Online testing and study aids...

There have been a couple news stories lately about online testing and study aids for students. Two in particular seem to be getting some attention: ACETheExam.com and Flat World Knowledge.

ACETheExam
ACETheExam was announced in a press release earlier this week. It is a new initiative by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to offer students practice exams in four popular courseareas: Intro Psych, US History, Principles of Economics and General Chemistry. In brief, the tool allows students to buy self-scoring practice exams made up of 15-20 questions that cover key topics in the course, drawn from a typical textbook. When I taught as a faculty member, this is the type of content students used to get for "free" as part of the "add-ons" that came with textbooks. It may be a publisher strategy though to reduce the cost of traditional textbooks and make more money off of the ancilliaries, since many states and students are pushing for a separation of the add-ons from the traditional texts.

Given the current state of technology, I expected this tool do more than just self-score quizzes at 5-6 cents per question. The SAT exam prep tools by ETS might be a good model to look at. If you get an answer wrong, it may ask you more questions, and then take you to lessons to explain the concepts. Such an approach allows for more self-directed learning. Perhaps I am a bit idealistic, but in the end, shouldn't it be about learning and not just the test? Perhaps when several people pushed me the link on this new development I was expecting a bit more.

Flat World Knowledge
Flat World Knowledge (FWK) is another group that has been getting a lot of press lately. Thanks, perhaps in large part, to the press stories coming out of the Student PIRGS lately that focus on open source textbooks. I have received a good number of e-mails on stories about FWK, and several requests for my opinion. The marketing certainly has been interesting, with the cute stick-figure videos. The real product does not come out to 2009, however. I have not seen the actual product yet, and screenshots are not enough to quel my ingrained faculty cynicism, so it is difficult to assess the real quality.

That said, I do have to admit that I like some of the basic elements of the business model -- faculty pick the content, students pick the format. This is an idea I have pushed for a while now. We are working on some initiatives to do the same. The faculty are a barrier though. Some of the student data I have seen suggests that students are afraid (for lack of a better word) to buy textbooks in a format other than what the faculty member is using. This is changing, and faculty are becoming more sensitive to textbook prices (and their role in causing textbook prices to increase). Faculty really have to be won over though. Solving that puzzle is critical.

It is interesting that they plan to give the digital away for free, but then charge if students want other formats. Their site explains:

We then turn around and sell things of value to that large market – more
convenient ways to consume our free book (print, audio, PDF) and efficient ways
to study (study aids). Sure, we’ll make less money per student than the big
guys. But that’s okay. We’ll be selling to a lot more of them, and we’ll be
doing it for a lot less money (thanks to technology like web-hosted services,
XML, print-on-demand, and more). Like we said… just a smarter way to do
business. For all of us.

So here is the dilemma. Most students do not currently like digital versions of textbooks. While there appear to be no statistical difference in student outcomes when they use the digital versus the print, students do report greater eye fatigue with current delivery options. This gets coupled with the digital divide problem -- students who can make best use of the digital option are typically the more economically well-positioned, because they have better access to computing technology, higher quality displays, and are more likely to have had more exposure and experience with technology -- allowing them to be more comfortable with the digital option. Thus, students who need the lower cost option most, the socio-economically disadvantaged, are likely to have to rely on the traditional media more. So the dilemma is that poorer students still have to pay more to get content in the format that best matches their needs, experience, and access to technology.

That said, there is no perfect solution to this problem out there. We are working to solve this problem too, and our solution will also have its problems. As the Japanese saying goes, "nothing is so good that it cannot be improved." While it means competition for us, in my opinion FWK is a good step forward for the course materials industry as it will help further test out models where the content and the format are separated. FWK, like AceTheExam, will charge for access to study guides (and likely other ancilliaries), further emphasizing the split among pieces of content. It will also test out some new business models to reduce costs that could work to the whole industry's advantage -- such as print-on-demand.

Bottom Line:
While it means competition for us, FWK's business model also represents opportunity. By separating the content and the format, I also see opportunities for FWK to work with college stores. Our paired strengths may create a greater win-win for students and institutions than separate initiatives. There are advantages for a company like FWK to work with college stores -- and for college stores to work with FWK. Both sides have some unique advantages. Anyone from FWK reading this note who might want to have a discussion?

Thank you for coming...

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone for reading the blog. This week there were readers from every continent (except Antartica), well over a dozen different countries, and 31 of the 50 states (US). If there are particular topics or questions you would like me to address, please feel free to post a comment or drop me a note.

-M

An interesting observation....

I spoke with the business development folks attached to the Kindle at Amazon this past week. Our second such call. Those conversations are always quite interesting. An observation was made this week that I found quite interesting -- and provides a good lesson in design for all of us as we think about technology and the next generation. Here is how the story goes...

Gettysburg College recently used the Kindle in the classroom. As part of that experiment, they conducted an end-of-the-semester focus group with the students from the class. One of the student observations was that they had a hard time searching the digital content to find particular passages or information they were looking for. One of the focus group observers asked the students why they did not use the search button at the bottom of the device. The students essentially asked, "Search button? Where's that?" The students reported that they did not use the buttons so much and were more inclined to use the menus. This was apparently different from how adults their parents age used the device -- relying more on buttons than menus.

Just an interesting observation. Make of it what you will. As we look at digital course materials though, we should keep in mind who is using it and that their expectations are likely to be quite different from ours.

Tech Talk at the Times

I have been following a new service from the New York Times lately. Well, maybe not new, but new to me -- and interesting too. I follow a lot of news feeds from many sources, but the NYT now has a daily posting of technology news. Actually, I find the redesign of the NYT site as a whole to be quite pleasing. I like how I can create "My Times" and add in the elements that are of interest to me -- much like the services that Google and others have provided for some time. the piece I like best, though, is being able to have the technology news sent to me in a digital newspaper format every day. I do not have a lot of time to read the paper, and my local paper does not cover much technology news. I have found the daily Technology News from the Times to have many stories of interest that I have not seen pop up in other channels, or that do not do so until days later. Here is a sampling of some of the stories lately that I found interesting:

At Kodak, Some Old Things Are New Again -- an interesting story on digital's role today at Kodak, the company that created the digital camera, and then essentially shelved the concept to avoid hurting their traditional core of film sales. (Sound like there is a lesson in there for some other traditional industries???) While just a fraction of who they used to be in the past, today Kodak is producing a number of new innovations. How they are transforming the company, and some of the technologies they have in their pocket are truly fascinating. The story is an interesting lesson on organizational re-evaluation and change.

Amazon Sues Over State Law on Collection of Sales Tax. This is an interesting and important case to watch from the digital course materials perspective. As course materials move digital, there have already been questions as to whether sales tax is collected or not. A number of states use sales tax to fund education. However, if in-state businesses must collect state sales tax, while out-of-state businessses do not, in-state economies and businesses are put at risk. While this article does tackle the course materials topic directly, it is a case to watch as it could set some precedence for future cases that are likely to arise that hit closer to home.

Informal Style of Electronic Messages Is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds -- We have all seen the jokes about the "new language" that has emerged in the texting generation. Now it is finding its way into homework. I have met kids who know how to keyboard (or type as we used to call it) but never really learned how to write in cursive. An interesting piece on how the next generation to enter the college classroom is different from the past. Different is not necessarily bad, but it will increase pressure to find ways to communicate across the culture gap.

There are many more stories of interest as well, but the above sampling might give you an idea of what I am talking about. NYT also started a Tech Talk podcast about a month ago (I think, based on the archives). That also provides an interesting summary of some of the news stories from the week. Easy to download to my ipod and listen to on the plane.

Video the New Textbook?

I read an interesting piece this morning about NBC's new iCue. The iCue site name comes from Immerse, Connect, Understand, and Excel and is targeted towards high school students. It will include things like study guides for AP courses in history, politics, English and other topics. More interestingly, it will allow students to "stockpile" video clips, and then annotate and share the content in a very "Web 2.0" kind of way.

The NBC executive behind the initiative said the initiative is based on the premise that "video will replace the textbook." An interesting concept. It is worth noting that in another piece
from last summer Cisco identified two trends in K-12 they saw as significant for education. One of those was the dramatic increase in the use of digitally downloadable video for use in the classroom.

The concept of video as the textbook may be taking things a bit far, but perhaps not too far. The future will likely be more interactive media -- or true multi-media. Video will certainly be a significant part of that. It also brings another new set of players into the course materials content market. This perspective is echoed again in the first article where the author reports: NBC tried to find a way to work on the project with textbook publishers but couldn't find common ground, he says, adding that textbook publishers have held a virtual monopoly over educational materials. Change is certainly in the air.

We are seeing many new content producers and content aggregators entering the field of educational materials -- and digital delivery is lowering the barriers to entry. An explosion of content providers will not necessarily make things easier or better for faculty and students. What we need is a way to aggregate the aggregators in an effective way, that allows for rating and evaluating the quality of the content being contributed, and which enables easier content discovery. That is the role college stores and campus libraries have played in the past. How might we work together to fill that role again in the future?

Sorry for the silence, more postings soon

Hi everyone,

Sorry -- I have been traveling for much of the past couple weeks and have a few other priority projects that came up. I will have some more postings to contribute soon. Probably tonight if the hotel connection is good. Some of the topics I have to post on include open source textbooks, and some of the student comments regarding e-textbooks from the most recent EDUCAUSE student study. We are working on analyzing that data now for the main report (due out later this year), but I will give a sneak peak into a small set of those comments here soon. I also received a couple questions from some of you reading this blog (nice to know some folks are actually reading it). I will try to address some of those in the next few days as well. Next week I have no travel, so hope to catch up with a number of new postings.

-M

Something to read if you have time...

Okay, I have posted quite a few items this week, but I will be having to post from the road much of the next two weeks, which is always a bit more difficult to fit into my schedule.

To tide you over, here is a mildly lengthy, but informative piece on the Kindle worth reading. Yes, I know, yet another piece about the Kindle. What makes this piece a little different is that it does an interesting job of summarizing many of the other pieces out there on the Kindle. Sort of a meta-review of reviews.

Enjoy!

News from OhioLINK's eText program

I do not recall off-hand if I have posted information on OhioLINK's eText program previously, but this is an initiative to watch. The eText Project is similar to California State University's Digital Marketplace, which emphasizes affordability, accessibility and choice for students. The OhioLINK program is focused on affordability and the affect on student outcomes.

OhioLINK's initiative has been very interesting. I have not found a good weblink with more information about the program, although here is a link to a related news story. We have been in discussions with their program leaders since first becoming aware of the initiative over a year ago. However, things have been heating up lately, with pressure from Chancellor Fingerhut's office and new pending legislation that would mandate e-books at colleges and universities across Ohio. The first such legislation we are aware of to date.

Using an experimental design, Ohio's first semester pilots demonstrated no difference in student classroom outcomes based on the use of digital or print course materials. The digital materials appear to be less expensive, but the model looks more like digital rental than digital ownership. With successful first round pilots completed, and more underway, Ohio moves ahead of California in terms of providing a digital content solution for the higher education classroom environment. So, as Ohio goes, so too may go the rest of the country, as many states are certainly watching this initiative very closely, as are we.

There will be a symposium in a few weeks (Apr 29th) held in Columbus where OhioLINK and the Chancellor's plans will be discussed in greater detail. Several college stores and NACS have been invited to attend and participate. There does appear to be genuine interest in having the stores be part of the final solution. That, of course, requires stores to step up to the plate, and quickly. Several stores have already done so, and this initiative will affect nearly all college stores operating in the state of Ohio over the next few years -- whether public, private or contract managed.

More news and information on this topic will appear in future postings.

Digital Content, IP and the Case of Georgia

One of the more interesting headlines in the past week is the story about alleged intellectual property rights violations at Georgia State University. More details on that case can be found in an article that appeared Wednesday in Insider Higher Education. Many of the responses to the article are as interesting (or more so) than the article itself. Another article on this case appears in this week's Campus Marketplace.

Of interest here is the application of copyright and intellectual property protection for digital course materials. It reminds me of the P2P or "Napster-like" piracy cases of music in the last decade. The authors, creators, and producers of content deserve to be properly recompensed for their work. At the same time, there is immense pressure to reduce the cost of content for students.

How many institutions across the country have the same or similar breaches over IP protection on their campus? What exactly is fair use in a digital context? More importantly, how do we work together to maximize the benefits and minimize the driving factors leading to this conflict of values: protecting IP versus making education affordable? As course materials become increasingly digital it also becomes increasingly important for us to resolve these and other questions. I can foresee this conversation getting even more muddy with open source textbooks, since most textbooks and course material content relies on getting permission clearance for the inclusion of images, text, or content. As we saw in the YouTube situation -- when is a "mashup" of content really something new, versus a violation of IP? Add to that the potential to reduce cost to students and the problem gets more complex yet.

This is an area that would benefit further discussion that includes a wider range of stakeholders. Perhaps by working together the stores, libraries, faculty, students, and university administrations could find a more effective solution that upholds both values. To quote Marc Fleischaker, NACS general counsel:

This case raises very complex, but very important issues. As we move more rapidly toward digital delivery, it is important for publishers, schools, stores, and students that the copyright issues be clarified. Digital delivery doesn't mean free delivery, and the concept of 'fair use' is not necessarily different merely because content is delivered digitally instead of physically. Most stores now obtain appropriate permission before putting materials in a coursepack. One would hope that the industry could reach a consensus through discussion about how to treat digital materials, but if it can't happen through discussions, it is not surprising that litigation results. We will follow this issue closely at NACS, and work to develop a model that can be successful for students, universities, stores, libraries, and publishers.

That is all I have to say on this topic for now, but I expect to see and hear more about IP issues and digital course materials over the coming 12-24 months. Can anyone reading this list provide some good links for readers that provide more information on this topic?

CourseSmart partners with Nebraska Books

Nebraska Books and CourseSmart announced a new partnership in a press release that came out earlier this week. CourseSmart is, of course, the multi-publisher venture to deliver e-books. Nebraska Books is one of the larger contract management or "leasing" companies operating in the college store industry. Nebraska Books also provides a range of other services to non-leased stores, such as buying and providing used books.

One of the services Nebraska Books provides is called Jumpbooks. Among the first widespread offerings for delivering digital course materials through stores, Jumpbooks provide a lower cost option for students while allowing stores to maintain the customer relationship and brand viability.

The partnership with CourseSmart enables Nebraska Books to gain access to a much larger inventory of digital content from the publishers. In addition, it provides a channel by which the stores can maintain ownership of the digital transaction. That is a significant accomplishment. This partnership also demonstrates that stores and publishers can work effectively together to define new relationships based on existing and new value propositions.

It is my understanding that CourseSmart is in conversation with other leading digital delivery service providers within the college store industry. We should expect to see more offerings and potential solutions in the months ahead. On the whole this development should be viewed as positive for the industry and students as it provides another lower-cost way to get access to a larger inventory of digital content backed by the convenience and authentication* that stores provide.

* By authentication, I mean verifying that the content students purchase through the store have been verified as the correct materials the faculty member requested for a course.

Hot off the press...

Okay, I am holding a couple news stories back to post Friday (when else). However, the following news story just came across my scan and it is worth sharing. There have been a couple interesting news stories out of the London Book Fair this week, but this press release in particular caught my eye. The piece describes the experiments of a UK bookseller (John Smith & Son) with digital for three UK universities-- and their plans to expand offerings next fall. The passage of particular interest here:

Outcomes from the trial revealed an untapped demand for textbooks that fit today’s students’ lifestyles while meeting their academic needs. “In some instances, the adoption rate of the digital version of a required textbook was as high as 30 percent of the students enrolled in the course,” commented Alan Leitch, John Smith’s marketing director. “The John Smith experiment demonstrated that students are eager to embrace e-books that truly contribute to their learning experience.”

The project was supported by VitalSource, an Ingram Digital Ventures company. Just another example though of a strengthening trend towards digital adoption by students.

Will increasing digital create more information black holes?

In an article published last week the New York Times reported on developments in digital at Amazon. Yet again, this is an interesting news story with signs of both the amount of experimentation going on in the marketplace, and the expectation that we are nearing the tipping point for digital content sales.

Just two days ago Ingram Digital reported in a news release that the number of e-books sold by the company in March 2008 surpassed the previous record by 50 percent. The article notes that "Ingram Digital’s recent record performance confirms the current upward trend in e-book consumption."

Of course, for those holding out against any uptick in digital, the following news story might be encouraging. "Researchers uncovered black holes across the Internet," reads the headline. Actually, it is actually kind of interesting in its findings -- discovering that a percentage of the computer connections they tested worldwide have what the researchers call "partial reachability" -- a scenario where content just gets lost going from point A to point B, even when a stable connection is believed to exist. Chalk one up to Internet astronomy -- I think I will remember this news story the next time I am delayed from posting content to the blog.

Direct to student from university presses

In an interesting move, the SUNY Press has created a "Direct Text" program to sell its content directly to students and faculty electronically and at lower cost than its hardcover editions. This news was published through Inside Higher Ed last week. The news boasts that SUNY Press is the first university press to sell digital and hardcover books simultaneously. I am curious as to how this relates to the Caravan initiative where participating presses can produce content in multiple formats simultaneously. Regardless of 'who was first' it is an interesting move based on some of the same premises we hear repeatedly from many sectors -- we must find a way to provide quality course materials to students (and faculty) at a lower cost, and that digital is part of the solution. An interesting news story all the same.

More on CafeScribe acquisition

A couple weeks ago I commented on the acquisition of CafeScribe/Fourteen40 by Follett. In this week's Campus Technology there is an interesting interview with Bryce Johnson, CEO for the company. The piece has some interesting comments. I know one person wrote me recently to ask if CafeScribe is working on a hardware based e-reader (like the Kindle). Bryce somewhat answers that question:

CT: Are we at the tipping point with e-books because of hardware like the Amazon
Kindle?

Johnson: [In my study] ... I looked at hardware as well. In fact, [we]
had a piece of hardware that was identical to the Kindle. For the first eight
months [of launching Fourteen40], that's what I was pursuing. We rolled it out
at Stanford as a pilot and students said, "How much is this? $400? No way. I
just want [content] on my laptop."

Bryce also points out a common problem for many in the e-textbook space currently -- the lack of content (aka digital assets, aka inventory). Bryce predicts that once the content inventory is improved (which he estimates will occur over the next 12-18 months) that student adoption of digital will improve. I have made some of the same predictions -- that a big current barrier is the lack of complete or sufficient inventory. There are other barriers though, as well, so it remains to be seen how quickly adoption will unfold. I expect we will see improved adoption over the next academic year (2008-2009), but it is likely the following year where a bigger effect will be felt.

Finally, my favorite set of quotes from the interview:

CT: At one point last fall, you offered scratch-and-sniff stickers with a
musty smell to them. Where did that idea come from?

Johnson: We're brainstorming one day. In a survey, we asked students ... what they [would] miss in a normal textbook or book. I think 60 percent of them responded that they missed the smell. We thought, "They like the smell. We'll ship you a scratch and sniff you can stick in your laptops." That's where that came from.

CT: And does it really smell like an old book?

Johnson: It really does.

Open access textbooks

Nicole Allen, textbooks program director for the student PIRGs submitted an update and gave me permission to repost some of the update here. A big push of the student PIRGs this year will be open access textbooks -- essentially free, self-published textbook equivalents. Some sources of information on open textbook content from Nicole:

• I think many of you might be interested in a new publishing company - the world's first open textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge. They provide commercial-grade textbooks open for faculty to modify and free for students to read.
• The California community colleges has created CCCOER - a consortium devoted to developing open textbooks and other resources for use in community colleges to reduce costs and improve learning outcomes.
• Another place to visit for resources is MERLOT - another huge repository of online material. One innovative feature MERLOT offers is a mechanism for ratings and peer reviews.

A related source to check out is Connexions. I think Connexions is a very interesting approach to self-publishing and open access textbooks.

I am not sure if open access textbooks will make a big dent in the traditional textbook market, but certainly it is an interesting movement worth watching. There is some interesting innovation happeninig in this space motivated, of course, by a desire to reduce the cost of textbooks.

The Caravan Project

One of our projects this year is with the Caravan Project. We had our first pair of kickoff calls over the past week. Our work with the Caravan Project is being sponsored by the NACS Foundation. The goals of our work with the Caravan Project are to help develop educational and marketing materials that help college stores sell digital in multiple formats. Fourteen institutions are participating in our pilot project.

The founder of the Caravan Project is a very interesting fellow named Peter Osnos. He writes a regular column for The Century Foundation called The Platform. A recent column entitled A New Paradigm for Publishing is relevant to this list and worth a quick read.

More posts -- it must be a Friday

Yes, it must be a Friday, with so many new posts to the blog. I am trying to get better at a post a day, but find that they stack up and I get to them more rarely.

Anyway, here are a couple other little news clips to look at if you have not seen them yet:

• Swedish web site offers textbook downloads. Ah, piracy is alive and well. A speaker I heard not long ago mentioned how the publishing industry was doing much the same as the music industry did in the 90s -- which gave rise to music piracy and resulted in companies like Napster and other P2P (peer-to-peer) networking sites for sharing illegal uploads for music. While some of us have long suspected it was only a matter of time for this to happen on the textbook side (and for similar reasons), here is some evidence that it has. An interesting read. Before we follow the music industry though and sue all of these students -- is there a way we can work with them to provide lower cost solutions legally? It took the music industry nearly a decade and a new entrant (iTunes) to come in and completely change the industry in order for a solution to be reached. If we do not want to end up like all the record stores around the corner, perhaps we should be more proactive in finding a solution.
• The Digital Bookmobile. A flashback to the past. I grew up out in the country, and remember when the bookmobile used to park, every other Thursday afternoon, near our town post office. I remember my first trip, and the many books the bookmobile helped me discover. Now OverDrive, Inc., one of the leading players in digital delivery -- particularly in the library space, but also doing some stuff in the college store environment -- is looking to revive the bookmobile concept. Not the small, Harry Potter-like bus I remember as the bookmobile as a child, this will be a tractor-trailor that will focus on interactive training and touring the U.S. library circuit beginning August 2008. The focus of the initiative is to help readers learn more about the digital offerings many libraries now provide -- from e-books, to digital audiobooks, music, and video. Libraries have been on the forefront of many interesting initiatives with digital over the past few decades -- and here is one more. If the digital bookmobile passes by your town I hope you will make an effort to take a look. Perhaps you will get an idea or two that stores could adopt. Certainly we have some things we could learn from our librarian friends. Maybe the idea of a Digital Bookstore (on wheels) is an idea whose time has come as well.

Well, I have a flight to catch, so I hope today's postings are of interest. I would love to hear your ideas, feedback or questions.

Interesting TIME article

Thanks to Pat Krivonak for sharing an article that appeared in the March 24 issue of TIME Magazine. The cover article is on 10 ideas that are changing the world and is worth reading. Topics of global sustainability and customer service are key issues that our industry can help address -- and digital can be part of that solution. I watched an interesting financial report the other night that discussed how sustainability could be the next "wave" for investment. Certainly on the consumer side the ability to engage in self-service and providing more options at lower cost is increasingly critical. I think the discussion about the future of customer service is particularly provocative -- particularly for a society where so many of the jobs are in a service or retail environment. Of course, it opens up new opportunities for customer service -- as we see in the case of Border's concept stores and their digital center. Anyway, an interesting article for the weekend.

If you come across an article you think is interesting and fits in with the focus of this blog, please pass me a link. I would enjoy the reading and others on this list might too. We have been talking in our industry about the need to get even better at sharing knowledge -- here is one mechanism to support that.

Some general news...

A couple interesting tidbits in the news this week. If you receive LJ Dawson's The Big Picture newsletter you would see some short synopses of these stories. Her newsletter is worth subscribing to (that is free) but getting access to archives costs money. Two stories she reported this week, also reported elsewhere, are interesting to note, however.

In the first, she reported on how Amazon has instituted a policy whereby print-on-demand publishers selling through Amazon must use BookSurge (owned by Amazon) for their books rather than any other POD service. This is an interesting move, and received some fairly negative responses. Part of the concern comes from the many thousands of books not in a digital format that is compatible with BookSurge. The challenges with content convergence is just another sign that digital while digital is getting closer, it is not quite there yet. We need to develop better standards for content exchange so that consumers and smaller content providers are not negatively affected by the sometimes high costs of content conversion -- or the limitations that not converting can have on distribution options.

The second interesting story reported this week is a piece on how Ebay has stopped allowing the sale of purely digital products, citing feedback manipulation. Those who have ebooks or other downloadable files to see can use Ebay's Classifieds application. I have not looked into this story further yet, but it is interesting to see that even a company like EBay has trouble selling digital products -- although their problems might be different from ours. I wonder -- are the classified digital sales right next to the personals section? MWM ISO good EB w ETU DRM. :)

Digital at the AAP meeting earlier in March

I was not able to make it to the AAP meeting about a month ago in DC. I heard there were some interesting sessions. Two of the speakers sound like they were particularly interesting -- Border's CEO (George Jones) who spoke to their process of reinventing themselves, and Amazon senior v-p for worldwide digital media (Steve Kessel) who spoke about Amazon's digital efforts and particularly the Kindle. There is a short synopsis of these talks online. Was anyone there who could share some additional impressions or observations?

Border's Concept in Vegas

I will be away from the blog for the next week, attending meetings in Vegas and SLC. The new concept store opens in Las Vegas today. I am expecting it to be mobbed this evening, but I am very much hoping to get a glimpse of the operations -- and particularly the digital center -- while I am in the neighborhood. There are a lot of news stories on the new opening, but here is one with a good description of the digital center:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080328/clf004.html?.v=101

The question iss though -- does Border's Las Vegas have slot machines too? :)

Competing with Free -- again...

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger recently issued a request for philanthropists to make textbooks free online. The Chronicle's blog, The Wired Campus, recently posted an article about this, which generated a range of interesting feedback.

This is an intesting concept -- and one that has both pros and cons. Originally, I wrote a lengthy response to this plea. I decided in the end that going through all of the pros and cons might only stir up the advocates of one side of the equation or the other. Do we need to find a way to reduce the cost of course materials for students? Yes, and it seems pretty clear that mechanisms will step in to help make that happen in the near-to-midterm future. Open-source or open-access content will be one of those mechanisms.

If I have learned anything, though, in this position over the past three years is that the textbook market is far more complex than a simple list of pros and cons could capture. There are many stakeholders (students, faculty, stores, institutions, wholesalers, publishers, authors, parents, online retailers, editors, software developers, etc., etc., etc.) -- it is a sizeable industry. While I am often among the first to argue that old mature industries have a lot of room for improvement and have many opportunities to create improved efficiency and effectiveness, we must also be careful not to sacrifice quality or value at the sake of cost or in a rush to find a quick fix.

A fomer professor of mine used to say, "You can have things better, faster, or cheaper -- pick any two." I believe digital solutions are moving toward some options that are better and cheaper, but we are still learning how to do that, which will take time. We have many complex dynamics to work out. For example, for many institutions, part of the revenue from textbooks directly contributes to financial aid scholarships or supporting student activities on campus. Thus, when students buy through their college store, they are helping support other services for students on their campus. [Note: Is this universally true, no. I am referring to the majority of cases here, not the exceptions.] If stores went to a break-even model tomorrow, covering only costs and generating no profits, some other mechanism would need to step in to cover the revenue shortfall. Because most US academic institutions are heavily tuition-driven or tuition-dependent, either services would need to be cut, or tuition and fees would have to be increased. Again, that does NOT mean that we cannot or should not find ways to reduce the cost of course materials. Philanthropy could be part of that solution. Digital could be part of that solution. Faculty could be part of that solution. Other stakeholders and new entrants to the market could also be part of that solution.

For stores, one way we can help is to provide students options or choices. Digital gives us more opportunities to provide more options. For example, we find that students prefer to read the print, but study from the digital. Faculty contribute greatly to the cost of textbooks -- something I never knew or understood as a faculty member, but now have greater appreciation for having seen more of the economic models embedded in current industry business models. There are ways through the stores that we can still support our institutions, while providing better value at lower costs for students. Many of us are working on those solutions--but that will take some time.

In the interim, philanthropists could help by creating textbook scholarships at institutions, or supporting initiatives that help make quality textbooks more affordable to those who are socio-economically disadvantaged. And to put my money where my mouth is -- I did create an endowed scholarship at my undergraduate alma mater to help defray educational costs for students as they approach their junior and senior years. What would be ideal is to help every institution have fully-endowed financial aid, like we see at Princeton U -- so that no student should be denied a quality education because of the cost. Fully endowed education would make textbooks, and in fact education, appear to be more free for those who need financial assistance most. A daunting goal -- but one equally worth pursuing.

Okay, okay -- so I still wrote a lengthy response to Larry's plea. I probably still managed to stir up advocates on different sides of the equation. I will endeavor to stay off my soapbox going forward. :)

Another interesting blog...

Here's another place to go for some interesting discussions on digital content and publishing. The blog is Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog. It has a variety of interesting content. The recent interview of Jim Nye, long time professional in this space was recently interviewed on the blog. Jim's response to the last question asked was one that I thought was particularly well suited for anyone in any role in such a turbulent, change-filled environment -- such as what college stores are seeing today. His response was:

JN: Network, network, network. Know the people who are working in your marketspace, learn what their interests are, how they do their business and establish friendly relationships with them and remember who they are. They will be going places in their companies (or maybe the one you work for) and become an amazing resource. And do not restrict yourself to meeting people in your specific business. If they are on your campuses or at the meetings you attend you need to know who they are and what they do. Having this kind of perspective not only will pay off in the future as references, it will enhance your work with your primary targets if you better understand all the work of the people in their world.

This is some of the same messaging we have been passing stores as we talk about the store of the future and developments in the digital space. No matter how good we are at relationships now, we must continue to get better. The value is in the network of relationships.

Anway, JOe Wikert's blog has a number of interesting postings, and certainly more of the interview with Jim Nye is worth reading for readers of this blog.

Follett acquires Fourteen40

In an interesting move, Follett Corporation announced today in a press release that they are acquiring Fourteen40. Follett is one of the largest lease store operators in North America. Fourteen40 is an interesting company that I have watched and have had some interest in for some time. Fourteen40 produces a social networking solution for e-textbooks called CafeScribe. The product has received a variety of good media attention over the past year or so. This is a very interesting partnership and we will be sure to watch how Follett's digital strategy unfolds over the course of the year.

Interestingly, this acquisition comes on the heels of another acquisition of Follett just a few one month ago on February 25 when they acquired Varsity Group, Inc. -- a company that provides online textbook sales and services. A copy of that press release is also available.

I can think of a couple other acquisitions that would really round out Follett's digital portfolio, so it will be interesting to watch and see if any other news emerges in the next few weeks or months. Companies are starting to hone in on what the digital environment for textbooks might look like. We are working in that direction as well. We are refining a partnership model that should guide and help prioritize our initiatives going forward. Much to do!

Questions for the week...

Finally (for today), a colleague passed along a short posting from earlier in the week under the Wired Campus section of the Chronicle. The article is entitled: Tech Therapy: 'If We Don't Pay Attention to IT, We're Dead in the Water.' The quick 60-second (max) piece interviews the President of Western Iowa Tech Community College.

What are those things that will leave stores "dead in the water" if we do not think about them? How could we take the idea to look outside our industry for new products, services, or concepts that might help us better serve students and our other customers? Of particular interest in this blog, how might digital play into the answer to these two questions?

Happy spring-

Why stores should not wait to experiment with digital...

I received the following e-mail inquiry in the past week, and thought it would be worth sharing. I changed the content a little to make the identity of the writer more anonymous, but in essance, this is what the person wrote:

Dear Mark-

I seem to remember a discussion from last year where we
came out feeling like things (digital) might be 5 years off. I thought I
heard at CAMEX that we are now looking at 18 months. What is your latest
& greatest crystal ball look like? Any of your current thoughts always
appreciated?

From Crystal Ball Reader

The following was my response -- updated to include a new development from the last few days.

Hi Crystal Ball Reader,

5 years seems realistic for perhaps the bigger shift, but 18 months is more realistic for the point by which more stores will start feeling a bigger impact of digital. If they wait more than 18 months to do anything it could be too late. Why? A couple recent events have spurred this.

• First, Amazon's recent flirtations with entering the market. They have approached several institutions - large, small, public, private and for-profit. From what we have been able to learn from a couple of those institutions, it appears that they are proposing a model where the campus deliver the Kindle via a laptop-program-type initiative (which can be done several ways). Students could then download the textbooks to the Kindle at a reduced cost and some money would go back to the institution. So far it is IT that is being approached, not us. I have not been successful yet at getting a contact at Amazon to talk with us. If they tackle this market full-force, they could change things for us quite radically, quite quickly. And you know they will be advertising their sales not ours. I just received a draft article from a CIO proposing a program like this where 80% of the student textbooks would be delivered over the Kindle on ampus and what that would mean for campus stakeholders - although he forgot to mention the stores. I am supposed to review and provide feedback as an anonymous reviewer. So, Amazon could speed things up.


• Apple is rumored to be working on a reader. We also know that they have signed agreements with publishers to offer a large number of textbooks via iTunesU within the next 2-4 years. I hope to have another update on this before long, but if Apple enters the market in force, it again could mean trouble for us.


• About 10 days before CAMEX I was at a publisher meeting. One interesting point made there was a statistic given by one of the academic publishers who noted that the conversion rate from print to digital this year hit the 2-3 percent mark. Seems low, yes? That happens to be the same conversion rate from traditional media to digital that iTunes had in its first year. Four years later 85 percent of college Freshmen were carrying around iPods and buying music digitally.


• Another item out of that publisher meeting, that I have now heard repeated in other venues, is that the publishers plan to approach institutions and push licensing of digital textbooks. They described this as "the solution" - reducing textbook costs and eliminating the used textbook market. It was how they saw getting the textbook to quote "appear to be as lose to free as possible" for students. I find this approach troubling, as licensing is not as innocent or inexpensive solution as it might appear on the surface. I expect to see a big push on this going into the fall. If an institution decides to digitally license the content and provide textbooks electronically via this method (and you know some will) the impact on the ampus store could be significant. This item seems to be the most logical or realistic threat to our timeline at the moment.


• Open source content could be a threat. It probably will eat only a small chunk, and it is something that we may be able to work with, so that is a minor concern at this time, but much of that content is likely to be digital - increasing available inventory and alternative solutions.


• There is CourseSmart, which will have the largest collection of digital textbook assets. They are popping up all over and will be working with many more institutions over the next year. There may be other companies they are in conversation with as well (I would assume). At least one institution has seen adoption figures of the CourseSmart option at 10 percent of enrollment across the courses tested, with one class reaching 20 percent of enrollment.


• McGraw-Hill made some interesting remarks regarding digital this week in a call for the financial media. Of particular note, I thought, was their plan to have all of their front list available for sampling by August. This signals, yet again, that the barrier of insufficient digital inventory is dropping.


• Finally, the recent tests in Ohio under the OhioLINK program are going to make things much more difficult for us. In their pilot tests, they got over 90 percent of the students in the trial courses to adopt the digital option. That is not a typo - 54 out of 55 students in one class, 54 out of 56 in another, adopted the digital. When compared against a class using just print, those students using the digital performed equivalently. I spoke to one professor involved in a pilot on another campus this semester and he has over 100 students in his large intro-psych course using the digital/e-book option this semester. Their prototype will be expanding to other institutions and large-adoption courses over the next few semesters - but we are already hearing about some of their results in other states.

So - while it may be five years before we see high levels of adoption across the board, I think we will not have that long before we have a larger critical mass of these anecdotal instances of higher adoption. Some of these models could change things overnight. I would rather plan on 18 months and find out we have five years to work with than the opposite.

All that being said, at NACS we are working hard at helping address these challenges for stores, while at the same time trying to provide lower cost solutions for students. For stores this can be doubly difficult because of the complex nature of store economics. Most college stores give revenue back to the institution, which is perhaps most often used to support student activities and student resources on campus. So stores are under pressure to increase revenue. At the same time stores recognize that students have options, and that price is a great concern. In some cases the institutional sources telling stores to generate more revenue are also the same sources telling stores to reduce prices. That is a difficult set of demands to balance - particularly when revenue for most stores comes primarily from textbooks. As digital course materials become more prevalent on campus, these pressures will get tighter for those stores who have not begun to work on campus relationships and rethinking their store capabilities, products and services in advance. Thus, it is better for stores to work for a future that may be just 18 months away than believe in the hope that we may have five more years before the digital impact is felt.



Thoughts or opinions?

IDPF January 2008 e-book data released

In other news this week IDPF released eBook sales statistics for January 2008. The statistics are limited to trade books and roughly a dozen publishers. The data does show an interesting trend line though. The site has links to other interesting e-book statistics as well. Here is the current graph, which you can also find on their site in a slightly larger format with a little more detailed trend data:

Notice the slope of the line. That is an improving trajectory. The volume is still low, but the trend is goinig in the expected direction.

Audio e-books DRM free

Overdrive announced this week in a press release that they would be increasing their inventory and capability to distribute mp3 audio books to booksellers and libraries. Borders will be one of the first stores to have this capability added to their repetoire at the concept stores. Overdrive is already an interesting player in the digital content space, perhaps best known for their works with libraries and the IDPF standards group. In this latest announcement it is not the ability to download the content onto the iPod/iPhone, or thousands of other MP3 players that is of interest (although that is interesting). Instead, the most interesting aspect of this press release is their indication that they will allow these downloads without DRM. This is a great move forward, as others have noted the problems and complexity DRM creates in the marketplace. We have seen similar movement in the past few months in the music industry as well. Chalk up one for the consumer!



OverDrive to Distribute MP3 Audiobooks to Booksellers and Libraries
Download audiobooks compatible with iPod, Zune, and thousands of MP3 players

Trustees Set Strategy for Digital Course Materials

My thanks to the group of individuals on the NACS Digital Content Strategic Planning Task Force. The work product created in the time available was great, and was recently approved at the NACS Board meeting at CAMEX. We posted a summary article online today.

The document produced is really more of a strategic vision document than a plan, although it does contain some specific action items. More generally, the plan outlines three priority areas for activity and action: strategic partnerships, enhanced trade infrastructure, and education and awareness. Each of the areas has 4-5 action areas, with generally two items being identified as top priority within each area. A copy of the full document is currently available to NACS members only.

Here is an overview of the priorities, without some of the added detail and description that goes with each. Certainly I welcome discussion or ideas about how to implement any of these items or on the direction itself:

Partnerships
1. (Top priority) Enhance relations and partnerships with publishers and CourseSmart.
2. (Top priority) Assist stores with campus-based partnerships with multiple constituent groups.
3. Enhance industry relations among other trade and retail organizations.
4. Continue developing new partnerships and relationships with a range of organizations.

Enhanced Trade Infrastructure
1. (Top priority) Reposition stores as an essential course materials information center on campus.
2. (Top priority) Create a suite of business models for stores of all shapes and sizes.
3. (Top priority) Assertively pursue improved retail technology offerings for the industry.
4. Engage in more formal knowledge management activities.
5. Continue to explore and consider new and innovative models for the association.

Education and Awareness
1. (Top priority) Develop and implement new approaches to digital content education.
2. (Top priority) Use more of the “store voice” to raise industry awareness.
3. Develop education that places greater emphasis on strategic thinking and planning.
4. Develop basic programs on digital content and e-commerce.

EDUCAUSE Review article

I have had a couple requests for the most recent ECAR article on e-books in higher education. It has just been reprinted in the EDUCAUSE Review and is now available online. The original article was written in the fall, shortly before the Kindle came out. An author's note was added to the end of this article, but if you read through this blog you will see that too is now almost out of date. Just another sign of how quickly things are changing these days. Opinions and ideas about the article are welcome.

Another new blog

Thanks to a reader, I would like to point folks to yet another blog on education, technology, digital content and other topics. Alison Pendergast is an accomplished veteran in the area of textbooks and digital content who works for Pearson Education. Her blog is new, but she is collecting an interesting set of stories, blogs, and pieces of information that people who enjoy this blog might also find interesting. You can check out her blog at: http://www.alisonpendergast.com/

Shelf Awareness Article

Thanks to John Mutter for the interesting interesting write-up of both my session and the NACS StudentWatch study report session from CAMEX last week. The article appeears in today's issue of Shelf Awareness. Shelf Awareness has many good articles on the bookselling industry on a regular basis and is worth some time perusing more generally. However, if you are just looking for a quick summary of the CAMEX session, check out his piece which captures the bulk of it and wraps in some of the extra data from the NACS StudentWatch study report quite nicely.

The Amazon among us

So earlier this month I hinted that a new development might be underway. At this point we still are collecting information. However, I will share what we know or have been told. I am still being forwarded among e-mail addresses at Amazon, so I have not been able to confirm anything with them yet.

So what we know is that Amazon has approached the IT department at several institutions -- public, private and for-profit. These include campuses with lease, independent, and private stores. One of the CIOs I spoke to could not tell me much, but here is the general gist of what he shared. He tells me that Amazon is essentially proposing something similar to a laptop program, which many universities have invested in over the past decade, which is often run out of the IT area of the institution. These programs take several forms -- fromm rentals, to purchases, to accounting for the cost in the price of tuition or fees, etc. The idea is that the Kindles would be used in teh classroom for the downloading of course materials -- textbooks, readings, etc. and that the institution/IT area would potentially receive a commission on downloaded textbooks.

We also learned of a project at Gettysburg College where the CIO has involved the store. I spoke with the store manager there aws she discussed their project at CAMEX. In this case, the IT department bought about 30 Kindles and are testing them in an upper level course. At the end of the semester the CIO and campus store will conduct a focus group with the students about their experience with the Kindle, what they would be willing to pay for the device, pros and cons of the device for textbook delivery, etc. We have asked the store manager to work with us to write up an article of their experience after the end of the semester.

Not a whole lot of information, but at least a little bit. This is an important development for our industry as it signals a few things. First, new players are entering the market. A big player like Amazon could have a large impact in a short time period. This is also soemthing of a different approach for Amazon, based on what else we have seen, so that is an interesting departure and we do not know exactly what that means for the campus stores. Second, it is another signal that college stores MUST improve campus relations and talk with other campus departments, such as that of the CIO. This is an opportunity to both educate campus stakeholders as to the value provided by stores, and an opportunity to learn more about what is happening with course materials and digital on campus.

If we learn more about the Amazon offering, or are able to get a response to our inquiries, I will post that information here as appropriate. The stores offer a good partnering option for Amazon and we will be trying to find a way to bring this opportunity to the store community.

A Question about eBooks

As noted in the prior posting, I recently received a few e-mails based on the article for CCRA's Bridge. I would like to take a moment, though to share one of the e-mails I received and provide a more open response as the writer asks a set of questions that I often hear. I think these are good questions for stores to be asking. She writes:

Dear Mark,

I just finished reading your Bridge article about ebooks (What Is It ThatOur Customers Really Want?). I am very curious about ebooks and just spent some time in a Borders scoping out the Sony Reader. It appears as though ebooks are still only available as on-line purchases through places likeAmazon and the like. Are you aware of any college bookstores that areactually selling ebooks in their stores or on their own websites, and if so,how are they doing it? Are they linking their websites to other sites, orare they able to sell ebooks just like other books? Are ebooks even goingto be something that a store would "stock" (ie: a card with an access codeor something)?

Thank you for your time!
Sincerely,
[Curious Jane]

Dear CJ,

Congratulations on taking the first, and in some ways the most important step -- looking around and asking questions. Your questions and comments are direct and get to the root of things, which I always thought is the best place to start.

Scoping out the Sony Reader.
I am glad to hear that you took a few moments to scope out the Sony Reader at Borders. They have the newer edition of the Sony Reader, which is a little better than the first edition which I own. I just played with my first Amazon reader (the Kindle) this past week. It has some definite advantages as readers go at this stage -- with some keyboard capabilty and wireless connectivity. Another new reader due out this year is the Readius by Polymer Vision (another blog posting on that to follow shortly), and even Apple may soon enter this market (or maybe not). All of these technologies have some commonality, so getting some exposure to the "first generation" will give you some sense of how the technology is progressing. My caveat though -- you really have to play with these devices for a little bit before they become comfortable. I found my Sony Reader to be a bit "kludgey" at first, but once I got the hang of its quirks I really like it -- and travel with it everywhere. But to your questions...

Are ebooks only available as on-line purchases through places like Amazon and the like?
No. It is true that e-books are mostly only available as online purchases. This is part of the reason why it is important for stores to have the capability to handle online transactions. In addition to Amazon, many publishers offer direct content sales. Some publishers, like Harlequin, have some very innovative models for selling and delivering their content over a wide range of mobile devices from the Sony Reader to the cell phone. Many e-book titles are also available through public and campus libraries. On the campus library side there are several e-book services available for subscription, some of which carry textbooks (mostly in the computer science area). 24x7 is one example of such a service that is available on many campuses. So as you are looking around to see what else is available, do not forget to check out other options on your own campus.

Are stores actually selling ebooks, and if so, how?
Your questions on this topic are particularly excellent. Yes. There are stores selling digital content. In fact we are starting to see some of the first examples over the past 1-2 semesters where e-book adoptions are reaching 10 percent of enrollment or higher in some classes. In the past week I spoke with college store managers who reported ebook adoptions as high as 35 and 45 percent of sales in specific courses. I attended sessions at another meeting where faculty are experimenting with e-books and saw adoptions as high as 92 percent of enrollment in a few cases. In at least two of those cases the faculty member is trying to figure out how to work with the stores to offer an easier and more convenient method for students to purchase the content.

It is probably true that the majority of stores that are currently selling e-books are using a model where the store "stocks" a product -- such as a card with an access code, or a card where the access code is generated at the register through the POS system. We are seeing other models emerge, however. There are the affiliate programs with companies like CourseSmart and Cengage. In these cases the store often links to the publisher (or other provider) site. These have been controversial among college stores to this point, which is a topic we can discuss more. There are also cases where stores sell CD's pre-loaded with digital course materials. That approach is probably more common in some of the dental schools or health science stores where curricula are more structured. We have a few institutions that are selling e-books at the point of course registration, where the students, after registering for a course, are directed to a connection with the college store where they can purchase the textbooks (print or electronic) for the course. This, of course, requires some additional systems integration work to occur. Such models, often developed in conjunction with companies like VitalSource or CafeScribe, allow students to download the e-book through what appears to be the store's own website, making the solution look as if the store is selling ebooks just like other books. A couple stores are experimenting with selling e-books, such as custom coursepacks, to their students through iTunesU too. There are other examples of stores selling digital beyond the traditional card-stock solution as well. I think that approach is a good way to get started with digital, but we are learning that other approaches may be as or more effective.

I think what is important at this stage is that we are seeing some experimentation among stores. The card-stock model has some advantages, but in many cases we have not seen great sell-through via that approach. That may mean we need to learn how to market those options better. I have heard from some stores that sell-through of traditional books was higher when the e-book was offered along-side it. The reasons offered suggest that students trust the store more because they are being offered choice and they see that the store is trying to provide some lower-cost options.

Thanks again for your questions, and please keep asking them -- of me and others.

-M

What is it that our customers really want?

Recently I was asked to write a short piece for the monthly newsletter of Campus Computer Resellers Alliance. After some thought, I decided to write a piece that captured some of my recent thoughts and perspectives stemming from articles, developments, conferences, and discussions. The short article has already generated a few e-mails and I think it poses an important question for stores to think about more broadly -- what is it that our customers want? I am planning another posting to this blog in response to one of the e-mails I received in response to the article. However, I thought that it might be useful to share the article here so that others might chime in with some of their ideas and perspectives. You can find the article at:

http://www.ccra.org/bridge/news/Feb2008-Nelson.asp?id=bridge

Return from CAMEX

Well, the trip to CAMEX was informative and fun as always. Much has happened in the past week and as I dig out through the many e-mails and follow-ups that come from a week of travel I have several items to post to the blog. Watch in the coming days for some posts about CAMEX itself (and some of the interesting sessions I attended), an update on our strategic vision document for the digital content area (most of which I will post here), news on the Amazon initiative in higher education, news on other initiatives including OhioLink and CourseSmart, a discussion on open access e-textbooks, and much more.

I am glad too to see interest in this blog growing. I received a few good e-mails over the past two weeks and some requests for future topics. I also received messages from folks on three other continents and it is interesting to see how these topics play out on an international level. In the past six months I have now spoken with individuals in nine different countries about digital content. I will see if I can create a future posting that captures some of these discussions. I am starting to see how some folks say blogging can be a full-time job, as I have a long list of items I think would be useful to post here, but not so much time to get them all in.

More posts to follow...

Something fun to tide you over...

I am about to leave for CAMEX and from there to OCDE, so I will be away for a week. I know I promised an update yesterday on some new developments, but I am afraid that will have to wait until after the NACS board meets later this week. In the interim, I thought you might find the following site interesting -- it shows a number of new technologies in prototype stage, some of which are very cool.

http://tides.ws/2007/11/06/the-future-of-technology-its-here/

I, personally, would love one of the Nokia phones pictured near the top of the list. As for the lamp inside the book? Well, I am not sure what the market demand will be for that one.

Have a good week. I will work on posting from the road, although usually the format ends up pretty off when I do that. We'll see.

Upcoming at CAMEX

Next week one of the biggest NACS event of the year begins -- CAMEX. There will be plenty there to whet your digital appetite.

There will be a great catalyst session on Friday morning with Michael Wesch. Michael is an Anthropology professor in Kansas. He has become well known in the Internet/YouTube world for his videos on students and technology. Check out some of his videos: The Machine is Us/ing Us, Information R/evolution, and A Vision of Students Today. Along related lines, also check out Academia 2.0 and the "are we relevant" videos.

I will have the digital update session: Fighting Fire With Fire: Understanding Opportunities for College Stores in the New Digital Landscape. The title was set about a year ago and many things have happened since, but it should be a lively session this time. Among discussing some important new developments, we will also be laying out some of the elements and proposals put forth by the Digital Content Strategic Planning Taskforce, which will be discussed by the NACS Board the day before. Some of you have seen earlier drafts of that report, but we have some new action items in response to developments within the past two weeks.

At the same time as my session, the NACS General Business Meeting will take place. The general meeting is expected to run longer to allow for questions and recent developments are sure to engender some discussion.

On Saturday morning Todd Anderson will be giving a presentation on Print-on-demand (POD) entitled Espresso Books: Print-on-demand in the College Store . This should be a great session and one I hope many stores will attend. POD will be a big part of our strategy for stores this year, so here is an opportunity to learn from one of the most innovative stores in North America.

On Saturday afternoon there will be the E-books, Custom Books, and Print-on-demand - Idea Exchange . I am scheduled to be on a panel for health science stores at that time, but I am looking to hear what comes out of the discussion. I will be attempting to sit in for part of the discussion.

Of course there are many other sessions that are covering digital and retail technologies. I plan to make my CAMEX talk a bit different from earlier talks, and also different from the talks for PSG and LSG coming up in April. There always needs to be a bit of overlap, but I will do my best to provide new content -- this time around that should be easy as there are many new things to discuss.

Hope to see many of you at CAMEX!

Nearing our "i-Pod" moment?

Are textbooks, publishing, and college stores about to face their "i-Pod moment"? That was part of the discussion last week in a session at the O'Reilly TOC conference. The question, though, is: Is it possible that our "iPod moment" is coming more quickly than we expected? Could it arrive within the year?

Between now and CAMEX we will be sending out an announcement to members about a recent development that has come to our attention. We are still tracking out information and trying to learn more. From what we have confirmed at this stage, however, appears that the digital environment for textbooks is about to become far more competitive. There is a device, that currently lacks a sufficient content inventory, but that may be about to change. Furthermore, the company owning that device is approaching academic institutions directly through the IT branch. We know a bit more than that, but not a whole lot more. Once the announcement goes out, I will post a copy here.

If we are facing our "iPod moment," are we ready? I would like to seriously engage in a discussion on this topic, our opportunities, and our options. I will bring the topic up in my session at CAMEX next Friday at 4pm. I would be interested in having more conversation on this either here through the blog or via other avenues.

MeebOme!

Okay -- I am trying out a new feature to the blog -- it may stay, it may not. I have added a widget so people can IM me while I am online. It requires that I actively log into MeebOme, so I am seeking out a widget for my desktop as well. Feel free to leave a message while I am offline and I will respond when I next connect.

Thanks-
M

Future of textbooks....interesting quote

Here are some excerpts from a recent interview with CJ Rayhill from Safari Online. I think her comments relative to textbooks are interesting and worth discussion. Particularly in light of some new big news that came our way this week (and which I will be posting here shortly -- so stay tuned!) You can find the whole interview with CJ Rayhill on the "Confessions of a Science Librarian" blog.

Excerpts:

Q4. What's the future of the text book? Do you think this model would
apply to other disciplines as well? Physics, marketing, philosophy?

The future of the textbook market is clearly shifting. You have products like
SafariU, iChapters, and CourseSmart beginning to emerge to solve a difficult
issue -- the high cost of textbooks. In addition, most higher-education courses
involve exposure to content from multiple sources which makes the cost of
purchasing all of the required and recommended reading for students out of
reach. So what happens is that students end up not even purchasing required content which must diminish the value of their educational experience. I'm not sure which model will emerge as the clear leader in this space...

Q5. What do you see as Safari's biggest competition, other ebook publishers or free stuff on the net?

Both! Our biggest partners (Google, Amazon, etc.) can potentially be our biggest competitors. And the balancing act is not getting any easier. Especially for technical reference-type books, how much do you give away for free on Google Book Search before it eats into your revenue stream possibilities? Does the exposure help or hurt sales? I think free content is great -- but I also think that there is a place for being able to search across and access good, vetted content from trusted sources. The next 3-5 years is going to be one of the most revolutionary periods for publishers in my opinion, especially in our space.

The next 3-5 years will likely be a very revolutionary period for stores as well. This theme was repeated over and over at the TOC conference last week and in other publisher venues I have tapped into lately. Our timeline to prepare is diminishing. Where is all the discussion of this topic within our portion of the industry???

New concept store has a focus on digital

Here's an interesting story on Border's new future of the bookstore that appeared in yesterday's USA Today. The concept store is based heavily on digital. Read the full story at:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2008-02-13-borders-downloads_N.htm

The first concept store opens today - the list of other concept stores opening this year is towards the bottom of this piece. Perhaps we can arrange a trip to check it out and see what we can replicate? Perhaps a member or two could check it out for us and give us a report back? Maybe someone from this initiative would be willing to talk to our group at Innovate? What would it take for us to help create such a concept store in the college store industry? All just thoughts.

It is a very interesting read though - and seems to be on the right track. I think what is interesting about some of their concepts is that we have been talking about some of these things - from POD, to becoming that hub for knowledge, entertainment and digital downloading. These are all ideas we (and others) have bounced around in the past couple years, but they have gone ahead and implemented them. Several of these ideas appear in the proposed report from the digital content taskforce which is a reassuring sign that perhaps we are moving in the right direction. At least we have an opportunity to learn from the Border's experience before trying any of these things on our own.

If you happen to see follow-up stories on this that I miss, I would be interested in seeing them. I would also be interested in hearing your ideas about what stores or NACS could do to increase experiementation. If we were to create a digital concept store, what would it look like? Do you think Border's idea is a move in the right direction?


BORDERS' CONCEPT STORES
Here are the 13 other concept stores Borders plans this year:
California: Alameda (San Francisco area) Alameda Towne Center Mira Loma (Los Angeles) Eastvale Gateway Mall National City (San Diego area) Westfield Shoppingtown Plaza Bonita
Colorado: Park Meadows (Denver) Park Meadows Mall
Connecticut: Southbury Southbury Plaza
Florida: Panama City Beach Pier Park
Indiana: Noblesville (Indianapolis area) Hamilton Town Center
Louisiana: Baton Rouge Mall of Louisiana New Orleans free-standing store in the Garden district
Massachusetts: Wareham (Boston area) Wareham Crossing
Nevada: Las Vegas Las Vegas Town Square
Texas: Allen (Dallas area) Watters Creek at Montgomery Farms
Washington: Tukwila (Seattle area) Westfield Southcenter Mall
Source: Borders, as reported in USA Today

Twittering from the road...

Hi folks.

Yesterday and today I am at the OReilly Tools of Change (TOC) conference. I had planned to blog parts of the conference, but yesterday's Blackberry outage put some end to that. See, even tech guys can get stymied by tech now and again.

Yesterday's TOC sessions were great. Many stores could have benefitted from some of the sessions. Over the next week I will post a number of my notes and observations from the conference. Right now I have about 30 pages of notes and a number of ideas and thoughts to include in upcoming presentations.

Some quick-hit themes to perk your interest: the importance of experimentation keeps coming up, as does varying incarnations of Web 2.0 and collaboration. The concept of community and how that figures into the equation has raised several ideas and implications for college stores. There was a great session on e-textbooks yesterday that will be repeated today due to popular and high demand -- something that stores should take away as an important indicator of what is to come. There are other themes and topics too-- but that will have to wait until a future posting. I will verify that this "posting from the road" arrived correctly and then perhaps begin a new posting from the train home tonight. I have lots of good content to post over the next few days.

Have you seen anything interesting lately? Any news stories you would like me to discuss or post more on here? I have another posting coming on clickers suggested by a reader. More to follow-

Happy blogging--
M

2008 Horizon Report

The Horizon 2008 Report is now available for downloading and viewing. Here is the main report description:

"The main sections of the report describe six emerging technologies or practices that will likely enter mainstream use in learning-focused organizations within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. Also highlighted are a set of challenges and trends that will influence our choices in the same time frames...The two technologies placed on the first adoption horizon in this edition, grassroots video and collaboration webs, are already in use on many campuses. Examples of these are not difficult to find. Applications of mobile broadband and data mashups, both on the mid-term horizon, are evident in organizations at the leading edge of technology adoption, and are beginning to appear at many institutions. Educational uses of the two topics on
the far-term horizon, collective intelligence and social operating systems, are understandably rarer; however, there are examples in the worlds of commerce, industry and entertainment that hint at coming use in academia within four to five years."

They have some interesting new features this year. Including a wiki to discuss the project and the use of tagging standards, so that you can add examples of your own using del.icio.us. They also have some other things planned for April/May. In addition to analyzing the MetaTrends of the last 5 years, this report outlines the major emerging technologies for college level education in the next five years. This year's list includes:

1 year or less
Grassroots Video
Collaboration Webs

2-3 years
Mobile Broadband
Data Mashups

4-5 years
Collective Intelligence
Social Operating Systems

The main report is available at: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf
The wiki is available at: http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Main_Page
The del.icio.us tags are available at:

Grassroots Video http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+video
Collaboration Webs http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+virtualcollab
Mobile Broadband http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+mobile
Data Mashups http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+mashups
Collective Intelligence http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+collectiveintelligence
Social Operating Systems http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+socialos

A good number of our members read and commented on this report last year. Some of the trends are interesting and perhaps something our stores can take advantage of...

The end of reading -- according to Mr. Jobs

Steve Jobs recently commented that people do not read anymore, so any e-reader product is doomed to fail -- since none of us read. That's bad news for the textbook business, where most of what we sell is reading material.

There is an interesting editorial/response to Mr. Job's recent statements in Ad Age this week. As a rebuttal, it is worth a quick read. I think the rebuttal makes some worthwhile points to consider -- how the Kindle has sparked peoples' interest (at least at a novelty level), and even more so in the points related to "what is reading?", and that the point is about getting text -- whether from magazines, newspapers, books, or blogs anywhere and on demand. Anywhere and on demand -- relevant words for our industry in the year(s) ahead. What do those terms mean to your store?

Something to think about as you read the Ad Age article at:
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=123332

IBM -- predictions of the future...

There is an interesting piece today on some of IBM's top predictions for emerging technologies. Real or science fiction? You decide. One of the interesting items on the list is #4: Our cell phones will be our wallet, ticket broker, concierge, bank, shopping buddy and more. We are already seeing some of this in the college store environment. Or consider the ability to take your iPhone into Starbucks, hear a song you like and have the device be able to tell what is playing and allow you to immediately purchase and download the tune while you wait for your latte to be served up. What will these advances in mobile commerce mean for college stores and our customers?

For the full article on IBM's predictions, see: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35049/118/

A new e-reader -- gone mobile and flexible

Okay, here is a device I want. The Readius. Not only does it bring in the new highly flexible organic display technology -- but does so in a mobile phone! It is described as a merge of the Kindle or Sony reader and a mobile phone.

This is probably the first commercially available application of organic displays for e-readers, certainly in combination with mobile phone technology. It is being produced by Polymer Vision -- a Dutch company that spun off from Phillips.

You can see a video presentation of the technology via YouTube at the following location:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGhL34_32vY

Another blog of interest

Perhaps it is bad form to recommend another blog for readers, but here is one full of articles and entries that would be of interest to our members. The blog author, Martyn Daniels, is one of the lead authors for the "Brave New World" report published by the Bookseller's Association of the UK and Ireland. In the past month there have been several interesting postings on print on demand and the concept of chunking. For readers looking for more regular or additional postings or sources of information, check out Martyn's blog at:

http://bookseller-association.blogspot.com/

But please come back again! As readership grows (and my travel schedule has breaks) I will add more entries. This could be a good forum for us to discuss digital content issues within the college store environment.

The Future of DRM

DRM -- that is Digital Rights Management for the lay person. DRM captures the set of technologies and business models for protecting intellectual property and that controls the uses and distribution of digital content.

There is an interesting article from the Wharton Business School today on the future of DRM from a business model perspective. It is an interesting read, along with some of the commentary offered by readers. The Wharton experts conclude that DRM is not going away, despite recent developments in the music industry. Instead, the DRM components will likely just become less intrusive. This is good or interesting news for those of us interested in digital course materials, where students have reported that current DRM approaches represent an obstacle to adoption.

The article can be found at: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1882

Longer Life batteries

There was an interesting story today about a revolutionary breakthrough in battery life for mobile devices -- from laptops to ipods. Stanford University researchers found a way to increase battery life by about 10 times! That could make devices even more portable and further support the move to mobile technologies for a wider range of applications.

Check out the full story at: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6226196.html

Embracing the Digital Age

Some of you who know me will recall last November when I suggested reading the "Brave New World" report produced by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland. The earlier report gave a good overview of much of the digital industry, key trends, some action items for stores and associations, as well as other information. I suggested it as "required reading" at the time, particularly a subset of the chapters. That report is still available by clicking the link under the "Title Waves" section on this blog.

About two weeks ago the Booksellers Association released a follow-up report from their taskforce on the topic. The new report is entitled " Embracing the Digital Age: An Opportunity for Booksellers and the Book Trade". I have placed a link to this report in the "Title Wave" section of this blog as well.

This new report is very much worth your time to read if you are a bookseller today. It is a much shorter and strategic-action oriented report. There are notable overlaps with some of the recommendations and directions of our own digital content strategic planning taskforce. Of the ten key proposals outlined in the executive summary, at least 8 directly connect with some of our discussions in various areas of NACS. The report is effectively and clearly written and well worth your time to peruse.

The aspect of the report I found most interesting is the concept of developing an "enhanced trade infrastructure" to support bookstores in the digital space. We have other initiatives designed to support that concept as well, such as a new project with Caravan being supported by the NACS Foundation -- but more on that in a subsequent posting. The new report identifies ten proposals for improving the trade infrastructure among stores for digital. To quote the report briefly, these proposals are:

1. Websites. A bookshop must have an integrated on-line presence with the capacity for financial transactions, or it is not realising its full capability in selling books. These websites have two prime functions: as trading systems allowing customers to buy online and as community notice-boards.

2. Customer-facing information service. A new information service should be developed to allow booksellers to mix information from the professional bibliographic databases with elements from publishers' marketing sources to present titles on their websites in a more appropriate way to customers, and where the customer does not leave the bookseller's website.

3. The bookshop as the hub of the local community. The use of digital techniques will raise the profile of the bookshop as the essential information centre in the local community.

4. A title alert system for account customers. A title recommendation system should be developed, to alert customers to new or backlist titles recommended by the bookseller that reflects the customer's buying interests and allows them to browse the title online before buying.

5. A grid system for categorising bookshops. The trade must develop a categorisation system for booksellers across the country to allow the efficient targeting of digital marketing messages and information.

6. Enabling booksellers to sell digital content. Faced with a proliferation of digital content, many consumers will need advice and guidance from a source they know and trust. This will provide an opportunity for booksellers to extend their relationship with their customers in the digital world.

7. Market research. There should be a programme of research so that the changing patterns of consumer behaviour can be understood and monitored.

8. Getting the digitisation message accepted. The positive message about the digital opportunity must be sold to the book trade via regular newsletters e-mailed to booksellers and publishers to keep them up to date with developments; in addition, there should be trade press briefings, a series of trade forums, and a major conference early in 2008 to debate and agree the proposals in the report.

9. Training. Booksellers will need to develop their specialist skills (e.g. digital marketing; advising customers on digital content).

10. Experimentation. The trade must be prepared to undergo a significant period of experimentation.

To learn more about each of the proposals, please check out the report using the link provided under the "title wave" section of this blog.

We plan to reach out to the BA of UK/IRE early this year to see how we might collaborate on achieving some of these proposals. I am interesed in hearing from potential partners interested in working with us on some of these initiatives -- or from stores who have ideas on how we might help accomplish some of these goals.

Welcome to 2008!

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for a silent December. Things continue to be very busy in the digital space. I was glad to see the last article on Blackboard engendered the start of discussion. It looks like someone is really out there and sometimes reading what's on this blog!

Well, as I mentioned, there are many interesting developments over the past month. The Kindle, of course was big news. According to one news report, the initial supply sold out in 5 days, leaving Amazon with a 7 day back-order period while they rushed to get more devices. It will be interesting to see what happens with the device this year -- and its impact on e-book sales.

I will be traveling for the next 4-5 days, but I have several posts saved up for this forum. If you subscribe to the blog, you should receive an e-mail when new posts are entered. One of the topics to report on are the new report from the UK-Ireland Booksellers Association. This is a must-read report for anyone interested in how traditional stores will prepare for a future with more digital product. Another upcoming post will relate to the new project between NACS and Caravan. Of course, developments with CourseSmart in the last two months will also be of interest. We have several use cases that stores contributed, which I will post here for feedback (and additional submissions). Finally, NACS Taskforce on digital content is making progress. That work is due to our Board at the end of February -- but I will provide a brief glimpse into the taskforce work and direction here soon.

All this and more is coming soon. I will endeavor to become more regular in my blogging activity in the New Year. I will not claim that to be my New Year's resolution -- as I would not want to jinx the efforts too early. I would love some assistance though -- if someone would like to work with me on this blog, or has a story or thought to contribute, please drop me a note or post to this message.

Best wishes to all for a very happy 2008!
-M