What
surprises higher education publishers about the past decade of rapidly changing
course materials and academic technologies?
That was
among the questions posed to panelists in the Thought Leader presentation
Course Materials Today and Tomorrow: Views from Publishing Executives held
March 4 at CAMEX 2017 (Campus Market Expo) in Salt Lake City, UT. Here are some
of their responses:
Tim
Stookesberry, senior vice president education, Wiley: “Being in product
development for a long time, I did think about what digital was going to mean.
I’m surprised most by how digital has changed the distribution network and
we’ve had to change accordingly. Students have a lot of choices: the way people
buy materials, what they’re looking for. It’s very dynamic.”
Scott
Smith, president, Elsevier Education: “Technology simultaneously changes the
way the market actually works and how people acquire materials. It’s a
completely different environment in which we have to work. There are more links
in the chain.”
Kevin
Stone, chief sales and marketing officer, Cengage Learning: “In this day and
age to be sending cardboard printed access cards with numbers students have to
put in is crazy. We need to fix this. I think we can fix it. It’s about access
… all about getting materials on day one.”
Peter
Cohen, executive vice president, McGraw-Hill Education: “There’s serious
empirical data that using adaptive technology improves student achievement, literally
hundreds of data. What surprises me is students love print books. There’s a
resounding cry to continue to have print resources.”
Tom Malek,
vice president and head of channel partnerships, Pearson Education: “Why does
it take so long to change? Uber has come and gone in terms of figuring it out.
We all serve the industry of higher education. That tends to go quite slowly …
tends to put things in the conceptual rather than the real.”
