand the concepts thoroughly |
| 784 | it was very expensive as something that is meant to aid in the process of learning. Overwhelming amount of chapters to complete at once, but that was an issue of our course rather than the book itself. What would be nice to add in each chapter is a motivation why is it useful to learn that particular thing, where and how is it used etc.. Especially with the data structures. |
| 785 | Naisu!!! |
| 786 | So far so good. I just got done reading their "how to guide" and it provided a lot of thorough steps. |
| 787 | Nice book makes teachers life easier |
| 788 | I like the feature where they let us to see answer, because sometimes I really have no idea what to right, and I don't need to struggle for too long. I can just look at the explanation and understand concept better. |
| 789 | Zybooks has given me great insight on both classes I have used it for. I have enjoyed the highlights and activities relation to my courses(i.e intro to programming with Java and C and Machine language) |
| 790 | works well and is great as an interactive textbook |
| 791 | I really like the way they teach the subject, i don't know about other subjects yet, but for computer science zybooks is actually very helpful |
| 792 | I think that zybooks is a great starting source/reference for learning new materials. Personally, I've only used it for learning programming languages. |
| 793 | I guess in general it's a great idea and a compelling way to learn content, but for this subject, a lot of the zybook wasn't necessary. |
| 794 | Some of the Challenge questions are very repetitive and boring. |
| 795 | It's a nice, interactive tool to facilitate material. |
| 796 | I liked the interactive element of zyBooks, however for the assignments there were some elements that sometimes felt redundant or too time-consuming. |
| 797 | I think zyBooks is a great app to learn about programming, especially beginner programming. |
| 798 | Using zyBooks makes the course easier to learn from and practice the lessons. It gives real-time feedback that helps to learn to debug but also does not give the answer out right. |
| 799 | not much, so far, pleasant experience. but would be value add more separate reading offline access then lab online access. i can finish reading offline. |
| 800 | I feel that is a good resource that is organized well and it helped me to better understand the java language |
| 801 | Cool learning experience |
| 802 | Very easy to use and the problems provided in the textbook help me practice and understand the material better! Instead of assigning regular textbook problems, I like how my teacher assigns the lessons from the zyBook for a more interactive experience. |
| 803 | Very straight forward, not challenging while remaining useful. |
| 804 | ZyBooks’ interactive features like animations to help visualize key concepts, learning questions which are presented in different formats, and the many tools with minimal text are very beneficial to build skill and intuition. It's like an interactive textbook or a virtual professor with which you can learn from at your convenience any time of the day. |
| 805 | The way it is organized is very useful and the examples and participation activity are helpful. |
| 806 | zyBooks is very helpful and convenient. I can learn in my own time. |
| 807 | I love this platform. The interactive reading makes learning new topics just that much easier! |
| 808 | It is very helpful |
| 809 | I love how interactive the information is and the reading to me is not as depth as many study materials. |
| 810 | Having a relatively inexpensive (relative to other textbooks) text that is online was pretty nice and the interactive examples and problems made content easier to understand. |
| 811 | I like the video explanation |
| 812 | not enough detail for important things |
| 813 | It was so helpful having learning activities right under the information to enforce it. |
| 814 | At first I was upset because it costs money, but it is so much better than reading a stupid pdf |
| 815 | It is easy to use. I find much more engaging than a tradition textbook. The activities allow me to visualize how it works. |
| 816 | Sometimes teaches more than the teacher |
| 817 | This zyBook was very helpful with understanding core concepts on ARM instruction. |
| 818 | The challenge activities are very useful in making sure you learn the content. |
| 819 | zyBooks has been exceptionally helpful in learning the requisite material. |
| 820 | I liked the assignments a lot and helped me to understand coding better. |
| 821 | Very helpful with good readings, I enjoy how when I get an example wrong it explains how to do the problem. |
| 822 | I like the setup. The interactive exercises helped alot. |
| 823 | Very useful for my computer science classes, but the math courses use such intense jargon that it simply takes too long to process |
| 824 | zyBooks is really a good material to expand my horizon about coding, |
| 825 | In coding the labs are overly sensitive to white space, otherwise the textbook is fine. |
| 826 | It was helpful for making sure I understood conceps |
| 827 | could be harder to just bs putting in effort |
| 828 | Overall experience is great! I've learned a whole new chapter of content and it has made my classwork easier to understand and achieve higher grades on my test and projects. |
| 829 | it is good text. |
| 830 | These were assigned homeworks, but they did an incredible job at helping me further understand the material. My only request is that the labs (Python Labs for my class specifically) included a little bit more guidance. I stared at and attempted the lab for over 45 minutes before understanding what it asked, but there was no helpful hints on where to even start. Outside of lab sections, I really enjoyed it! |
| 831 | I appreciate the non-strict learning style. |
| 832 | The format has been easy to use, especially once I figured out the expected way to input code. |
| 833 | Very well structured and easy to use |
| 834 | Zybooks has helpful interactive tools, such as simulations and step by step "videos", that aid in learning the material in class and gaining a deeper understanding of this material. The multiple choice questions are plentiful enough that I am able to learn from previous mistakes to answer similar questions. When a question is answered wrong or right there is an explanation to go along with it which is helpful. |
| 835 | The best online book and homework service. Canvas integration is good and interactive activities are also nice. |
| 836 | Explained a lot of the material the professor didn't in a streamlined way, and tested it in little bits and pieces which i liked. |
| 837 | I think zybooks is a great website and explains the material correctly! |
| 838 | I already pretty much know everything in this course, so zyBooks is a good way to get some practice in |
| 839 | I thought the material was good overall. I did find that there were some syntax errors and I did report them |
| 840 | The information was direct and to the point, but I would like to have seen some examples other than what was in the solution to the homework assignments. |
| 841 | Nice ui with good activities that help solidify understanding. |
| 842 | It's expensive but cool I guess. |
| 843 | I really enjoy zyBooks. I have found it very helpful in my courses. |
| 844 | I like it so far. This is supposed to be a pretty fast paced/ intense class though (from what I've heard), so I might not like it after seeing it 30-40 hours a week. I like that I can correct questions I got wrong. So many online sources don't do that but I like that it encourages students to learn from mistakes. |
| 845 | I've used it for multiple classes and really enjoyed it especially the diagrams are always helpful |
| 846 | I love that it is an interactive textbook that checks for understanding in a very helpful way. |
| 847 | Fun and interactive experience to learn on. |
| 848 | The interactive activities are helpful for learning. The material is well-organized and presented concisely. The exercises evaluate and develop understanding. |
| 849 | Easy to use, some chapters missing on explanations. |
| 850 | It seems good to work at a certain pace, definitely helps when you have to go back on a specific part of an assignment you’re doing |
| 851 | it's a lively demonstration of books, it's great |
| 852 | It is easy to follow and allows you to learn and practice as you read. |
| 853 | I have enjoyed using zyBooks. I like the way the material is presented and I have learned a lot from it. |
| 854 | I really enjoy the interactive zybook. It has made learning some of the topics considerably easier than just the normal text book lessons |
| 855 | Honestly, zyBooks was the best digital textbook subscription I have had thus far in my college education. The content was clear, concise, and easy to understand with examples. |
| 856 | I think zybooks is very helpful in first learning a topic but is not helpful for in-depth learning |
| 857 | I've really enjoyed doing the activities as I learn. They help me grasp the concepts taught in the book. |
| 858 | The interactive questions keep me engaged in the material. |
| 859 | It is a great way to learn content. Often times could replace a whole class. But not always the case, for certain classes the zyBooks is incomplete, or not a good addition/substitude for lectures. |
| 860 | I found it very helpful. The lessons really help me grasp information needed to pass the class |
| 861 | It is a really great platform, I love how hands on it is. |
| 862 | Pretty good interactive content. It definitely helped me understand the material better. |
| 863 | Easy and convenient way to learn how to program |
| 864 | Easy to work with and good division of workload. |
| 865 | I find zyBooks easy to use and a fun interactive platform to learn. |
| 866 | I like the LAB area |
| 867 | Zybooks is one of the best way of self-learning. I think all professors with flip classrooms should use zybooks. It really helps. |
| 868 | Time-consuming but helpful |
| 869 | It is structured really well and helps me focus more on topics I would have normally missed or skipped over when reading a typical textbook. It also helps tracking which readings are important for current class topics which helps me understand the material much better. |
| 870 | I enjoy the interactive aspect of the site that is not paralleled in any regular physical textbook. I find the check-in questions to be extremely helpful for my understanding of the different concepts. |
| 871 | Helps tremendously |
| 872 | Most of the time I learn easier using zyBooks than my professor |
| 873 | Very thorough and interactive with its material. |
| 874 | For the most part I really like zyBooks. The only thing I would like different is to have explanations for coding parts that are very confusing. |
| 875 | I think its great for learning things like circuits because it makes it easy to interact and see how they work internally and how all of the equations and systems would apply. |
| 876 | The only complaint that I have is the Labs are so picky on the code.. |
| 877 | Easy to use, good UI |
| 878 | It was a nice website to use to turn in the assignments and it was easy to find chapters and was really easy to participate in class with the assignments. |
| 879 | I think videos would help a lot |
| 880 | Great learning platform with it's interactive learning environment. |
| 881 | It was an easy way to learn python |
| 882 | I think Zybooks helps streamline course content, and makes it a lot easier for readings to be assigned and then later looked through (with the search function). |
| 883 | I've always found it to be very instructional and informative but, I do believe that the things taught in here need to be accompanied with a professor explaining how it works. |
| 884 | It takes advantage of the fact that it is an online material and uses that advantage to help students learn |
| 885 | I believe if zybooks had videos inputted into the class it would be easier to learn. |
| 886 | The way zyBooks makes the students engage with the material is very benefical. After reading a paragraph, we have to answer some questions, and that really solidifies what we just read. |
| 887 | Unique to my education experience and appreciated |
| 888 | I am so beyond grateful for having zyBooks for this course. In comparison to other courses with traditional textbooks, zyBooks made it significantly easier to learn the material, practice and study. When it comes to learning something like coding, I think there is a misconception that the textbook is not typically helpful; however, I believe zyBooks proved how amazing having an interactive textbook can be in this realm. |
| 889 | It was kinda hard to follow at times however, it was easy in the end. |
| 890 | I really do enjoy the interactivity. It's more engaging than just reading a textbook and it is really helpful to see these sometimes abstract concepts illustrated/animated, especially for someone like me as a visual learner. Sometimes I have to rush through the activities without really paying attention just to get them done before the deadline (and because sometimes it just feels like busywork), but it's organized in a way that it is easy to go back and find topics when I need to reference them later. |
| 891 | I think zybooks is an excellent tool, it's made reading for me not such a chore and works better with the way I learn. |
| 892 | I like The way topics are explained using video steps. |
| 893 | Zybook is very closeminded with answers. The concept is great but answers are stupid. |
| 894 | I think it conveys material in a way that is easily understood |
| 895 | It requires "just right" code input which is absolutely not applicable in the real world, where there are many ways to solve the same problem. Give me a project, and help me work to a solution. That is what tech companies are looking for: people who can think, not just regurgitate whatever they just read. |
| 896 | This is my first time using zyBooks, but so far everything has been intuitive and easy to use. |
| 897 | zyBooks is very helpful and makes things seem easier than than it is. |
| 898 | I like it so far! I took another programming class that was a lot harder than this one. |
| 899 | I appreciate the interactive nature of zyBooks. It makes the material more engaging, which helps with my learning. |
| 900 | I am happy to be using zybooks however when it comes to the some of the participation activities i feel it would help students more if they gave a better detailed explanation when we get something incorrect. Honestly some of the explanations leaves me more confused, but other than that it's a good product. |
| 901 | Some of the graded code assigments were formatted poorly but otherwise not horrible. Like the main class was in the |
| 902 | It was my first time using zyBooks but it was easy to learn how to use and I like the structure of the problems assigned. |
| 903 | I enjoy the coding part at the end of sections, but the interactive slides are not as helpful for reading. |
| 904 | its great |
| 905 | Informational and well designed |
| 906 | I think it is a great learning tool that makes textbook reading more interactive and manageable. |
| 907 | I really enjoyed the zybook material more than a regular book. It was much more engaging and I learned a lot faster with the zybooks this semester. |
| 908 | Our class was flipped, so this is how we learned new material. I thought it was helpful. |
| 909 | It is easy to follow I have only seen one mistake on one of the labs. One of the outputs was not right if you plug it into a formula. |
| 910 | Out of all the different online learning sources I've had to use over the past two years, Zybooks has always proven to be the most reliable and insightful option. |
| 911 | zyBooks is freaking awesome. I love the idea of an interactive textbook, and all of the participation activities and challenge activities help me understand material so much better. The only thing I would change about zyBooks is adding short video clips with narration at the end of each section, summing up all that was learned therein. |
| 912 | It's easy to navigate and the material is useful. |
| 913 | Easy to use. Teaches well and quick. |
| 914 | The format is a huge improvement on typical online textbooks. I deeply appreciate the information and comprehension questions being baked together. |
| 915 | Easy to use and follow |
| 916 | zyBooks was an an extremely helpful resource during the semester when classes were in session on campus. Now that classes are taking place virtually, zyBooks has become even more important in my learning experience. |
| 917 | Helpful for repeat practice. I don’t learn as well just reading text though, I wish there were video explanations and examples. |
| 918 | I think I learned a lottt! I wish There were more videos tho for more visual learning to balance off the tremendous amount of reading and make it faster process. |
| 919 | The course material is not organized properly with some courses and the required participation activities are sometimes a hassle to complete. |
| 920 | I really like how zyBooks is formatted, normally I am really bad with online textbooks, but the fact that there are places to self-test and more dynamic visuals really makes it much easier to learn and remember the information. I wish more classes would use it. |
| 921 | zyBooks is easy to use and I enjoy it. I would sometimes get frustrated with it linking correctly with my Canvas but for the most part it was great. |
| 922 | I really like everything about it. I like the organization, I like the fact that it can be linked to Canvas, I like the detailed steps explaining each process before the challenge problems, I like the way problems become incrementally harder, I like how the hints provided for wrong answers steer you towards the correct answer without revealing what it is. I like that there are extra problem available to practice below with pencil and paper. Great system overall. |
| 923 | zyBooks is a very straightforward program to use. It is very helpful and does a great job making sure the student knows the taught material. |
| 924 | Honestly pretty good for consolidating and reinforcing retainment of material |
| 925 | I found it to be a pretty engaging and low-stakes way to read a textbook |
| 926 | its a great and interactive way to learn course material |
| 927 | Zybooks was much better than a typical text book as I felt I learned the material better with the interactive format. It was also very helpful to reference later as I progressed in the course. |
| 928 | The activities are helpful. |
| 929 | So far learning basic coding skills has been easily understandable. |
| 930 | Enjoyed it |
| 931 | Reliable and educational |
| 932 | The materials are very easy to understand. |
| 933 | Easy to use, good supplament, doesn't replace good lecture/teacher |
| 934 | I like zyBooks a lot because I can always go back and study material that I haven't fully grasped yet. It's honestly a very useful tool. |
| 935 | Super awesome, truly helps me learn. |
| 936 | I like how it's very interactive and how it is organized. However, the Zylabs are too specific with their criteria that it's more of a bother to do them in here, so we usually use other online IDEs to do them. |
| 937 | I love how interactive it is. |
| 938 | Zybooks has helped me immensely to conceptualize matrices and linear algebra. Whenever I did the zybooks to prepare for class or after class, I always felt like I understood the material very well. While many of my peers felt annoyed by the challenge or participation activities, I felt them to be very helpful to my learning. It was a good estimate of what I knew or didn't know. They helped me understand concepts on a deeper level through examples. |
| 939 | It is a great tool that has helped me learn python quickly. Before, I had no experience with python but now i feel confident in my knowledge of the material. I really like the interactive features because practicing code right after learning makes it solidify in my memory. |
| 940 | It was actually just super helpful with the examples, I think there are improvements to be made but they were much better than my other text books. The zylabs were an awful part of the course tho and ended up hurting learning a lot. |
| 941 | Very engaging. Practice problems along side book are quite helpful. |
| 942 | It helps me learn the things that we don't go over or don't go in depth enough in class. Love the challenge problems and lots of examples. |
| 943 | Its easy to use |
| 944 | Some of the material was helpful |
| 945 | It's nice but easily exploitable |
| 946 | Its easy to learn material when using |
| 947 | The step by step examples are super helpful. |
| 948 | It was better experience than using traditional books and it is way better than using other online resources. I would be happy to see other class in zybook. It always made it interesting and intuitive. There is some room for improvement like some progress bars or score calculation bar. Mostly helpful. Thank you. |
| 949 | Easy to learn with visuals but not so much with a lot of text |
| 950 | I loved Zybooks. |
| 951 | Too dense and abstract for me to care and comprehend the material. |
| 952 | I thought zybooks gave me a good concrete way of understanding new topics and let me see a lot of examples of new topics being used. |
| 953 | zyBooks is a lot better than other online textbooks I have used. I like the exercises are interactive and worked into the material. The coding challenge exercises are well-executed and help me learn as I am reading. The price also was not too steep, which I appreciated, as some online programs I have used for other STEM classes were super expensive and glitchy. |
| 954 | Effective learning tool |
| 955 | easy to use |
| 956 | I think I like the interaction and challenge questions for coding (python). This is my first computer science I've ever taken, and I haven't had good experiences with past online textbooks so this was a pleasant surprise. |
| 957 | I like how learning activities are integrated into the text so I can apply the knowledge as I am learning it. |
| 958 | I think it is a really good resource for learning programming concepts |
| 959 | I think zybooks is a good resource as study materials to go back and look through briefly, but as a textbook it doesn't translate well for some courses. The challenge and participation activities we're useful to go back and look at previous examples but in the moment I would just speed through them for the grade as there was no proper incentive not to. |
| 960 | The exercises seem good and it takes pressure off knowing there is no penalty |
| 961 | Great paltform. |
| 962 | Helpful explanations and practice problems. |
| 963 | It is a great source of learning. |
| 964 | It's a great resource. |
| 965 | I like how zyBooks is structured to help me code in an efficient manor. However it can be confusing to read the text of programming, making learning how to code difficult. Especially since I no longer have an instructor to talk to in class to help me learn. |
| 966 | the website and platform is organized very well, it is easy to read and functions well. |
| 967 | I really liked the questions that go along with the reading so you are consistently engaged. |
| 968 | too expensive |
| 969 | zyBooks is a good supplemental learning tool. Although sometimes you come across smoething in a lesson that has not been taught yet (until a later chapter). For example, one of the chapters used memory allocation in an example but the memory allocation topic wasn't until a few chapters later. That can be confusing. |
| 970 | Some of the challenge questions were a little too challenging and I had to look up the answer. When comparing the answer to the chapter, I couldn't figure out how they derived the solution from reading the text. I usually come up with the solution by looking at the sample code create a similar code. Some chapters there was no code with functions similar to what the challenge questions were asking. Other than these select problems, I overall found the book really really useful. I relied on using the textbook to learn rather than the lectures. I'm the type of person who learns from being given problems to understand how equations/methods work. Overall a great resource I relied heavily on. |
| 971 | ZyBook is very useful but for some material the Professor was able to clarify some issues I was having |
| 972 | I don't know about other books, but your computer programming 1 book is bad. It has numerous spelling and grammar errors as well as confusing material. I know code very well and have to take this course for requirements. This book is fine for people who already understand code but is not beginner friendly at all. You show so many complicated and confusing concepts to newer coders right off the bat and leave out so many basic principles at the same time. It's overwhelming to them and underwhelming at the same time, overall this is not a balanced way to teach coding. Also, some of the things that have been used as examples so far have been slightly comforting. As someone from the Latino culture and heritage, I found it particularly dissapointing when I read the default mad libs inputs to read something about eating burritos makes you muey macho or something along those lines. No, it's not outright racism, but it is a micro aggression that just made me upset. Haha, it's so funny because they used a foreign food and foreign language, haha, so funny... Comedy is great, I love comedy and there's so many great ways to include comedy in education and that's just not one of them. If you're going to punch a minority, punch up not down. |
| 973 | I like it |
| 974 | I like it. It's a really nice way to learn. |
| 975 | Easy to use and nice simple presentation of information. Fast and interactive way of learning. |
| 976 | Its a new way of learning than I used to |
| 977 | Only good for learning when its a supplement to actual lecture on the material. In this course it feels extremely disconnected from the subjects we are learning and putting into practice in homeworks |
| 978 | I like zybooks, I enjoy the interactive aspect of it, and the fact that it helps me understand concepts and it is something I can easily go back to. |
| 979 | Wayyyyyyyyy too nitpicky about submissions. I miss one character in a challenge exercise and the whole thing goes down the tube. |
| 980 | At first, I was skeptical, but I like the participation activities much more than the _____ format. I do wish that there were examples for the activity questions at the bottom of each section, perhaps just a more formal example |
| 981 | Zybooks is a good way to serve as a textbook for the class i took for it (computer science). However, with my learning habits, simply reading about the complex concepts about programming was not enough. I found myself being constantly stuck when doing the acoompanying questions and applications on each section. Some to the point where I had to look at other sources for the answer. |
| 982 | I really enjoyed the fact that the zyBooks had the option to get the answers correct by attempting multiple times until I get it right. I felt I was able to learn more by being able to figure out what the correct answers were. I felt the challenge questions allowed me to prove that I knew what I was doing. |
| 983 | It is a very clever way to present textbook content, in particular related to coding. |
| 984 | I think it's a helpful, interactive textbook for learning matlab. |
| 985 | Useful learning technique. I enjoy stepping through the processes and practicing the code. Also useful for looking at examples of code for lab assignments and projects. |
| 986 | I am not a computer science major, and I thought this was a really helpful introduction to the material. I took a C++ class with a normal textbook and I didn't learn anything. I am very impressed with this system |
| 987 | I really enjoy the coding and the test we have to take a part in. However sometimes even if youve done it incorrectly in the activities it doesnt tell you. |
| 988 | This is my first time using online learning materials as required by a course curriculum, or having an online homework regimen. I have found that between ZyBooks and ____ (my other online resource) ZyBooks has been better for teaching and use for homework. |
| 989 | Very easy to use, extremely helpful when the material is difficult. The built in compiler is absolutely amazing. I hope have instructors use zybooks more in the future. |
| 990 | It makes learning more interactive |
| 991 | Time consuming but informative and easy. |
| 992 | Very concise and I love the animations. Definitely helps make possibly boring subjects/concepts more easier to swallow. |
| 993 | This was my first time working with an interactive book and I was able to learn and understand concepts better. |
| 994 | very helpful with the understanding of the material |
| 995 | The zyBook was great IN ADDITION TO the professor's lecture. If it were just the zyBook, my opinion may be changed. |
| 996 | It's okay. |
| 997 | My class used zyBooks for previewing the materials before the lecture. I think it is very helpful to set the strong background knowledges through zyBooks. |
| 998 | I thought zyBooks was a much more effective tool for learning computer science than some of the actual in-class courses I've taken at my university. In fact, I got my professor to reach out to a zyBooks rep that hooked me up with a subscription to the Computer Science II zyBooks. I liked it that much. |
| 999 | This is my third or fourth zybooks experience and I have always been happy with them. Easily 10x better than a standard text book, mainly due to interactive examples and exercises |
| 1000 | It was fascinating to see such an interactive online learning tool for mathematics. |
Notes on the above survey responses
Filtering
We did not filter responses based on positive or negative comments. We did do the following:
- Anonymize references to professor or university names (using ___)
- Anonymize references to competitor products (using ___).
- Only show 1000 responses, even though we had several thousand more.
- Skip responses where students answered “No” to a question at the survey’s end asking if we could use their survey comments in marketing materials. So the first 1000 responses above are the first 1000 who answered “Yes” to that last question. One might be concerned that the No’s were the mostly negative responses. So, we manually examined those responses (we had to skip 240 No’s to total 1000 Yes’s) and found the negative comment rate was only 8%, which is just slightly higher than the negative rate of the Yes’s. In other words, even for students who said No to marketing, the comments were overwhelmingly positive.
The survey was available to students across all zyBooks subjects, which includes various CS subjects like programming, discrete math, computer organization, digital design, etc., as well as some math, engineering, and more.
Discussion
Instructors often wonder if their students will like zyBooks. We hear this from community colleges, 4-year teaching or research universities, top-10 schools, and more. We have users at all such schools, and student responses are overwhelmingly positive across all.
Some instructors say students won’t want to pay, especially given the rise of free materials (OER). But, students deserve the best learning we can provide. Our interactive animated content is expensive to create and continually maintain. We keep the price as low as possible to sustain our efforts. After using a zyBook, most student comments show it was worth the price.
One sees among the relatively-few complaints that our system is “picky” when grading a program’s output formatting. Students are not used to being so precise with formatting in other subjects. But programming is all about precision, plus many apps are for phones or webpages where formatting matters. We added a section “Why whitespace matters”, and improved feedback on wrong formatting, which have decreased this complaint. We’ll continue to educate students and improve on this issue.
Another rare complaint indeed relates to cost. Many students don’t pay for textbooks: In a survey we conducted in classes using a regular textbook, 30% admitted to illegally downloading pdf, and another 20% to not acquiring the book at all. Clearly, some of those 50% of students are going to be upset they can’t access our content free or just ignore it (due to points). We understand; money is tight. To help, we give temp subscriptions until financial aid is disbursed.
Another request is for more help when stuck, usually on programming. Compared to a textbook, we provide infinitely more feedback (literally). But students want more, and we get it. So we strive to scaffold tasks, provide hints, create auto-generated problems with solutions, and more, to complement help from instructors, so we can keep students learning and reduce frustration.
We look carefully at feedback from: surveys (as above), the feedback buttons in our content, support tickets, verbal feedback from our interactions with instructors via our sales reps, demos, research talks, and more. Our goal is to continually improve so we can help more students succeed, and more instructors have a better teaching experience too.