World Wide Web Turns 25

At 25, the World Wide Web has become an integral part of life. A recent Pew Research study found 87% of adults in the United States use the Internet, 90% admit the Internet has been good for them, and 76% believe it’s been good for society.

In another Pew study, technology experts said that by 2039 access to the Internet will be like flipping a switch for electricity and an Internet of Things will allow artificial intelligence-enhanced, cloud-based information storage and sharing via smartphones, wearable technology, and smart appliances.

Most of the innovation will come about as digital natives grow older. Those individuals are currently in school or on campus.

“The first generation that grew up on the web is hitting maturity,” Jeff Jaffe, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium, told Computerworld. “Everything that’s happened until recently was with people who weren’t web natives by birth using technology and using it to improve life. I can only imagine when you have digital natives hitting maturity the level of innovation will be even greater.”

E-Book Sales Pattern Hard to Decipher

Sales of e-books may be leveling off as more consumers switch to tablets, which allow users to access a variety of content, not just e-books. Or at least that was the conclusion of Rough Type blogger Nicholas Carr, who has recently been taking some heat for his analysis.

Based on sales figures supplied by the Association of American Publishers, Carr thought he spotted a trend: slowing growth in e-book sales, signifying that e-books are reaching a plateau with the public. The decelerating sales appeared to coincide with the acceleration of tablet sales. Carr speculated tablet users were pulled away from e-books by all the other things they could do with their devices.

David Ulin, in the Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy blog, thinks Carr makes some good points about tablets and how people use them. Ulin himself admits to being distracted by other options when he’s reading on a tablet.

But the AAP took issue with Carr’s interpretation of its numbers, pointing out that last year’s e-book sales were inflated by The Hunger Games series. This year there hasn’t been a similar phenomenon in the book world. Minus The Hunger Games, the year-over-year e-book growth is much higher and doesn’t seem to correlate to tablet sales.

Blogger/author Nathan Bransford agrees. “Everyone needs to stop fixating on YOY percentage growth. Even at a steady rate of overall growth, percentage growth inevitably goes down because it’s starting from a bigger base. It’s simple math,” he says, adding that the AAP sales figures don’t count self-published e-books sold directly.

It’s also possible that tablet buyers are still acquiring and reading as many—or even more—e-books as ever, but just not purchasing them outright. AAP tracks only sales, but e-book rentals are on the upswing, too, mostly for digital textbooks. Public and campus libraries are stocking more e-books for borrowing and report rising interest in e-book loans.

And then there are thousands of e-book titles available for free downloading. Some are classics in the public domain; others are distributed by authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, and organizations.

Report Predicts Higher-Ed Tech Trends

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and tablet computers are already having an impact on the ways students learn and teachers teach, according to the NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition, released by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Educause Learning Initiative. The study sees gaming, 3-D printers, and wearable technologies as trends to watch in the next five years.

“Campus leaders and practitioners across the world use the report as a springboard for discussion around significant trends and challenges,” said Larry Johnson, CEO of NMC, in a Campus Technology report. “The biggest trend identified by the advisory this year reflects the increasing adoption of openness on and beyond campuses, be it in the form of open content or easy access to data. This transition is promising, but there is now a major need for content curation.”

The free downloadable report breaks down technology into categories representing near-term items that are already making an impact, midterm technologies that should be making an impact within two years, and long-term technologies that are still three to five years away from wide implementation.

MOOCs and tablet computers made the near-term list because of how quickly both have been adopted into higher education.

The use of learning analytics is in the midterm category for a second straight year because of the continued development of applications that help students retain information through interaction with other students. Use of gaming is also on the rise in classrooms as an instructional tool.

In the long term, the report suggests 3-D printing will become more important as the price of the printers continues to fall and because they provide students with authentic reproductions of shapes and objects being studied. Wearable technology may sound a bit farfetched but items such as jewelry that can alert chemistry students to dangerous fumes or eyewear that connects to the Internet through voice commands (see video below) are already being developed.

“The NMC Horizon Report goes beyond simply naming technologies; it offers examples of how they are being used, which serves to demonstrate their potential,” said Malcolm Brown, director of the Educause Learning Initiative. “The report also identifies the trends and challenges that will be key for learning across all three adoption horizons. This makes the Horizon Report essential for anyone planning the future of learning at their institution.”

Technology and Education in 2013

The spectacular growth of massive open online courses (MOOCs) turned higher education on its head in 2012, according to Chris Proulx, president and CEO of eCornell. MOOCs allowed students to learn from top universities and at their own pace, and got discussions started about for-credit curriculum.

That was 2012, so Proulx looked ahead to 2013 in a predictive blog post for Forbes.

He projected the growth of MOOCs to continue in 2013, particularly at top-tier schools, while the availability of online courses at selective schools will increase. He also anticipated that universities will find even more ways to use the “flipped classroom” model, where students use class time to enhance prerecorded lectures.

While MOOCs are growing, there are still questions to be answered about the programs, such as the cost to sustain the courses and finding ways to make credit for the courses available to students. Proulx predicted a hybrid model that has both online and in-person components will be embraced this year, as will peer-to-peer and peer-to-faculty instruction. He even forecast that the cost of education will decrease—just not in 2013.

“As institutions experiment with the pedagogical formula of what content is delivered online, how peer-to-faculty interact in both the online and ‘flipped-classroom’ environments, and faculty explore new models of assessment, some institutions could potentially find educational models that begin to bend the cost curve,” Proulx wrote. “The first step is to continue to nurture faculty across the country to embrace online teaching, and from there we just may see a shift in the business of education.”

Correction on projections on etextbook sales

Okay. A couple months ago there was the piece in Campus Technology entitled Can Tech Transcend the Textbook. A good article but it contains a line which has been quoted in a number of places, most recently in the technology section (page 8) of the May issue of the CACS newsletter. Here is the quote:

According to the National Association of College Stores (NACS), digital books currently account for less than 3 percent of textbook sales. NACS expects that percentage to reach 10 to 15 percent by 2012.

Here is the problem: statistics that are quoted out of context or incompletely -- which then tell a very different story. The odd one here is that as the lead digital content person for NACS, I am certain I was not interviewed or addressed as part of the original story, or for any of the many follow-ups. Thus a set of statistics have been attributed to me or us and I have yet to find the source. Here is probably the more accurate interpretation or reporting of these statistics...

Stat1: digital books currently account for less than 3 percent of textbook sales. This is true. What it should say though is:

In cases where digital is an option, typical sell-through (i.e., the percentage of students purchasing the digital option as compared to number of students in a class), is typically around 3%.

We do have some institutions where this number goes as high as 7% as an average. And there are a growing number of cases where adoption in a particular class goes much higher (even over 90%), but those larger percentages are still more the exception. However, from the institutions we have sampled, typically over 80% of the titles adopted are not available in a digital format. We expect this number to change, and quickly, but inventory access is still a challenge -- and why few schools could go "all digital" in the next two years.

Stat2: NACS expects that percentage to reach 10 to 15% by 2012. This is possible, and one scenario we have evaluated. I think the challenge here is the use of the word "expects." It would be more accurate to say that we anticipate that it COULD reach as much as 10-15% IN 2012. I think that it is unlikely that we will hit that level by the end of the year (i.e., by 2012) -- it is possible, but not probable.

Actual expectations are harder to pinpoint. It does seem realistic to expect that we will hit 20-25% penetration of digital in 2015, at which point the early majority is moving toward adoption and penetration rate will likely begin to climb very quickly. We saw this with online sale of books and now digital trade books. With the right set of factors in place, this COULD happen sooner. It is possible that by fall of 2012 we could start seeing average digital sell through nearing 10% or more.

Whether we are talking 2012, 2015, or some point later -- I think the point of interest is that the shift is coming. Retailers, publishers, and institutions that choose not to prepare or keep abreast of the changes and technologies will be at risk. I think the last paragraph of Kirk Jarvis's piece in the previously referenced CACS piece sums things up well:

The textbook industry is definitely at a crossroads. Where will it end up? Only time will tell. What I think will keep our industry from going completely digital right now is simply the confusion factor. There are just too many digital platforms and e-readers out there. We, as industry peers, must remain informed of new technologies and changes in the market.

Finally, kudos to CACS for creating an ad-hoc technology committee focused on investigating and reporting back on new textbook technologies that may affect our business. The more we as an industry engage in experimentation and widespread environmental scanning -- and share what we learn -- the better positioned the channel will be to evolve with the world around us.

New digital textbook projections...

Xplana – the company recently acquired by MBS has put out a very interesting 5-year digital textbook sales projection report based on their research. Some NACS data is cited in the briefing. They estimate the current total market share of digital textbooks in the US to be at 0.5%, which appears accurate if accounting for all titles across all institutions and assuming print-equivalent substitutes (e.g., “pdf versions” of the textbooks and not other digital products that might be substitutes). They estimate that this market will grow to 18.8% of total US textbook sales in 5 years, and exceed 50% by the end of the decade.

I believe this estimate to be a little conservative, but certainly within the boundaries we have estimated. I think where our estimates diverge is that they expect the growth of digital sales over the next five years respectively to be 100%, 150%, 120%, 90% and 80%. We expect that the curve will peak at a higher growth rate and that the growth decay will take longer to set in – in part by using conversion/growth trajectories of trade books and music transitions as examples. However, they provide reasonable factors to explain growth and some rationale for the growth decay that are certainly plausible. The growth factors they identify are ones we are also tracking.

I believe our current best estimates project digital textbooks comprising between 10 to 50 percent of textbook sales in 5 years, with 10% being a most conservative estimate and 50% being a ‘most favorable conditions’ estimate. Something in the range of 20 to 40% might be more accurate, based on an assumption of more consistent 100 to 150% growth over the time period. However, there are many, many factors at play here, some of which are exceptionally difficult to predict. Reality could hit anywhere within the spectrum, or either below or above. Data from the 2010-2011 academic year should be particularly enlightening in this regard.

In 2007 we predicted that by 2012 digital textbook sales would begin to have an effect within the industry, with pickup beginning around 2010 to 2011. Follett has previously made projections that are comparable to ours regarding the projected timeline for transition from predominantly print to more predominantly digital. This projection by Xplana is also consistent with our range of projections and timeline. If we take a conservative stance, it appears increasingly reasonable to expect that we might see at least 15% of the textbook business move to digital formats over the next five years. If college stores hope to retain or capture that business and continue to provide students with the choices and products that meet their expectations, they have a narrowing window of opportunity to engage in their future.

The Xplana report identifies some very reasonable outcomes that might result from their projections, although those implications are focused more on publishers than retailers. That said, the Xplana report is well-written (if brief) and worth a read, as the implications of the collegiate retail industry losing up to 18.8% market share for textbooks in five years if it has failed to prepare properly for digital should be obvious.

Just some food for thought.