Flat World to Charge for Course Materials

The decision by Flat World Knowledge to stop providing free versions of its textbooks brings to mind the old adage, “Nothing in life is free.” Flat World plans to continue providing course materials at a price well below the cost of most textbooks, but the move will help make “our business healthier,” according to Flat World co-founder Jeff Shelstad in an interview with Inside Higher Education.

Flat World educational content was produced by paid authors to ensure high quality and marketed to professors to assign in their classrooms. The plan called for the company to make money by charging students for printed versions of the free and open educational content it created, and for enhanced study aids and other add-ons.

While those premium services did not sell as well as hoped, moving away from completely free content was also a matter of fairness, according to Shelstad. Some institutional partners paid licensing fees for every student using the materials and others paid less. Establishing a minimum price of $19.95 is fairer to all while still making it affordable to students, he says.

Flat World continues to be an affordable textbook solution, just not free, according to Cable Green, director of global learning at Creative Commons. It may also open the door for other free textbook providers, such as Boundless Learning, which markets its textbook alternatives directly to students.

“This reinforces the notion that sustainable business models are hard to find, and I don’t think that’s a surprise,” said Ariel Diaz, co-founder and CEO of Boundless. “We still see an opportunity to make the case that we’re better because we’re free and open, in that we can leverage the eyeballs and error-finding that we got from our community to lead to a better product as a result.”

That’s possible, but Flat World isn’t going away either. Shelstad reports that most of the company’s partners and faculty users have been supportive of the change, understanding that it allows Flat World to continue to produce course materials that have been popular with students.

Open-Access Deal a First for Canada Campuses

Here and there across the U.S., colleges and universities are trying out open-access course materials, often cautiously as part of structured pilots. Now Canadian schools are starting to join them. Recently the University of Windsor in Ontario became the first to sign a licensing agreement for open digital materials for a fall course in management information systems.

In its press announcement of the deal, the school touted the cost savings to students. The local paper, the Windsor Star, also beat the same drum, starting off its report, “There’s a lot to hate about traditional textbooks…”

Students will pay $20 for e-books and study aids that can be downloaded to a computer, laptop, smartphone, e-reader, or tablet. The materials are being provided through Flat World Knowledge. About 200 students are expected to take part in this initial pilot.

If that goes well, the university plans to add more courses for the second term and then expand depending on how quickly faculty are willing to adopt Flat World titles. There may be somewhat more pressure on them to do so than at other institutions, given that Windsor’s tagline is “Thinking forward.”

The University of Windsor Bookstore already sells e-books and furnishes online assistance with e-reader apps as part of an array of textbook services that includes rentals, used books, and an RSS feed to provide textbook updates. The store is also one of a handful of campus stores offering print-on-demand through an in-store Espresso book-printing machine.

Grow Custom: Flat World Knowledge

 

Over the next few weeks leading up to CAMEX we will provide a brief highlight on each of the sponsors of the NMS Grow Custom initiative.  Today’s company is Flat World Knowledge (CAMEX Booth 3223 – New Exhibitor Area).

1)   What do you see as the future of custom course materials?

I think the future of custom is unfettered control of classroom content no matter size of your class, your teaching focus, or how that content is delivered.  We believe every instructor’s course is unique, and we believe it is important to give instructors tools that allow that uniqueness to be reflected in their core teaching materials, including their textbook, no matter what format that textbook is needed in.  The key to unleashing that textbook control is license and platform.  Flat World Knowledge is redefining the market for license, formats, and platform.

2)   What role do you see for stores with custom course materials in the future?

Stores will need to continue to evolve to handle all formats.  Print distribution (custom or original) through the on campus store hasn’t worked for the publishers and authors for years.  It’s been a “wack a mole” strategy of publisher vs. bookstore and has been unsustainable for both, and certainly unfulfilling to the student.  So it needs to change.  It’s not clear who will win the battle for digital distribution and/or custom distribution on campus.  While “custom” might help in the battle against the off-campus distributors, it’s likely to create other local distributors who want a piece of the action. 

3)      What makes your product or service unique?  What products or services do you offer in this space?

Our product (MIYO – Make It Your Own) is unique in at least four ways:

·         Unfettered control of content no matter if you have one student or 1,000;

·         DIY platform puts you in charge of your content daily, weekly, monthly, or only once in your lifetime – it’s your book, Make It Your Own!

·         Output in five (5) formats (print and digital) so your students have maximum choice around consumption.

·         Share so others can benefit from your MIYO and also so you as MIYO author can make some money.

4)      Who should stores contact for more information?

Bookstores can call (877) 257-9243 or bookstore@flatworldknowledge.com for more help.  Thanks.

800 institutions to use Flat World Knowledge textbooks this fall

Flat World Knowledge continues to pick up textbook adoptions across the U.S. According to a recent press release, more than 1,300 educators at 800 colleges and universities will use Flat World’s open textbooks this fall. This is up from 400 institutions in the fall of 2009 and 30 institutions during the spring of 2009. To date, Flat World Knowledge has published 24 titles and an additional 50 titles are in the works.

Flat World reports that it is “on track to save 150,000 students $12 million or more in textbook expenses for the 2010/2011 academic year.”

Interesting interview on Open Textbooks

There was an interesting interview of Eric Frank, co-founder of Flat World Knowledge, that appeared on Spark at the end of August. Many of us have probably hear the folks from Flat World takl before, or have heard about the company. I thought this interview was a bit different though and worth a listen to, particularly if you have not heard of Flat World and their efforts to change how the textbook industry works.

Some of the observations Eric makes in the interview provide some good lessons for retailers. In particular, I would point stores to the discussion of what open textbooks are from the Flat World perspective --that discussion begins around 5 min 20 seconds. The business model problem discussion -- that focus on following the customer, or giving students choice is really well explained at about 6 min 40 seconds into the interview.

One good quote -- at about 7 min 40 seconds in:

So really the point for us was, treat the student like a real consumer.
Put the content in front of them and say, "Here is a full range of choices from
free online to these affordable offline alternatives." And what we are
seeing is that almost 70 percent of students who have that choice actually buy
something, and 30 percent avail themselves exclusively of the free online
version. [...] One of the things one doesn't typically think about in the
traditional textbook model is that first of all that 70 percent of students who
buy is about the same as the traditional model. About 30 percent opt out
of purchasing entirely.

Later in the piece they talk about the characteristics of free, Chris Anderson's book on free, and how the model looks going forward. The interview provides some glimpses of where Flat World might be headed in the future.

Another good quote appears at just over 10 minutes into the interview where he notes, "Listen, we don't know what the future is going to bring in terms of the ways students will behave, what kinds of new devices they will be able to read on." This is a point I have tried to make in the past and I know some people have problems with it. We do not know what the new models will look like yet. There is a lot of speculation, but we are at the early stage of an emerging technology. We know the future will look different, but exactly how it will look is not yet clear.

At about 12 minutes 45 seconds he references a blog posting by Kevin Kelley on Technium where he compared the Internet to a giant copy machine, noting that you have to figure out what you can sell that can not be copied. In the post he spoke about 8 generatives or values that he thought people would be willing to pay for. Kevin's posting is worth a read, and I may enter a separate entry here on that article.

The interview concludes at close to 15 minutes 30 seconds. An easy listen over a long coffee break or during lunch.

Flat World increases textbook adoptions to include 350 institutions

We recently reported that Flat World Knowledge had picked up textbook adoptions at over 170 institutions but now we are learning that 350 institutions and 38,000 students will utilize the textbooks this fall. According to the press release, this is a significant increase for Flat World because as of spring 2009 there were only 1,000 students and 30 colleges participating. Eric Frank, Flat World Knowledge co-founder commented, “We’ll save college students and their families nearly $3 million in textbook expenses this semester. We’re on track to expand to 50,000 students in Spring 2010 and 120,000 students in Fall 2010. By the conclusion of 2010, Flat World will have conservatively saved 200,000 students over $15 million.”

As mentioned previously, open access course materials are gaining a lot of media attention as institutions look for ways to reduce the cost of textbooks for students. These materials propose both opportunities and challenges for college stores and institutions. College stores can participate in these models by offering the digital version of the content as well as print-on-demand solutions. Stores must find ways to participate in these models so that store remains the primary source for student’s content needs.

Is your world flat?

Flat World Knowledge continues to pick up a lot of media attention. More importantly, they are also picking up textbook adoptions – over 250 at over 170 institutions at this point. If you are a college store, you should see if your campus is on the list – we were surprised and impressed by the diversity of institutions on the list.

Like all new technologies and ideas, open access course materials propose a number of opportunities and challenges for college stores and institutions. With the coming HEOA requirements for campuses around course materials, stores will need to know and report what textbooks are being adopted—even those that are free and open source. That creates an opportunity for stores. In June the NACS Board approved a position statement on open educational resources (OER) and open access course materials (OACM). That position statement is largely consistent with those by other higher education groups, such as EDUCAUSE, ACRL, and the student PIRGs.

Stores have the opportunity to provide OER/OACM content in a variety of formats, and should do so as part of fulfilling the academic mission of the students and institutions they support. One way stores could participate in these models is by providing a print-on-demand solution and other options that improve accessibility at the local level. At a minimum, stores should provide access to the digital versions of the content, even if it is free, so that the store remains the primary source where students can be certain they are obtaining the correct content and materials required to be successful in their academic experience. Open access models like Flat World will by necessity change some of the long established practices among college stores – such as the way in which we manage inventory and returns. We must think of this inventory from more of a “just-in-time” perspective, and accept that returns may not be an option. That, in the end, may be a good thing for the industry. Lessons we learn about handling OER/OACM inventory might be applicable to more traditional textbook inventory – allowing us to further reduce costs for stores, for publishers, and most importantly, for students.

Update on Flat World Knowledge

I am on the PR list for Flat World Knowledge (FWK), so I get to hear some of what is happening in their space. The company recently announced 17 new author titles under contract. FWK also begins beta-testing this week in live classrooms on 20 campuses, so expect to hear more news later this fall if the initial pilots are successful.

Among the sample titles in the first pilot are:

• Launch! Advertising and Promotion in Real Time - by Michael Solomon,Lisa Duke & Nizan
• Exploring Business - by Karen Collins
• Principles of Microeconomics - by Libby Rittenberg & Timothy Tregarthen
• Fundamentals of Income Tax Theory and Practice - by Dieter Kiefer

FWK has an interesting business model, and was recently sited by the recent PIRG study as being a good example of how to do digital content delivery in a way that reduces costs for students. FWK does offer the full textbook for free in digital format. If students want the content in another format (e.g., print) then there is a charge. There is also cost for ancillaries, such as assessment tools or other elements.

The quality of the books should be comparable to first editions of other leading textbooks, given the authors involved and FWK's usage of some traditional editing and reviewing processes. That is something many other open access or open content approaches are missing.

It will be interesting to see how the beta-tests go. There has been a fair amount of media attention, and so there will be a little more pressure for a positive outcome. It will be particularly interesting to see if the business model is, in fact, sustainable.