I used to include on my syllabus a sheet with suggested textbook problems, but haven't done so since Fall 2019. Why the change? It turns out that the eBook our students can view on MathXL doesn't include all the pages of exercises after each section. Since we're only requiring them to purchase MathXL, not the physical textbook, the list of suggested problems would only be useful when they attend learning centers (or study groups with electrobibliophobic classmates) to work with a borrowed textbook.
The diminished usefulness of Pearson's eBook of Barnett, Ziegler, Byleen *Finite Mathematics* stands in sharp contrast to its eBook for the applied calculus text by the same authors. When I taught elementary applied calculus in Spring 2019, I would routinely pull up sections of the text on MathXL and be able to scroll through all the problems in that section.
At first I thought: when copying the MathXL master course from our workgroup chair, I must have missed the checkbox that would have enabled the full problem sets in the eBook, and by default only the exposition and worked examples are made visible. On further investigation, I didn't find any way to control the range of available pages in media assignments.
It appears that Pearson's ePlayer App is deliberately crippled for this textbook, making a student's MathXL purchase less useful in this course than in the elementary applied calculus course. Since both courses have the same prerequisite, and textbooks written by the same authors, the unequal treatment demands an explanation. Pearson has no way of knowing whether their text will be used in a 3-credit course or a 4-credit course, so the additional credit hour that applied calculus students pay for cannot explain the more featureful eBook that they have access to in MathXL. It seems more plausible that Pearson is using a deliberately crippled MathXL eBook to move colleges toward MyMathLab, a fancier and more lucrative platform for the publisher. Also, the development of supplementary materials might be further along for the Barnett, Ziegler, et al. Finite Math text than for their business calculus text, making the move toward MyMathLab an easier proposition for Pearson to sell.
Since the deliberately crippled eBook makes it more difficult for our finite math students to practice as many problems as previous classes did with the physical textbook, there is now a case to be made for development of an in-house question bank, similar to what Jojo and I wrote for first-semester calculus. Granting leave for such curriculum development next spring would let the department accommodate the scheduling preferences of more faculty members.