Elsevier eBooks on VitalSource Hack 10.3.2 + Redeem Codes

I really like this app and the functionality, as long as I never lose access to it.

Also, the only reason it’s not 5 star is because every time I tap the screen the menu comes up then goes away. I don’t like that, I’d prefer an option to show the screen or make it go away unless needed.

Updated to add… Use bookshelf app instead! At least it will let you log in.

The whole concept of Elsevier is basically robbing students. How can they charge so much for a book that we can only access for a few years for starters? Why do they make it so complicated to copy and paste things? Why is the read aloud feature so horrible? For the amount of money that is spent, we should be able to copy and paste easily. We should be able to select an option where we do not have page numbers read to us or whatever else. The way the words are pronounced is so far off sometimes that it is hard to follow. Why is it that when you are reading a chapter, some pages you can scroll for a long time and it will advance you a few pages, and then you have to hit the “next” arrow where you will read 1 and a half pages, hit “next,” and then get several pages that you can scroll and then hit “next.” I think it would be much easier to just scroll and entire chapter and hit “next” to go to the next chapter. It would be nice if you could also click on a vocabulary word, be routed to the glossary to see the definition and then hit a button that takes you back to the same place you were before you tried to define the vocabulary word. It is frustrating to go look at the definition and then spend forever trying to find where you were reading from beforehand.

Firstly, the books take forever to download onto the app. Secondly, when you try to give feedback it doesn’t allow you to write anything- just toggles back and forth between the options to give feedback about loading times and books. Thirdly, these books are only available when there is wifi. Books are already expensive, and when you pay $400+ to be able to access for YOUR EDUCATION, it shouldn’t be such a difficult process to manage something as vital as textbooks. If you Elsevier wants to better serve the students who are going into debt to be able to read these books, THEY NEED TO DO THE BARE MINIMUM AND MAKE THE APP FUNCTIONAL.

While mostly easy to understand and use with helpful tools, the tools could just be better. The fact that they exist is good but they only work through touching with the finger- I prefer to use my apple pencil since it gives me a better visual when highlighting but the feature doesn’t work with it. The scrolling options are not that great to me too, seamless scrolling would be nice so that I can view any part of the page in the center of my screen for ideal viewing.

Text to speech is terrible 1) the reading speed is either super slow or slightly too fast 2)you can only start having it reading from the beginning of a chapter 3) her pronunciation is bad even on normal words sometimes I don’t even know what she was reading. For the search function I’d like to only search a selected chapter. They should have ay evolve app where you can seamlessly access your book resources and don’t even get me started on trying to get access to the resource to the books you paid $800 for.

Can’t use Apple Pencil for notes, switching between chapters and pages is a pain. Worst set up ever and makes studying so much harder than it needs to be. Can’t download pdf even though you’ve paid for the book, so I can’t download to write notes on it since the app won’t let you. Can only access they the app and with WiFi. Didn’t make clear any of this before I purchased. Also didn’t put in description that it’s only accessible for 180 days. What a rip off, but what else can you except from elsevier!

For the price we’re paying for the books and the access codes, I expected the software to be smooth and clean. There should be a way to click on tables and photos in order to expand them. Also the text-to-speech component should be changed so we can highlight which portions of the text we want read to us or repeated.

Edit: requires an interface revamp to make it easier to navigate and also smoother to use. Please also update for iPhone X support.

Part of my learning style is auditory but listening to monotone Karen read every comma, website, and citations isn’t great. There’s better tech out there. Tools need more work to accommodate various learning styles. Secondly, the highlights in the mobile application used to transfer across devices but now they’re gone. I spent the last two hours highlighting text and it’s gone. This product is a joke!

The reader will re-read the same sentence over and over, or sometimes the same paragraphs. You can get out of the app and back in the app or go to a different section of the book and come back to it and it will still repeat it like a broken record. There seems to be no rhyme or reason and this happens constantly. Unfortunately it’s unreliable and unusable.

I cannot log into this app to save my life. Resetting my password does not work. I can log in on my laptop so I know my password and login but I cannot get on this app. Unfortunately I need it for nursing school and you’d think with how expensive textbooks are you’d think the app would work properly. Don’t even waste the space on your phone downloading it.