Education Benefits Back on the Table

Employer tuition-reimbursement programs, a casualty of the Great Recession of 2008, are making a comeback. Companies are rediscovering that education incentives help keep workers on the job and make finding new employees easier.

“Companies really did slash and burn their professional development budgets,” Bruce Elliott, manager of compensation and benefits of the Society of Human Resource Management, said in an article for The Hechinger Report. “Now we’re starting to see things come back, but we’re seeing them come back in completely different ways.”

For instance, many new tuition-reimbursement programs limit workers to courses from specific for-profit providers that are, in turn, providing employers deep discounts for access to those employees. Some companies also require employees to apply for federal financial aid before its education benefit is applied.

“It’s not just a charitable thing,” said Jaime Fall, director of the UpSkill America initiative. “Companies that hire frontline workers know that if they don’t offer benefits that are competitive, they’re going to lose out on workers who want to go to college.”

Another reason for companies to offer education benefits is dissatisfaction with the work skills of recent college graduates. Just 11% of business leaders told a Gallup survey they strongly agreed that graduates were ready for work, even though 96% of higher-ed officials believe their institutions are very to somewhat effective in preparing students for jobs.

“This is a way for the for-profits to maintain relevance,” said Howard Lurie, analyst for the education consulting firm Eduventures. “They’re under the gun. It’s an enrollment-management solution for them.”

MOOCs Had a Very Good Year

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) had a banner year in 2015. According to an EdSurge report, enrollment doubled to more than 35 million students, with more than 4,200 courses offered by 550 colleges and universities.

There were 2,200 courses offered for the first time in 2015, with computer science and programming courses growing by more than 10%. The MOOC listing provider Class Central analyzed reviews of the courses and determined that A Life of Happiness and Fulfilment, offered by Indian School of Business and Coursera, beat Introduction to Programing with MATLAB, offered by Vanderbilt University and Coursera, as the top-rated class of the year.

Issuing credentials to students was a top MOOC trend of 2015, with more than 100 credentials available from providers. Credentials have become the main source of revenue for both Udacity and Coursera, while edX focused on providing MOOC students with credit by teaming with Arizona State University on its Global Freshman Academy and working on partnerships with credit-granting schools.

Many MOOC providers no longer offer free certificates upon completion of a class and are now targeting high school students trying to prepare for college. The platforms also offer more than 800 self-paced classes with soft deadlines that give students plenty of flexibility for completing a course.

“In 2016, we can expect to see a lot more credentials and credits,” Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, wrote for EdSurge. “But as MOOC providers try to aggressively monetize, early adopters many find that critical components of the learning experience will no longer be free.”

Use of E-Portfolios Growing in Higher Ed

There was a time when portfolios were primarily used by faculty as a way to gather information on student progress. Times have clearly changed because the California State University system rolled out an e-portfolio initiative in November that is available for use by more than three million students and alumni.

An e-portfolio provides students with a place to collect evidence of lifelong learning and skills. The electronic repository provides employers information that help match students with jobs. Colleges and universities are also using e-portfolios to identify tools and training needed to help students become more attractive job candidates.

“Tuition costs are up, perceived value is down,” Ryan Craig wrote in a report for TechCrunch. “Reports suggest that half of recent graduates are unemployed or underemployed. Colleges and universities need to provide students and graduates with additional training and tools to improve immediate employability.”

More than 30 states now require students as early as middle school to create e-portfolios and individualized learning plans. Students will be able to provide colleges and universities with examples of their best work, helping to make it easier identify the abilities and potential of prospective applicants.

“Once a sideshow, e-portfolios are beginning to play a more central role in higher education, connecting both forward (graduates to jobs) and backwards (high school students to admissions),” Craig wrote. “Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the days of viewing e-portfolios as peripheral rather than central are dead.”

More Learning Innovation Needed

The New Media Consortium listed adoption of digital textbooks, mobile learning, innovations in web and print design, and the merging of online and learning analytics as the trends that are reinventing what course materials can do for students. However, the potential has yet to be realized.

“Each of these trends is spurring new visions of what digital course materials could look like and how they can foster more engaged learning; together, they are fueling a grass-roots wave of innovations,” authors of the report Course Apps wrote. “Two of the trends in particular, digital textbooks and design, have not yet reached their full potential in higher education, and there is space for institutions and education-focused companies to take them to the next level in service of teaching and learning.”

Textbook publishers are taken to task in the report for watching from the sidelines as others innovate. Digital tools still need to include “social, interactive, and immersive capabilities inherent to the connected devices on which these materials are experienced.” The report also pointed out that most content creators don’t have the expertise to develop their own materials.

“There is a need for user-friendly tools that empower faculty to design the kinds of compelling resources that will comprise the next wave of instructional resources and materials,” the authors wrote.

Beware of Technology Addiction

Technology has become a driving force for most people, but, just like anything else, too much of a good thing can be too much. Technology can become addictive, and that can starts as early as infancy.

Kids now grow up in a world where they play with toys that link them to the Internet and television shows that encourage live tweeting. The increase in screen time boosts the chance that children may suffer from low self-esteem and relationship problems, which follow them through their teenage years and into adulthood, according to a report in InformationWeek.

Social awkwardness can be the least of the concerns for adults who develop symptoms from excessive digital dependence. They also suffer from insomnia, short-term memory and hearing loss, eye irritation, and spinal damage.

“There are plenty of ways to minimize your risk of digital overload,” wrote Kelly Sheridan. “Start by monitoring your smartphone use. An hour before bed, leave you phone in the kitchen to charge instead of putting it on your bedside table overnight. If you have a desk job, set a timer every 20 minutes so you know when to stand and stretch you legs. Alter the volume limit on your iPod, which lets you adjust the maximum level of sound emitted from the earbuds. And finally, walk past the couch when you get home, put on a pair of sneakers, and go for a stroll. Your body will thank you for it.”

Games Aren't Trending in K-12

Maybe gaming in the classroom isn’t that big of a deal. At least that’s the word from the 2015 New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Report, which retired the concept from its list of emerging technology for K-12.

“We don’t see it making the mainstream,” said NMC CEO Larry Johnson in an article for EdTech. “For most people, it’s just too hard to integrate and there are no tools to make it easier.”

Fundamental concepts of gamification are still on the list, such as awarding digital badges for learning games, which NMC lists as a trend that will be adopted within four or five years. Use of drones and visual data analysis, along with wearable technology, should also be mainstream education tools for K-12 within four to five years.

Classrooms allowing students to bring their own electronic devices for educational purposes, cloud computing, makerspaces with tools such as 3-D printers, and mobile learning are trends making an impact right now. Adaptive learning, 3-D printing, information visualization, and learning analytics should be mainstream trends in two or three years, according to the report.

Researchers Study MOOC Trends

Researchers from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looking at massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by the two schools found more females and older students were taking the classes. The survey also noted that nearly half of MOOC participants were not interested in pursuing certification and that 39% of the respondents were teachers.

The survey, based on two years of data from online courses launched on the edX platform, reported that certificate rates for computer science and other technology-based offerings were about half the rate of those in the humanities and social sciences. It also showed that 59% of participants who paid for ID-verified certificates went on to earn certification.

The researchers hope to develop a “Top 5” list of MOOCs based on course attributes, demographics, and level of interaction.

“These courses reflected the breadth of our university curricula and we felt the need to highlight their diverse designs, philosophies, audiences, and learning outcomes in our analyses,” Isaac Chuang, associate dean of digital learning at MIT, said in an article in eCampus News. “Which course is right for you? It depends, and these lists might help learners decide what qualities in a given MOOC are most important to them.”

Schools Need Better Mobile Options

A number of session presenters at CAMEX 2014 talked about the need for campus stores to use mobile technology and how e-commerce through a mobile website is a must. A study from the brand marketing firm Princeton Partners found that need extends across campus.

Its research showed that 70% of Pennsylvania and New Jersey colleges surveyed had no mobile presence at all and half of the campuses that did had major deficiencies. In addition, six of 10 students surveyed said they were “unlikely to ever return to a website” if they couldn’t access it from their mobile device.

That’s a problem at a time when more people are using their mobile devices to access the web than their personal computer. And the issue is only going to get bigger since 74% of all teenagers have cellphones.

“The rapid increase in use of mobile devices has left many schools ill-equipped to address the needs of what marketers now call ‘constantly connected consumers,’” Jeanne Oswald, an industry advisor to Princeton Partners, told eCampus News.

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.”

Some Trends on Fire in '14, Others Sputter

T.H.E. Journal tapped five experts in instructional technology for their predictions, guesses, expectations, and wild conjectures on the status of 10 trending topics affecting all levels of education in the coming year.

According to this panel, topics that are likely to heat up in the next 12 months—or remain hot if already in the red zone—include the bring-your-own-device scenario, using social media as a tool for teaching and learning, and deploying iPads and other tablets in education. Also, the temperature is rising on learning analytics, as schools come under greater pressure to prove student success.

Topics deemed lukewarm (although possibly still hot for some) include game-based learning, digital badges, learning management systems, and, maybe surprisingly, open educational resources (OER). The panel thinks OER will cool off for higher education as more people realize how much time and cost go into finding and prepping materials for students. Learning management systems are too widespread to be hot anymore. Games and digital badges, panelists agree, are good ideas but difficult for schools to implement and integrate appropriately.

Two once-hot topics are losing steam. Desktop computers are being overtaken by mobile devices in the classroom. E-portfolios (online repositories providing a record of what individual students mastered and produced) were popular for a time until schools began to encounter technical hurdles in hosting them. Some schools are also inconsistent in how information and materials are preserved in students’ e-portfolios.

Do you agree with the panel’s assessment of these topics? Are there any other educational topics that may turn red-hot in 2014?

Wearable Tech, Tablets Trending

It’s that time of year when Top 10 lists flourish. Juniper Research just released its top tech trends for 2014, predicting we’ll see more wearable tech on the streets and more tablet computers in the classroom.

Devices such as Google Glass and smartwatches from Samsung and Pebble have already established a foothold for wearable tech, but since there appear to be many more devices on the horizon, Juniper is predicting (No. 3 on its list) that 2014 will be a “watershed year” for the devices. The use of mobile fitness gadgets will grow (No. 5), which should also help to drive the wearable-tech trend.

Tablets have already found their way into education, but that trend is only going to get bigger as the devices become more affordable, according to Juniper (No. 4). 3-D printing will also become even bigger in 2014 (No. 10) as more tech companies begin to manufacture the devices.

“Most of Juniper’s predictions make a lot of sense and you can see the budding trends right now,” said John Koetsier, technology writer for Venture Beat.

Big Data's Power Lies in Profiling

“Big data” is one of the hot buzzwords circling the business, technology, and education sectors these days. It’s not really a new concept—the smart players have been collecting and crunching numbers and data points all along—but system enhancements are making it possible to gather more data than before and more people are becoming aware of the power of data analysis.

In his Thought Leader educational session at the Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) 2013 in Kansas City, MO, Michael Wesch offered an anecdote that illustrates that power. He is the associate professor of cultural anthropology, Coffman Chair for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, Kansas State University, Manhattan, and U.S. Professor of the Year.

Wesch told the audience that a colleague became incensed when Target sent his 15-year-old daughter a mailer touting pregnancy and baby products. The colleague complained at the local store. A few days later, he returned to apologize. “It turns out Target knew the daughter was pregnant before he did,” Wesch explained.

Target didn’t actually know that, but had surmised the situation when the daughter bought two particular products at the same time. Purchased separately, the products meant nothing. But purchased together, according to Target’s data profiling, indicated there was a high probability the consumer was expecting. The dual purchase automatically triggered Target’s targeted mailer.

The anecdote shows that big data involves more than simply counting up consumer actions. The real value is in correlating data to create a profile of future actions.

In the education world, Wesch noted, software developers are trying to build similar profiles of student learning behaviors. He cited a couple of examples: Learning management systems, such as Blackboard, are exploring the huge potential in the big data they collect on users. The Knewton adaptive learning platform employs data analysis to guide learners through progressive levels of questions.

Emerging Education Tech Trends

While massive open online courses (MOOCs) received a lot of attention last year, they weren’t the only thing to impact technology in education during 2012. In this five-minute video, Jeff Young, technology editor for The Chronicle of Higher Education, talks with Educause Review Online about some of the trends that emerged last year and what he thinks will be the big ed-tech stories in 2013.

Among the points Young makes is that IT staffs on higher education campuses are being stretched to the limit by more demands for technology in coursework and for support of an ever-proliferating array of personal devices.

ERO Video Conversation: Looking Back and Looking Forward from EDUCAUSE on Vimeo.

Predictions Continue for 2013

With 2013 just a few days away, here are more predictions for the new year:

The Harvard Business Review blog says 2013 will be all about the “Content Economy.” Content—essentially data and intellectual and creative properties in all forms—will become the most valuable asset any organization possesses. It’s not much of a stretch to claim mobile will be big next year, but HBR adds that web, social media, and mobile will all become “co-dependent,” meaning that people will expect anything they can access on the web or through a social network to be optimized for mobile devices, or what HBR calls “smobile.”

Mobile, integrated commerce (a blend of online and offline), and the growing importance of social media will also be the three top trends for retailers, in the view of Forbes blogger Lydia Dishman.

In “TenBold Predictions for Ebooks and Digital Publishing in 2013,” Digital Book World anticipates continuing consolidation among publishers. Those that remain in business will sell more directly to consumers, bypassing booksellers, both physical and online. Dedicated e-readers will plunge in price, maybe all the way to zero, yet publishers will boost promotions of e-books and add more extras to digital titles.

Like DBW, the TeleRead blog expects to see a variety of enhancements for e-books, reading apps, and mobile-device interfaces. But, as a result, consumers will pay higher prices for e-books, most likely price points similar to softcover print books.

The CITE’s own forecast: Some of these predictions will be right on the money; others will miss by a mile. And something that nobody expected will emerge as a game-changer.

What do you think will happen in 2013? Add your predictions to the conversation.

A Look Ahead into 2013

Mobile devices, cloud computing, and social media were among the booming trends of 2012. What does 2013 hold in store for technology, digital content, e-commerce, communications, and education? The pundits are already gazing into their crystal balls. Here are a few predictions:

In the view of C/Net, 2013’s biggest technology trends to watch are already in motion. Microsoft will make a big comeback based on Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, while at the same time Apple’s star will fade as Android devices lock in more consumers. Although some think Facebook is doomed, C/Net sees the social network hanging in there as a formidable player.

From the perspective of IT professionals, CIO identified seven tech trends that have the potential to affect business in the coming year, starting with “bring-your-own-device.” A growing number of employees want to use a single mobile computing device of their choice to handle both work and nonwork responsibilities and communications. It means organizations may pay less for hardware but much more for support. CIO’s list also includes online classrooms, 3-D printing, and apps for TV.

Is e-mail nearing death? Not in the opinion of marketer ClickZ. E-mail will remain a potent marketing tool in 2013, but only for those who recognize more consumers will be accessing messages on smartphones, not laptops or desktops. Marketers will need to come up to speed with responsive design, a concept that means online content is optimized for any and all devices.

Watch for more predictions tomorrow in The CITE.

Technology Giving Classrooms a New Look

A new study shows that technology is leading to new ways for teachers to teach and students to learn. In fact, 75% of college students and 72% of faculty are using notebooks or netbooks as learning tools in the classroom, and 69% of students and 73% of faculty are making use of digital content, according to an article in Campus Technology.

The report Learn Now, Lecture Later, funded by CDW-G, a company providing technology to government, education, and healthcare industries, suggests students prefer a mix of teaching methods, such as hands-on projects (17% of participating students), independent study (14%), and group projects (12%), and that 69% of students would like to see more technology used. The study also showed that 64% of high school teachers are using class time for group projects and 45% of their students have used smartphones in class as learning tools.

“Students told us they want more interaction with teachers during class, as well as the opportunity to incorporate more technology into their classes,” said Andy Lausch, vice president of higher education at CDW-G. “In fact, students who are very satisfied with how their teachers use class time also use more technology in class with all types of learning models.”

The greatest obstacle facing to using more technology in the classroom for secondary and postsecondary education is securing funds to provide it. Lack of time and lack of technical support were also cited by IT staffers participating in the survey.

The complete report is available for free at the CDW-G web site.

10 Higher Ed Metatrends

Marking the 10 year anniversary of the Horizon Project, the New Media Consortium recently released a report that identifies 28 important metatrends in technology in education.  The ten most significant are listed here:

1. The world of work is increasingly global and increasingly collaborative. As more and more

companies move to the global marketplace, it is common for work teams to span continents and time zones. Not only are teams geographically diverse, they are also culturally diverse.

2. People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want to.

Increasingly, people own more than one device, using a computer, smartphone, tablet, and ereader. People now expect a seamless experience across all their devices.

3. The Internet is becoming a global mobile network and already is at its edges.

Mobithinking reports there are now more than 6 billion active cell phone accounts. 1.2 billion have mobile broadband as well, and 85% of new devices can access the mobile web.

4. The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based and delivered over utility networks, facilitating the rapid growth of online videos and rich media. Our current expectation is that the network has almost infinite capacity and is nearly free of cost. One hour of video footage is uploaded every second to YouTube; over 250 million photos are sent to Facebook every day.

5. Openness- concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information-  is moving from a trend to a value for much of the world. As authoritative sources lose their importance, there is need for more curation and other forms of validation to generate meaning in information and media.

6. Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices common in society. In an

age where so much of our information, records, and digital content are in the cloud, and often clouds in other legal jurisdictions, the very concept of ownership is blurry.

7. Real challenges of access, efficiency, and scale are redefining what we mean by quality and success. Access to learning in any form is a challenge in too many parts of the world, and efficiency in learning systems and institutions is increasingly an expectation of governments- but the need for solutions that scale often trumps them both. Innovations in these areas are increasingly coming from unexpected parts of the world, including India, China, and central Africa.

8. The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while refining

our notion of literacy. Institutions must consider the unique value that each adds to a world in which information is everywhere. In such a world, sense-making and the ability to assess the credibility of information and media are paramount.

9. There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools, universities,

and training. Traditional authority is increasingly being challenged, not only politically and

socially, but also in academia - and worldwide. As a result, credibility, validity, and control are all notions that are no longer givens when so much learning takes place outside school systems.

10. Business models across the education ecosystem are changing. Libraries are deeply

reimagining their missions; colleges and universities are struggling to reduce costs across the board. The educational ecosystem is shifting, and nowhere more so than in the world of publishing, where efforts to reimagine the book are having profound success, with implications that will touch every aspect of the learning enterprise.

Digital Books Reached $3.2 Billion in 2011

Juniper Research reports that digital books in 2011 earned about $3.2 billion in revenue and is expected to triple to $9.7 billion by 2016 according. 

“Readers are showing increasing loyalty to digital book and the e-book market is developing very fast, with consumer attitudes and behaviors changing over course of months, rather than years.” says Angela Bole of Book Industry Study Group.

But it doesn’t spell the demise print publishing.  Some analysts believe print for newspapers will become extinct and magazines need to figure out the balance between print and digital.

E-Books Not So Popular at CSUF

Here is an article an article from The Daily Titan, the school newspaper at California State University Fullerton, that reports that e-books are not catching on at their campus.  While the bookstore offers e-textbooks, CSFU students are not taking that option when purchasing their course books.  “If there are 100 students in the class, about 3 to 5 will buy the e-books,“ says Text Adoption Manager Mike Dickerson.

One of the reasons for the slow adoption is that there is a significant lack of availability of e-book versions of the most popular textbooks on college campuses, said Jeff Cohen, CEO of CampusBooks.com.  Cohen also said e-book prices aren’t as good as people believe them to be.  Other reason for the lack of enthusiasm about e-books is that publishers make it hard for students to bypass paying for e-books by imposing restrictions that limit e-books’ usage, expiration dates, and printing limits.

Of course, as we have reported on this blog in the past and in presentations elsewhere, there are a variety of other factors also influencing the adoption of digital texts by students.  Many of the larger adoptions are now available through sources like CourseSmart, which has partnered with many campus bookstores.  However, the majority of titles are still not available, or easily available, though a consolidated source.  Digital sales require more consumer and faculty education, due to differences in DRM and licensing terms.  Type of institution also matters, with sales higher among for-profit schools and adult commuting populations.  Student expectations of digital are also not "pdf-equivalents" of the text and in response we increasingly we see more emphasis by publishers being placed on "born digital" versions of course material resources.  In short, there are many reasons why adoption has been slow, but many of those factors are showing signs of shift.

There is also a question around the true size of the digital course materials market.  Take MyMathLab by Pearson as an example.  It probably outsells the leading print textbook product by 3-to-1 (that is in dollars if not units).  It is a top selling product for many stores, but few stores (or publishers) would count that as a "digital textbook sale."  As more products are available in digital format, and as more of those products provide richer learning contexts, digital sales will increase.  There are also a percentage of sales that happen directly through other sources, which college stores cannot track.  A case of "we may not know what we do not know" -- and that relates to market share.  We do not know what percentage of digital sales we are losing to other sources.   Recall that record stores were not seeing big sales of digital music back in 2003.  What a difference less than a decade makes.  What is the true size of the digital course materials market across all digital products (not just .pdf substitutes for print)? 

So my question regarding the original article cited in this story -- were students surveyed to find out if they are using digital course materials, and if so where they were being acquired?  How many students at CSUF are using digital course materials accessed through the library or purchased someplace else?  The number may still be small, but if we are trying to track trends, the data might provide for a more accurate picture.  The move to digital is certainly more a question now of "when" rather than "if." Despite currently low in-store sales it is important for stores to continue to monitor digital sales and experiment to learn how to transition to new forms of content delivery.  Failure to do so will likely mean increased channel obsolescence with time.

BTW -- I tend to consider CSUF a well-managed college store.  My comments are not intended to be a critique of the store's performance around digital, but to provide a different perspective on the low digital sales many stores report.  I know a number of stores take the low sales numbers and use that to justify not doing anything with digital.  Such decisions weaken both the store and the channel in terms of future positioning.  Even well-managed stores like CSUF's find that digital course material sales are not yet comparable to digital trade book sales in other channels, but they are experimenting and tracking so that when the shift does come they will be better prepared with viable solutions.

When technology trends (and textbooks) collide...

There have been a couple interesting studies out lately involving textbooks and tablets. A classic collision of technology trends as mobile devices and digital content converge among college students.

A few weeks ago we wrote about the study by the Pearson Foundation. Among some of the interesting quotes:

[W]hile 55 percent of students still prefer print over digital textbooks, among the 7 percent of students who own tablets devices like iPads, 73 percent prefer digital textbooks. With 70 percent of college students interested in owning a tablet, and 15 percent saying they plan to buy one in the next six months, the survey suggests that there may be a coming rise in the e-textbook market.

These findings are interesting on several points. First is the declining preference among students for print over digital -- dropping from 75% (widely found in a number of studies) down to 55% in the past 6 months. However, the preference of print over digital more than flips when you look at students with a tablet device -- with 73% of those students prefering digital to print.

Unless one wants to believe that this is just an abberation among early adopters, this week, a new study conducted at Abilene Christian University appeared in Campus Technology. Independent from the prior study, this study found similar preference for digital over print even among individuals exposed to a tablet for as little as three weeks. An interesting quote from this piece:

“After trying an iPad for a short period—about three weeks—three out of four college freshmen said they’d be willing to purchase an Apple iPad personally if at least half of the textbooks they used during their college career were available digitally.”

The article goes on to discuss the barriers to digital textbook adoption. Among top reasons they note lack of inventory, the cost of digital, and the need for truly media rich content. The first and last are on our list of factors. The second surprised me, as the physical print and distribution costs are not a substantive portion of current textbook cost -- so why should people expect the cost to be lower. Plus, the current cost of generating truly media rich content and integrating it in pedagogically proven ways can be quite high. Digital textbooks should probably cost more not less right now if we are just talking about costs and truly media rich versions. The costs for consumers are marginally lower currently as we look at "PDF equivalents" and publishers attempt to build market share for digital.

As we look at the inventory challenge, most textbooks currently available in digital are the large adoptions -- so mostly content oriented toward first- and second-year courses. If students start coming to campus with tablets in growing numbers, over a four-year period you could have more than half of all textbook content available digitally.

So what would that mean for the printed textbook in four years time -- i.e., 2015? What happens if tablet adoption follows patterns similar to iPod or smartphone adoption in recent years? (A reasonable projection, since most technologies are on accelerating adoption curves, and early projections say this technology is on a similar or faster trajectory than the identified counterparts). What if just half of students have a tablet device by 2015, and they acquire just half of all of their textbooks in digital format? That is 25% of course materials being sold digital right there.

Is there anyone credible out there who STILL does not think trends in digital content or mobile devices or technology in general does not matter in the textbook world?