All full-time ACU undergrad students may be required to have an iPad by August 2013.

Team 55 sent an email to incoming freshmen encouraging them to choose an iPad from the Mobile Learning Initiative selection because all full-time undergrads would be required to have an iPad in the fall of 2013. However, George Saltsman, executive director of Educational Technology, said the email was supposed to say that Team 55 expects this change but it isn’t set.

“We anticipate students to be required to have an iPad by then, but we don’t know for sure,” Saltsman said. “We’re in the planning process now.”

Team 55 will send another email soon to incoming freshmen to clarify its intent.

Saltsman said should students be required to have an iPad, he didn’t know if they would have to pay for it or if the university would provide it.

“There’s an assumption digital textbooks will ultimately save students money” he said. “We don’t know yet how they will be paid for.”

Saltsman said data shows an overwhelming majority of students won’t need smartphones when they come to campus, and digital textbooks may be more popular then.

“86 percent of incoming freshmen are projected to already have smartphones before getting here,” he said.