Duplicating PDFs on 60 iPads

Question

Help. I’ve searched hard and wide and can’t find a clear definition of what I need. This may have been asked before but perhaps not in terms I understand. I posted this to the iTunes discussion and they suggested I repost it here.
For an intensive training course, my company is providing iPads to each student (60 iPads total) versus printing hard copies. The presentations are PDFs and will be accessed by the students in iBooks. I’ll use the Info fields to categorize and sort the material when they launch iBooks.
My plan is to get a single iPad loaded with the material and configuration I want for the course and create a backup using a general iTunes account setup specifically for this course. Then restore the remaining devices from that backup – resulting in 60 identical iPads (I’m hoping to do this several at a time instead of individually…but that’s a separate issue.) No purchased material will be used – so there are no restrictions on sharing the contents. Then I’ll sign out of iTunes on the device before handing it to the student. The iPad is there’s to keep.
We will instruct the students to NOT sync the device for the duration of the training. The issue is AFTER the class when the students download apps, photos, books, etc. using their own personal iTunes accounts. As I understand it, any sync to their own personal machine will sync only the items added, purchased or downloaded using their own iTunes account and wipe the rest since they won't have the ability to authorize their computers for our general iTunes account. Is that correct? This is unfortunate, but I can work around it.
At the very least, I want the student to have the ability to re-load the course material into iBooks after they’ve used the iPad on their own. I can give them a DVD with the material, but when they drag it into their iTunes, it won’t be tagged and organized in the same way.
Can I back the iBooks library up to a disc and provide the disk to each student? Will that keep the properties of each PDF intact?
If so, even though the material is “free”, must the student’s computer be authorized for the iTunes account it was backed up from in order to use the PDFs in their iTunes account?
Maybe I'm approaching this all wrong. I keep running tests but I'm afraid I'll miss something. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

Here are a couple ideas.
1. Email them the PDF files. They may be too big for this?
2. Use dropbox and/or good reader. Bother can open PDF files well.
With dropbox you could share a folder with each of the students. They would have to have a dropbox account for this to work. That may be a lot of setup for them.
Good reader for the iPad can sync an entire directory. So you can put the training material someplace like FTP, WebDAV, mobile me server or maybe dropbox again(??). Then just sync to that folder using good reader on the iPad.
Good reader can also see local file servers on the same wifi network. With this option you maybe able to just turn on file sharing and let them copy the files.
Now I'm going to have to go play.