E-lecture or lecture capture survey

Tegrity recently posted a presentation with data from their survey of 9,000+ students across 200+ colleges. The survey looks at student perceptions and reactions to lecture capture technology. As it does not appear the survey was conducted by an independent third party, the results could be questionable in spots.

However, if we take the data at face value, there are some interesting observations to highlight:

• The health sciences represent nearly half of the courses using lecture capture.
• Lecture capture was most often used to supplement face-to-face classroom experiences.
• About 40% of students reported using the lecture-captured sessions 1-5 times during the semester, and nearly a quarter of students reported using the technology to review a recorded class 20 times or more.
• Students responded highly to many benefits of the technology, such as impact on motivation and effectiveness of studying.
• Interestingly, the technology had little impact on the utilization of faculty office hours, peer collaboration, or class attendance.

I have seen other data presented by schools that their experiences with lecture capture is comparable. One presentation I saw noted that the faculty are using the lecture capture as a substitute for the textbook, requiring that for viewing prior to class, and then using class time for Q&A, interactive learning, or focusing on problem areas. Just another interesting example of changing technologies in education -- and further argumentation for a different view of digital course materials in the future.

Small bookstores in a digital era

One of our members, Roger DeLarco at East Stroudsberg University forwarded this USA Today article to me a couple weeks ago and I have been meaning to post it. The piece provides advice and suggestions to small booksellers in an increasingly competitive landscape that includes digital, such as knowing your niche, creating community, and thinking about the experience. The piece highlights a small independent bookseller in Rhinebeck, NY -- just a very short distance from where I live. The general theme of an independent store creating a sense of community should resonate with many small retailers.

One other paragraph of interest is the following one, which highlights some of the risk in partnering with just anyone, and the importance for stores to have a digital strategy. Stores must think about partnering for sure, but recognize that not all partners are there for mutual benefit.

Borders, which has had three CEOs in the past three years, was slow to develop a digital strategy. It sells reading devices and has an e-bookstore powered by Kobo, a Toronto-based e-retailer. But from 2001 to 2008, it outsourced its online sales to Amazon. "It was utterly stupid for Borders to borrow their future from a company that didn't want them to even have a future," says Michael Norris, an analyst with Simba Information, a market researcher.

Thanks, Roger.

RetailU -- a resource for retail technology ideas.

About a year ago Chain Store Age launched a virtual resource center and learning portal called Retail U. Retail U offers retail executives the opportunity to discover cutting-edge business solutions being developed by today’s leading technology providers.

Many of the technologies discussed do not fit small businesses, and as the site has mostly corporate white papers and webinars. However, for the store manager looking to understand some of the trends and future of technology in retail, the site has some useful resources. The site covers a range of topics: ECommerce, Multi-channel, Mobile commerce, Merchandising, Promotions Management, Supply Chain, Payment Systems, Finance, Loss Prevention and Workforce Management.

Libraries collaborate to share e-books

In another interesting recent article the Chronicle's Wired Campus reported on a new collaboration between libraries to share e-books. The collaboration involves both the Internet Archive and Open Library. According to the article, the arrangement will allow library patrons at participating institutions to access e-books owned and stored at libraries other than their home libraries using the e-lending technology provided by Open Library.

Future of the textbooks: Publisher view

The Chronicle has a 9 minute podcast interview of William D. Rieders, executive vice president for new media at the publishing company Cengage Learning. It is a worthwhile podcast to listen to as it lays out some of where publishers see the future of etextbooks -- and it is not the PDF of the traditional textbook. As with many publishers, the company is focusing on interactive software programs -- like assessment tools and study tools.

One of the best quotes, also quoted in the summary:

Print textbooks are still healthy, but they function now as a reference for professors and students, while these other materials are taking center stage in the learning experience.

That the core function for textbooks is recognized as changing should be of concern to anyone whose core business is selling that product. It signals that the time is right to be moving toward models and capabilities that enable selling the "replacement product." Cengage has been very innovative in the past couple years, as have some of the other educational publishers, in experimenting and testing out different approaches to what the future of digital course materials might really look like.

Cengage's MindTap and TED enters education

Two interesting pieces in the Chronicle's Wired Campus last week.

The first article comments on Cengage's announcement last week to create a more "app-based" platform for digital course materials. Called MindTap, this is probably the first app-market specifically for education-oriented apps. More importantly, this is yet another step to a future of the textbook where the "PDF equivalent" is just part of a larger interactive learning environment. The system is being piloted at 9 undisclosed campuses. One paragraph from the article is worth noting here for bookstores:

The move is the latest in a growing platform war among textbook publishers, as traditional textbook companies seek to define what a textbook should be in the digital age and possibly even control the online storefront for textbook publishing.

The second article noted that TED would be looking to provide short TED talks, and ultimately contribute to the revolution of education by using video and other technology. As part of the project new content will be generated, in addition to reclassifying the 900+ existing TED talks to align with academic disciplines.

Quote of the week...

On the transitional role of GenX in higher education:

My free advice to colleges that hope to survive over the long term: bring in the X’ers, and bring them in now. Reform while it’s still a matter of choice. By the time it’s not optional, it will be too late. Disruptive changes are remarkably unforgiving; you can bend now, or break later. This group offers your last, best chance to bend.

- Dean Dad, Inside Higher Ed

As a member of GenX, of course this appealed to me. The other quote piece I thought was relevant here is the following:

[X'ers are] notoriously pragmatic, and far less likely to get caught up in the futile chase for Next Big Things. In the best case, the X’ers could change colleges to fit the realities of people’s lives as they’re lived now. That would be a real contribution, worthy of celebration.

And isn't that part of the change our industry needs? Changing our operating models to meet the realities of people's lives (i.e., the students and faculty we serve) as they are lived now?

I take a bit of heat or jibes on occasion for being something of the messenger of "doom and gloom" -- despite my own perceived sense of optimism for what we could do. It reminds me of a cartoon I once saw with a small man walking next to a sand castle carrying a sign "Repent, the tide is coming in." The first step in solving a problem or taking advantage of an opportunity is recognizing it is there.

CAMEX questions answered: rental

This week's CAMEX questions relate to textbook rental. Here are two questions representative of the ones submitted on this topic:

Q1. Has rental deterred stores from progressing as they should in digital?
Q2. Is rental a short-lived/temporary solution?

Both good questions. The first question is the more complicated to address, and in doing so, much of the second question will also be touched upon. I will apologize in advance for some of the "doom and gloom" that follows. If a different question had been posed, I probably could have inserted more optimism for how we could leverage rental to be more successful at digital, and in business in general, as collegiate retailers.

A1. Related to the first question -- yes, I have heard that some stores believe that "rental will save them." Personally, in my opinion this is a flawed assumption. Certainly there are benefits to rental programs. They can reduce course material costs for students. They can be a source of positive PR on campus. Certainly there are a growing number of programs and offerings that make it easier for stores to offer rental programs with less risk (although depending on the approach taken by a store, less risk is not guaranteed). Rental can be a means to both recapture market share and increase store foot traffic. With these benefits, it is not surprising to see that the number of college stores in North America offering rental programs has soared from roughly 300 to over 2400 in less than two years, and we expect the number to be even higher by this fall. From a market share perspective, rental has negatively affected digital sales within stores, leading some stores to conclude that digital is even further off from the mainstream.

The last two sets of stats provide an interesting challenge, though. Rental programs have been around for more than 40 years at some schools, yet very few schools participated in these programs prior to two years ago. When the right set of enabling factors arise a technology, in this case rental, can take off remarkably fast. What happens when the right set of enabling factors come on stage for digital? Will stores be able to make that transition as quickly?

Relatively speaking, rental is fairly easy to implement given some of the program options out there today for stores. Programs like those offered by Chegg, BookRenter, Follett, and others help leverage and dissipate risk across the industry. While there are contracts involved, the transaction is still fairly easy to understand and students know how to use the product once received.

In contrast, consider digital products. These are far more complex and often require more education at the point of transaction for the consumer to be able to utilize the product. Could the industry make the shift to provide digital products effectively as quickly? Adoption by stores seems to have stalled somewhere in the early majority, but with the right set of enabling factors, it could move toward larger adoption quickly. Stores and the channel would be unwise to deter experiments or establishing the necessary infrastructure just because rental is currently providing a short reprieve.

The effect of rental on used is just the ebbing of the tide that warns us about the tsunami that digital could create. A bit extreme, but both possible and plausible if digital were to take off as quickly as rental has in the past two years.

A2. Related to the second question, let me answer it by proposing a different question to consider: is rental a bridge technology?

Let me explain what I mean by a bridge technology. While we refer to digital as a "subscription," the actual business model is not much different from the rental model. Rental models change the mindset of the student to accept business models where they pay a price and get their savings up front, and then get nothing when they return the product at the end of its lifecycle. With one catch: we have seen stats that up to 20% of students fail to return their rental book, resulting in charges for the replacement book at the new book price. If I were a publisher, I might consider a sales pitch along the following lines: digital textbook rentals -- more convenient than physical book rentals, because at the end of the rental period the book returns itself. As physical book rentals get a new business model embedded in the mind of students -- a business model that looks a lot like many of the current digital textbook business models -- then yet another enabling factor for digital will be in place.

So if rental is a bridge technology, like print-on-demand (POD) in my opinion, then it probably has a 5-10 year lifespan where it will have effective returns in this market. It may extend market share and the role of the store, but at the same time it further enables the transition to digital. Stores might be able to concentrate more on rental for the next year, maybe two. At the same time they have to be looking ahead to how they will participate in the digital environment that is coming. That means improved e-commerce and m-commerce capability, and the ability to be format and device agnostic providers of content. That is something few if any traditional college stores are ready for today, but that the industry must be ready for in the near future. Rental, like POD, might buy the industry a small amount of breathing room, but they are relatively short-term rather than long-term solutions to the radical innovation challenges ahead.

Technology and the e-textbook

There is a good article in this month's Campus Technology magazine on why the e-textbook market lags while the e-book market explodes. The article includes stats from NACS.

The quote by Matt MacInnis of Inkling summarizes a point of view I have tried to convey for a while. He commented: "Present me with a PDF on a screen and I'll take a book any day." This sentiment is further echoed by one of the Campus Technology blogs which points out that we still use many models from the 80's, and questions what is holding us up from making digital course materials an effective reality:

I’m not suggesting that reading a PDF is a more satisfactory experience than reading a textbook. And, as we have reported in the pages of this magazine, academic reading is not the same as reading for pleasure—the electronic readers out there (even the iPad) are still not optimized for reading for learning.

What is holding us up? As my dad would say, we can put a man on the moon,
yet we can’t make an e-reader that students can skim, dog-ear, and notate? Please.

The article attempts, fairly successfully, to explore some of the reasons why the e-textbook market has not yet fully launched, even though the trade book market is transforming quickly. The article predicts, however, that the barriers to a successful e-textbook market are weakening, if only because of some significant changes in competition and consumers are creating different conditions. A great quote from Sean Devine of CourseSmart in the piece captures this pending shift well:

"We've been talking about electronic textbooks for about 15 years as the next big thing," he says. "One thing that's different today is that all the stakeholders -- the publishers, the hardware makers, the software producers, the consumers -- are getting behind the idea. Taht's very different from what we saw when the e-books first emerged in the late '90s. And when you have companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple getting into the game, that starts to break down barriers pretty quickly."

One observation, Sean-- you forgot to mention college stores among the stakeholders and that we are getting behind the idea too. And ironically, this seems to be the piece of the article that is missing, even though it starts off quoting NACS data. One of the barriers to digital is that most of the current initiatives only target the "creme" -- and fail to recognize the diverse complexity of students, accessibility, affordability, purchase mechanisms, faculty influence, and other factors that limit e-textbook adoption. Few groups understand this range of issues as well as the college store.

As to e-textbooks: Yes, we are making progress, and no, the revolution is not quite here yet on the e-textbook side. As the article effectively points out, the right mix of enabling factors are aligning to make e-textbooks successful, and that is more likely to happen within the next few years than being delayed another decade or more.

Self-Published Acadmic E-Books?

There have been a flurry of stories lately, including this one on C/Net , clucking about the rising success of self-published e-books. A few of these digital tomes have even sold more than 100,000 “copies,” well ahead of most professionally published works.

Many self-pubbed e-books are priced between 99 cents and $2.99, which puts them in the same price range as the sweet and savory snacks strategically arrayed at the grocery store checkout. And indeed, some speculate the low pricing turns these e-books into online impulse purchases, driving up sales and ultimately adding up to considerable coin in their authors’ pockets.

But of course these e-books are nearly all novels, usually in thriller, romance, or science fiction/fantasy genres. How will self-published e-books play out in the world of academic course materials?

It’s not far-fetched to think a professor might write a text, publish it as an e-book, and e-mail review copies to colleagues, suggesting adoption of the title for their courses and providing a link where students might purchase it. While many higher-ed institutions, and even state legislatures, have placed restrictions on professors requiring students to buy their own books for class, faculty in most cases would be free to produce e-books for classes not their own. For example, a faculty member teaching 100-level courses in psychology could publish an e-book for upperclass- or graduate-level classes. This form of academic self-publishing is also at the heart of much of the open source or open educational resource (OER) movement.

An academic e-book would be priced a lot higher than a 99-cent paranormal romance, but on the flip side it would almost certainly be priced much lower than traditional print textbooks. At the same time, the professor would receive more per copy than the usual royalty on a p-book.

This model wouldn’t work as well for full-length pedagogical textbooks -- professor-authors rely on publishers to fact-check, produce charts and graphs, find artwork, and so on -- but it could be feasible for publishing narrower academic topics in a professor’s field of research. There’s also the possibility that academicians who don’t have a faculty appointment at present might latch onto self-publishing e-texts as a way to generate income and remain connected to their field.

Australian Pilot Program Recommends iPads in the Classroom

Trinity College, University of Melbourne, has released a report on the results of its
Step Forward iPad Pilot Project, which saw the iPad “test-driven” in classroom settings by select staff and students in the Trinity College Foundation Studies (TCFS) program, a one-year course that qualifies about 700 international students annually for undergraduate entry into the University of Melbourne and other Australian universities.

Issued iPads with wireless and 3G capability, faculty in nine academic disciplines and 44 students, along with some IT staff and administrators, evaluated the Apple device to determine whether its wider adoption would make sense for TCFS. Participants also tested several other devices, including laptops, netbooks, e-readers, and a Samsung Galaxy tablet with Android OS.

The results were overwhelmingly positive for the iPad. While noting that the device is an “enhancement” rather than a replacement for desktop/laptop computers or other educational technologies, 80% of students and 76% of staff said they would recommend the iPad for use by their peers at Trinity.

“I found the iPad helped us experience the world of learning from a greater range of vantage points and gave us more opportunities to meet individual learning needs,” said one participant.

Quality audiovisual equipment in the classroom, along with agile IT support, were cited as necessities to make the best use of the tablet.

The report’s final recommendations include allocating iPads to all TCFS staff this year, dedicating IT staff to iPad support, and rolling out iPads to all TCFS students in 2012.

Reinventing the print business model

While enticing people to come to their conference, Publishing Business' interview with Brian Kelly, editor, U.S. News & World Report is an interesting read. Here are a few excerpts that booksellers might find reminiscent of our own industry:

By far, my favorite quote in the short piece (and what might get me to attend the conference to see this guy) was the following:

Kelly: In moments of weakness, I still wish the good old days would come back, but then I slap myself back to reality. The most unsettling thing was to come to the conclusion—about five years ago—that the old ways were gone for good, that the industry changes were fundamental and nothing would be the same again. Once I accepted that, my job became creating something new, and that made my stomach feel a lot better.

One on how even top companies can be quickly eclipsed by technology-based change:

News weeklies are one category that has been hit particularly hard by shifts in the marketplace, including the way consumers get their news (and what—or if—they’ll pay for it). So, while it may have been a sad day for news weeklies, it wasn’t necessarily shocking when U.S. News & World Report first announced in 2008 that it would shift from its weekly frequency to bimonthly in 2009, and then later announced that it would shutter its monthly print publication entirely, after 60-some years as one of the top news magazines worldwide.

One on changes in business models:

Kelly: We were fortunate that we had developed a strong website and had other print products, so we knew that we had a good business and a large audience beyond print subscriptions. The subscriber business model just didn’t work for us. I thought about having a proper wake, but in this climate you can’t afford nostalgia.

So if I were to take some lessons away from this for the college store environment (and associated/related industries), they might include concepts such as: it is time to stop thinking about how things used to be and begin to embrace new ideas and the future. The importance of having a strong website/ecommerce presence and developing a diversified mix of products. Our future role is to not to shepherd the past to the grave, but to create something new that will will revitalize our businesses and our channel.

CAMEX and digital course materials

Publisher's Weekly had an article this week on CAMEX and the emphasis on a future of online business, including digital course materials. The article briefly captures some of the current initiatives underway within NACS Media Solutions and its partners.

CAMEX questions answered: market share versus margin

As promised, over the next few weeks, I will answer questions CAMEX attendees wrote on index cards during my session. I have a few dozen cards, and some of the questions are redundant.

Looking across the questions submitted, they appear to fall into a few categories: rental, DRM, NACS/NMS initiatives, market share versus margin, facilitating change on campus and/or integrating with campus better, inventory questions, and then a few others. There are a number of good questions, and more than a couple without simple answers.

I will aim to answer 1-3 of the questions here each Friday until I have completed them all, so check back weekly to see if I have answered your question(s). This week I will answer one of the "market share versus margin" questions. If you have additional questions you would like to pose, please post a comment or drop me an email.

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Q1. Can you elaborate on the importance of focusing on market share rather than margin?
Yes. This is one of my favorite questions -- and lucky for you, I already have an answer prepared. Please see the August issue of InCITE which provides a detailed discussion, with examples and rationale as to why market share is important. This issue of InCITE went out to all NACS store members, and received a fair amount of positive feedback. Normally, the InCITE discussion is about 1-2 pages in length, but this one is a bit longer, giving detailed elaboration on this important topic. I believe it will help answer your question, and give you a resource you can share with your administration or other store employees to help them understand why certain actions or changes in business practice are necessary.

E-textbooks in California K-12: Video

This is the video to accompany the prior post.

E-textbooks in California K-12

Here is a recent article in EdWeek on eTextbooks in Riverside, California K-12. One of the interesting aspects of the article is the focus on pilots and experiments, and the lessons learned. The article describes some of the challenges K-12 has in building digital course material initiatives, including: money for infrastructure to deliver digital textbooks and the tools students need to access them, political support to change polices around textbook adoption, and perceived quality differences of digital versus print as learning media. Approaches that are device agnostic are seen as critical.

On the flip side, the use of digital is believed to increase 1-on-1 learning time and student engagement. As one teacher notes: “It’s not about digitizing a textbook as it exists now,” he says, but using technology to improve the learning experience."

The article is accompanied by a good short video on e-textbooks in K-12. The embedded code was not working properly, so I have autogenerated a separate post with the video.

E-Book Revolution More of an Evolution on Campus

Sales figures of Kindles and iPads, along with exploding numbers of e-book titles over the last year, suggest the long-predicted e-book revolution is finally here. But this Campus Technology article says the digital textbook market may be more of an evolution, with students, teachers, and publishers working on solutions to combine value, convenience, and low cost.

Matt MacInnis, co-founder and CEO of e-book publisher Inkling, says digital course materials lag behind because the current model replicates a print book rather than integrating all of the available technology, such as audio, video, and animation. Others view high-tech gadgetry as a bonus, while firms such as CourseSmart and Flat World Knowledge—also featured in the article—provide solutions that can work now.

Studies by NACS and others have shown that while digital book sales are on the rise, a large majority of college students continue to prefer the printed textbook so the tipping point isn’t here yet. In the meantime, publishers have to decipher the best way to deliver course content at a price point acceptable to students.

Tablet wars: IPad vs Xoom

David Pogue, NYTimes Technology blogger frequently has interesting posts. Last week he had an interesting post reviewing the new Motorola Xoom tablet -- a potential competitor to the iPad. The article covers the features of the Xoom as they compare to the iPad - -from price and cameras, to connectivity, speed and display quality.

The Xoom is also one of the first (the first??) tablet to use Google's new 'Honeycomb' software. David's review is interesting -- pointing out both the plusses and minuses of the first iteration of the Android-based tablet operating system. Always interesting -- the specific apps discussed in comparison include e-book reading.

If you are interested in the tablet market, Pogue's piece is a good one to read for product comparison.

Libraries face new e-book business models

Business models for digital content and e-books are still evolving. It was interesting to see in last week's NYTimes a piece about how even libraries are still seeing the business models change. Interesting, because libraries, at least within the educational space, have been working with e-journals, e-books, and digital models for quite some time, relatively speaking. However, it seems that as e-books gain popularity and adoption, libraries are learning that the licensing of e-books for distribution is once again not the same as acquiring the physical copy.

The NYTimes piece describes a new business model that affects libraries that effectively "lend" ebooks to patrons. Under the new model, libraries will be limited on the total number of times an ebook can be lent, at which point the library must renew the licenses to permit further patron access. So much for e-books being cheaper or building a permanent digital collection the way a physical book collection might have been cultivated in the past.

The restrictions on library lending demonstrates some of the deeper implications that might play out in the future world of digital content. We (whether consumers or even libraries) may never "own" our content again. Instead each acquisition of content will be governed by a complex subscription model that may cause our book to 'go away' when certain conditions are reached. It reminds me of an incident a year or so ago when a company with an e-reader device withdrew access to content individuals had "purchased" when the licensing rights changed. What does the change in ownership models mean for how we view knowledge -- and for how eventually governments or other entitites could control what content we can see or access? Suddenly Fareinheit 451 seems a little less like science fiction.

CAMEX 2011 continues...

For the past few days, I have been at CAMEX. Yesterday wrapped up the educational sessions -- there were some great sessions and speakers. The next few days of CAMEX will be focused more on the trade show. Among the educational sessions there were a number related to digital this year -- sending many of the same messages we are hearing in the publishing conferences. Digital is coming (if not already here) and stores must work together as a channel. More of the sessions provided stores with specific action items to think about -- with developing strategy (and some suggestions on how to do so) a core underlying theme.

In the next few weeks I will have some follow-up postings from CAMEX -- talking about certain sessions, for example. In addition, in my session this year, one of the things I did was ask participants to write down questions they had which they would like answered. Over the next few weeks, I will have several postings that respond to some of these questions from bookstores about digital, so please look forward to those. The first one will likly appear in the middle to end of the upcoming week.

To the readers of this blog, if you have questions you would like me to address, please submit them along or drop me a note and I will include those in the list for response. Thank you again for your continued attention to the CITE.

BookRenter Becoming Bigger Player in Textbook Rentals

Textbook rentals are big business on campus and BookRenter is upping the ante. TechCrunch reports that the Sunnyvale, CA, firm has raised $40 million in investment capital to help it add resources and products.

BookRenter’s strategy is to partner with college bookstores and provide an automatic platform for content distribution. To date, the firm is the official rental platform for 560 college stores in the U.S. and is expected to report revenues of $20 million-$50 million in 2010. But it still trails Chegg.com, which projects revenues of $130 million for 2010, by a substantial margin.

The infusion of new capital should help BookRenter give the bigger firm a run for its money.

Survey Says Students Would Like More Digital Tools

A recent national survey has concluded students are looking for more classroom technology to help them deal with the many demands on their time. The study, Instructors and Students Technology Use, Engagement and Learning Outcomes, found that more than 70% of students would like to see more technology-related options at their disposal.

The survey, conducted last December by higher education research firm Eduventures and Cengage Learning, reports that 71% of students employed full-time and 77% of students working part-time would like more technology-based tools available to them help them manage their studies. In contrast, only 58% of participating instructors said they preferred teaching courses that used more technology.

Ken Baldauf, director of interdisciplinary computing at Florida State University, sees this as an opportunity for instructors to take advantage of all the resources available online. Baldauf adds that using online platforms or learning management systems will be key in meeting the technology preferences of students.

Kno for Sale?

It appears that Kno, which last year unveiled eponymous single- and dual-screen tablets designed specifically for the education market, is exploring selling off the hardware side of its business. According to this All Things Digital post, the abruptly crowded tablet market—with more than 80 such devices released or announced at CES 2011 in January—convinced Kno execs to tilt all the company’s focus toward its software and services rather than actual devices.

Kno is said to have two consumer electronics manufacturers interested in its hardware business. Although the Kno touchscreen tablets were slated for release toward the end of 2010, only a few hundred preorders were actually filled before Kno recently ceased shipping. The company [ web site states, “You now need an invitation to get a Kno. There aren’t enough to go around.”

The devices’ price tag of $599 for the single-screen and $999 for the dual-screen had raised some doubts about their viability for the higher ed market, so it will be interesting to see what a buyer does with the hardware.

Once any sale is complete, Kno would reportedly use its software, which includes annotation and highlighting capabilities, to serve students via the iPad and tablets employing the Android mobile OS. The company has a “wide range” of existing textbook distribution partnerships with colleges and universities upon which to build, and one of its founders Osman Rashid, co-founder of the textbook-rental company Chegg.

Forum Sees Open Textbooks on a Roll

“Open textbooks are really becoming an imperative. There’s no stopping this momentum.” That was the assessment of Gary Malkin, dean of continuing education, distance learning, and summer session, University of California Irvine, and host of UCI’s Open Textbook Forum on Jan. 26.

The 90-minute forum, captured on video, gave an overview of open course materials to an informal group of educators and administrators. According to Malkin, UCI began building its open courseware site in 2002 and now its academic senate actively encourages faculty to use open materials as much as possible. Some 50 faculty members have contributed so far.

Among the more interesting presentations came from one of those professors. Michael Dennin, who teaches physics, noted that the existence of an alternative to traditionally published textbooks has made faculty more sensitive to what students have to pay for books. And they’re also considering how students will actually use the assigned texts. “Are you going to charge $200 for basically a set of homework problems?” he asked.

In Dennin’s view, open courseware also forces “us to rethink our role as educators” and find ways to bring more value to the course. At the same time, there are considerable challenges—especially the time to assemble materials. Dennin noted he was supposed to turn in a book manuscript for a graduate-level physics book four years ago, and he’s still not done. He and a group of colleagues loved the idea of collaborating on a wiki book, but realized they simply wouldn’t have time.

On the other hand, a presentation by Stephen Carter from MIT’s famed open courseware program, emphasized the benefits to students go beyond reducing costs. Carter said the program has enabled MIT, which has no branch or satellite campuses, to engage with people around the world. Some 93% of MIT’s undergraduates and 85% of graduate students use the open materials.

Carter said it’s also been a great recruiting tool for MIT, (although presumably that advantage will wane as more universities build their own open-source libraries).

E-Books and DRM

Electronic books are easy to use and to buy, but problems arise from incompatible formats in digital rights management technologies and the difficulty in organizing purchased titles. Converting titles to PDF files are often clumsy and the popular ePub format really doesn’t yet allow for seemless cross-platform support to go from one manufacturer’s electronic reader to another. Many devices have versions of ePub files "optimized" for their device. Furthermore, the challenges of understanding the varying forms of DRM is a current weakness of much of the digital course materials market, and further complicates the purchase process for students.

A new study from ABI Research points out that being able to buy content from any source, regardless of the device being used, will drive the digital publishing industry. It could become a concern for the college store trying to provide its customers with a variety of devices for sale. Even the apps created to allow readers to buy on different devices require the appropriate software to read the what they bought.

The ABI Research study suggests consumers need the flexibility to shop at different e-bookstores, just like they do at any other retailer. It also points to the need for consumers to be able to see the titles they’ve purchased in unified fashion on a phone, tablet, a laptop, or PC.

e-books turn 40!

The saying that "Sometimes it takes a long time for change to happen quickly" might best be characterized by the ebook, which turns 40 this year. A great example of how sometimes an innovation is not a bad idea, it just takes a while for the right set of enabling factors to be in place for the technology to gain acceptance or adoption in the marketplace.

Anyway, for an interesting read on the history of the ebook, check out the history page on ebookweek. Note that the next national "Read and ebook week" is coming up on March 6-12, 2011.

Young Readers Starting to Become E-Readers

There have been a number of studies showing that college students continue to prefer using printed books when taking a class, including one from OnCampus Research. However, the OnCampus Research study also added it was a trend that may not last long as younger readers begin to get more familiar with using electronic readers.

Now, the New York Times is reporting that publishers are seeing increases in sales of children’s and young adult e-titles. The article provides details from both HarperCollins and St. Martin’s Press that show jumps in digital sales of young-adults e-books in just the first month of 2011.

One possible explanation for the increase is that price drops in the electronic devices made them attractive for younger readers last Christmas. The Times also suggests K-12 teachers may be getting reports that some K-12 teachers are beginning to allow leisure reading on the devices during homeroom or in English classes.

Mobile Devices Top Trend in Higher Ed Again

Maybe prognosticators figure if they say mobile devices will transform education enough times, it will be so. Or perhaps the 2011 Horizon Report lists it as a game-changer for education for the third straight year because the change will come as users continue to find more ways to utilize their smartphones and now tablets.

The report, from the New Media Consortium and Educause, does note that higher education continues to drag its feet in using mobile technology. It also suggests that use of electronic books will be the trend most likely to affect higher education in the coming year because the issues surrounding academic titles—availability, restrictive publishing models, and rights issues—are being resolved.

The new trends ready to become part of the conversation in the next five years are game-based learning and learning analytics, according to the report. Game-playing offers ways to develop decision-making and problem-solving, as well as using embedded educational content to enhance learning, while learning analytics will allow instructors to tailor courses for each student’s needs and gauge how well students are learning.

The New Media Consortium also designed a social media site to access the materials experts looked at in preparing the report.

Future of e-books or e-textbooks on college campuses

Recently there was a posting on the NACAS listserv that essentially asked the following:

I have been reading and seeing a lot of articles lately regarding the perceived or not, influx of e-books and how they may or may not change the way we handle our textbook business on campus. We are looking at a 5 year plan for our bookstore, and the shift to e-books and increasing textbook rentals seems to be a reoccurring theme.
I am curious how other campuses are looking at e-books and what effect they may have on your bookstore and your students over the next 2, 5, 8, 10 years. If anyone has any thoughts or a crystal ball that might help us shed some light on this vague but fast changing trend, I would appreciate hearing them.

I have some of my thoughts on the topic, but Jeff Nelson from BGSU posted a great response to the inquiry. I have included most of that here with Jeff's permission. Jeff has been very active as a channel steward for the industry, helping other constituencies better understand the realities around textbooks and the college store. This is another example of his thoughtful approach to the topic. Thanks, Jeff!

BTW -- I inserted some of my comments inline to Jeff's [MN:] in a few points.

A crystal ball would be nice, but I can at least offer some insight since I can't predict the future, at least not with any precision. One of the first observations I can make is that there is more hype over ebooks than there is actual impact, at least for today.

It is important to understand that eTextbooks can be very different than the type of eBook you might download to a Kindle. The availability of eTextbooks is still relatively limited, whereas most novels or other contemporary "pleasure reading" books are now automatically made available in electronic form. For example, at BGSU we provide eTextbooks as an alternative to the printed book whenever they are available and that represented only 11% of the book list for the spring semester.

[MN: I agree with this public misperception. Average we see is about 10%, with ranges from 5% to 17% depending on the type of school and particular faculty content choices. Inventory availability is still a barrier, even though that is changing. While most of the largest textbook adoptions nationally might be available in digital formats, most adoptions in general are not. In other words, for most college campuses, on average about 90% of the titles selected by faculty do not have a digital option available yet.]

Another misperception is that not all eTextbooks are created equal for many reasons. Most consumers don't realize that a textbook can have many copyright holders and not all of those copyrights permit electronic distribution. So every chart, graph or photograph can be a different copyright holder and if permission to distribute electronically is not granted, that ebook may have a "placeholder" that states the illustration isn't available. And many of the eTextbook titles are simply a PDF-type version of the printed book and have limited functionality which depends upon the eBook reader software, as opposed to being "digital native" where you can have more robust content and interaction.

The hardware options can also have an effect upon the adoption. Because there is not a well-defined eTextbook device yet (like a Kindle), the students will typically use a laptop or desktop to either download the book to the computer or access it via the internet which requires network connectivity. Our CIO expects "tablets" (think iPad) to have a 40% penetration this fall and that could have a big effect on eTextbooks.

[MN: Wow. 40%? That would be a scary adoption rate. Nationally we saw 8% this past fall, and anticipate maybe 15% this spring (currently collecting data). 40% by fall seems agressive to me, but possible (and scary). Laptops are still the predominant tool students use to download digital course materials.

Another challenge though is availability of content per device. Consider this: ebooks are currently available in the following formats (at a minimum): .Lit, .mobi, AZW, PDB, FB2, PDF, RTF, BBeB, EPUB, HTML, RB, CHM, and OEB. DRM standards include: MS Reader, Adobe Adept, eReader, Mobi, Apple FairPlay, DNL, and several others. The buying decision for students to know what they are getting when they buy a particular digital book requires more education than buying a print book. Not all digital files are created equal.]

Finally, there is the price and this area is the subject of many debates. We all know the traditional printed new textbooks can be very expensive. If the average savings for an electronic version of that same book is 50%, it may sound like a good deal. However, we consider what I call the "net cost of ownership" which factors in the upfront cost and the resale value.

Let me give an example of how the pricing works. If a new textbook is $100 and it is reordered for the following term, the student can usually sell it back at the end of the term for $50 (or more online) and that brings the net cost down to $50, about the same as an eBook. Not only can eTextbooks not be sold back, many have a license that expires after one or two semesters, unlike the book you buy for your Kindle which is yours for life.

So, how does this compare to other alternatives? If the same student above bought the printed book as a used book, they would probably pay $75 (maybe less on the internet) and could get the same amount at the end of the term, bringing their net cost down to just $25. If they rented that book, they would have received the savings up front and paid a net cost of about $40, but still need to turn it in at the end.

So, that is the current landscape, but let me give you some hard numbers. Although 11% of the BGSU book list is available in electronic form, ebooks represented just 0.1% for this past fiscal year and we have been selling ebooks since 2005. That quadrupled for the spring semester to 0.4%, but a fourfold increase of a very small number is still a very small number. Contrast that with rental textbooks which represented just 0.3% of sales for last year, but increased to 7.4% of sales for the spring semester. The rental results may not be typical because we took a very aggressive position for the spring because of increasing competition.

I"m not sure anyone really knows when eTextbooks will take off, but it is safe to say that they will at some point in the future. It isn't unusual for technology trends to double, then double again and continue until there is a wide adoption which means it could happen very fast. For this reason, it is very important for college stores to be "in the game" and selling ebooks. Even if the penetration is not there today, it will be in the future once the stars align and so we need to be ready.

[MRN: Also, the titles where adoption is likely to happen the fastest are in the large-adoption areas, creating a disproportionate effect. This is one reason the rental number shift had such a big impact in a short time as that model matured quickly.]

We are also watching related technology trends closely and have expanded our technology presence significantly in terms of selling the devices that may empower students to more readily adopt ebooks. All it takes is one game changing move like Apple expanding the iBookstore to include eTextbooks and the landscape can change amazingly fast. Right now the rage is rental textbooks, but that can change.

The final comment I will make is that the suggestion made by another member to conduct some research is a solid idea and if it can be expanded to include rental textbooks, that would be even better. Because I am passionate about the topic of "textbook affordability" I follow these topics closely, but I have more questions than I do answers.

I know this is a lot to think about, but I hope the readers of this thread will find it useful information. As I said, it represents the experience we have had at our institution, but that is not necessarily indicative of the entire collegiate retail industry.

Lots to think about -- but a good perspective in the store voice.

Interesting new video

Here is an interesting video from MBS Direct / Xplana that is worth viewing. It reminds me of some of the Michael Wesch videos in some ways. Great piece on students, social networking, and technology. I would like to know the source of some of the stats, unfortunately, none of the stats in the video are cited that I saw. Good video though -- definitely worth a watch. Enjoy!

Kindle Adding Page Numbers, Note-Sharing

Kindles may soon be sporting some new features that address short-comings raised by the higher education market. According to Amazon's recent posting on the Kindle Daily Post blog, software updates for the Kindle and Kindle 3G will enable e-books to display page numbers that correspond to the same pages in the print edition of the book.

That may seem like a relatively minor improvement to some, but higher-ed researchers need to be able to provide publication pages when they cite sources for a paper or book. Right now they can’t do that with an e-book.

Even more importantly, the page numbering feature may make the Kindle more attractive for classroom use. Some college bookstores have reported their professors asked them not to make e-books available for their textbook adoptions because the lack of page numbers creates problems in making sure the class is literally on the same page. With the updated Kindle, students could use either print or e-book versions and remain in sync, page-wise.

As another new feature, the Kindle upgrade will also allow users to share their book annotations and highlights with other Kindle users.

--

Additional commentary:

I once read that page numbers did not emerge as a concept in printed books until about 40 years after the printing press had become commercially viable. At the time, it was the scholarly community who identified the need. While Amazon's page numbering development has already been accomplished by others in the space, the development does signal two things. First, that we will continue to adapt current and new technologies to past ways of doing things. Perhaps there is a better way to cite a reference than the print-page equivalent. Second, it seems that Amazon is working to address short-comings in the Kindle identified by the higher ed market, and so they may still have plans in the work for a new reader or other technology that will support textbook users in the future.

E-tailers Ready to Increase Tech Budgets

Online retailers are making plans to increase their technology budgets this year, according to Forrester Research’s 2011 Online Retail Technology Investment Outlook, which polled 63 U.S. e-tailers about their technology investment priorities for the year.

Integration with back-end systems for order management and accounting systems was the leading priority, up to 63.5% from 31.6% a year ago. More than half of the respondents are considering investment in mobile commerce, while another 24% plan to upgrade their e-commerce platforms in the next 18 months.

Site usability and design are another area of importance, with 70% of the e-tailers responding saying it will be an area of concern for 2011.

Apple Keeps Grip on App Store Purchases

The New York Times’ report that Apple declined to approve the Sony Reader e-book app because in-app sales wouldn’t go through Apple sparked much hand-wringing in tech circles. Many felt Apple’s move would encompass not only the Sony Reader app, but also Kindle and Nook apps for the iPad, iPhone, and the iPod touch.

Then, blogger John Paczkowski of the Wall Street Journal reported an official statement from Apple claiming no change has been made to its guidelines for developers, but that it will now require apps to offer customers the ability to purchase items both outside the app and within the app.

The change is already in place for customers who buy through iTunes, allowing Apple to earn a cut for facilitating the purchase without forcing all content to be bought through iTunes. This means Amazon, for instance, can still sell content through its web site or Kindle device, but iOS Kindle app users will have to sync purchases to their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and Apple will get a cut of the proceeds.

The question now is how will Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony respond? It’d be hard for a company such as Amazon to back away from the iOS platform now, particularly with its “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” promotional campaign. It would also be difficult to build a new sales site that allows customers to buy both from Apple and Amazon, or from Apple alone.

Sony posted a note on its web site saying it’s trying to find other ways to work with Apple, including avoiding the App Store commission altogether.

Initial College Evaluation of iPad Favorable

Reed College, Portland, OR, was among seven institutions nationwide to participate in the Amazon Kindle DX pilot program in 2009 that found the device didn’t meet “the needs of higher education in terms of being an alternative to paper.” Martin Ringle, the school’s chief technology officer, then put the Apple iPad through the same paces and found quite a difference, as noted in this Campus Technology piece.

Ringle and his team at Reed College are preparing a white paper detailing their results, including a test to measure the level of distraction from the iPad compared to a laptop or desktop computer. Since the 1960s, Reed has had a strong reputation for adopting technology after careful analysis, so its findings carry some weight around the nation.

The college isn’t yet ready to make every student come to class with an iPad, but is working on getting more input from faculty and students. After that, it plans to look into cloud computing using the same step-by-step approach.

Whither Print Communication?

The following article appeared in the January 2011 MACS Newsletter -- page 10. It is short and worth sharing. Reprinted here with permission from the newsletter and author. Also, Peter suggested that as a postscript, I note the recent news published in many locations that ebook sales have now surpassed paperback book sales. Amazon sold 115 ebooks last year for every 100 paperback books, and 3 times as many ebooks as hardbacks. That is total for the year, not just Q4.


WHITHER PRINT COMMUNICATION?


By Dr. Peter Mires
Manager, Delaware Tech, Georgetown Campus


We‘ve been hearing for some time now about the decline and demise of the printed word. Newspaper circulations are dropping to unsustainable levels, e-book sales at Amazon have eclipsed their hardcover list, and even some school libraries, such as Cushing Academy, a private prep school in the Boston area, have gone digital.


Digital delivery makes sense for many reasons, not the least of which is cost. After all, who buys print reference ma-terials such as encyclopedias, atlases, and almanacs anymore? This information is available online. Aside from arguments that Internet sites have issues of ques-tionable authenticity and ―inappropriate‖ sites abound, educators know that excel-lent databases (e.g., Tennessee Elec-tronic Library, EBSCOhost) are out there.


Those of us in the college store industry are aware of this trend. You‘ve proba-bly seen scenarios like online access codes, which used to be considered an-cillary, replace textbooks, or instructors put more material on e-learning plat-forms like Blackboard. Doubtless these and other changes have you wondering about the future of your store and how to adapt.


Allow me to relate a personal experi-ence. I recently published a print-on-demand book (entitled Bayou Built: The Legacy of Louisiana’s Historic Architecture), which is available in both print and digi-tal formats. The digital version is 37 percent less expensive and my royalty is 40 percent greater. The reason is sim-ple: there are no associated printing, shipping, and handling costs.


I confess that I don‘t own an e-reader, like Amazon‘s Kindle or Barnes & No-ble‘s Nook, preferring instead to hold an actual book. Call me old school, Lud-dite, or what have you, but I‘m able to separate trend from tradition. Like it or not, the printed page is for the most part obsolete; it will eventually go the way of my Olympia manual typewriter. I have fond memories of pulling ―all-nighters‖ in college hammering out papers on that durable device, but the writing, so to speak, was on the wall in the early 1980s when personal computers became widely available.


Textbooks, the traditional bread-and-butter of the college bookstore, are go-ing digital. Everyone seems to agree that our bi-annual book rushes will no longer be synonymous with trucks ap-pearing at our loading docks with pallets of boxes. The college bookstore of the foreseeable future is increasingly partici-patory in e-commerce.


It is not without a tinge of sadness or nostalgia that I witness this transition. But, who among us would type when the rest of the world is keyboarding?

Store Options with a changing distribution chain

There was a good piece in the MACS 2011 newsletter on the "truth about course materials" and how stores can remain a part of the distribution chain written by Allyson Manet from Cengage. As stores see shifts away from traditional media and channels to new products and approaches, Allyson suggests some strategies to move stores towards competing better with online competition.

While she does not say it directly, part of the implied message is that booksellers must look above the day-to-day activities of store operations to think strategically about their present and their future. I once heard this referred to as the "tyranny of the tactical," but thinking strategically is critically important for the survival of an organization in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Among Allyson's more direct suggestions to stores are:

1. Be comprehensive -- serving as a reliable aggregator of course materials information is one of the core advantages for most stores. If students require something to be successful in the classroom, you should be able to provide it.

2. Be Reliable -- ensure that what students get from your store is what they really need to be successful in the classroom. Allyson points to a recent NACS study that shows confidence that they are buying the right product ranks almost as high to students as price as they decide where to buy their course materials. Reliability is also a traditioanl core strength of campus stores.

3. Be Flexible -- students will search. You capture more sales when you make more options available. Rental and e-books are no longer an option. At the same time, using price comparison is essential, because students will do that anyway and lack of transparency on the part of the store both erodes trust and pushes customers to look elsewhere before they make their buying decision. At that point you must work to get them back. Flexibility is a core strength that stores need to embed within their DNA.

4. Be Noticeable -- many students are not aware of the options stores provide. One NACS study found that nearly half of students did not know if the campus store provided e-books or not. Stores cannot assume awareness on the part of students or faculty in terms of the services they provide or the benefits they return to the student and institutional community. Stores must be increasingly proactive in their marketing communications and conduct awareness campaigns.

POD v offset and the relation to inventory

E-read had a good piece recently asking the question, are PODs ebooks? With more stores and libraries engaging in print-on-demand (POD) activity, there may be some interest in the perspective and few data points presented.

The piece has a good contrast and comparison between offset printing (characterized as an approach of the past) and POD (characterized as an approach for the future). And it includes links to a two part discussion on "a future without inventory" that is also worth reading. (See Part 1 and Part 2).

Book recommendation

As I have done occasionally in the past, in the year ahead I will try to include some book recommendations for those of us in the book business. I will admit in advance that many of these are going to deal with innovation or competing changing markets.

My first book recommendation is Practically Radical by William C. Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine. The book is about fixing what is wrong with our organizations -- and if you are in an established, mature business where you are still doing things the way you have always done them -- odds are pretty good that there are few things ripe for fixing. There is an old Japanese saying I always liked that goes something like, "There is nothing so good that it can't be improved." The book is about thinking ahead, renewal, and inspiring creativity. In an article about his book Taylor writes about 10 questions every game changer must answer. (And who in our business cannot afford to be a game changer at some level these days?) I will list the 10 questions here, as I think they are good ones to think about, and will encourage you to read the article to learn more. I have created some additions/edits to the questions in brackets.

1. Do you see opportunities the competition doesn't see? [And what opportunities does your competition see that you don't?]

2. Do you have new ideas about where to look for new ideas?

3. Are you the most of anything? [Sort of the "Good-to-Great question -- have you settled for mediocrity or do you strive for excellence?]

4. If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would miss you and why?

5. Have you figured out how your organization's history can help to shape its future? [Reminds me of the question -- do you know what business you are really in? Hint: It is not selling books.]

6. Do you have customers who can't live without you? [He notes: if they can, they probably will.]

7. Do your people care more than the competition?

8. Are you getting the best contributions from the most people?

9. Are you consistent in your commitment to change?

10. Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?

PDF security weakness noted

Given that many e-textbooks are still distributed in a .pdf format, or given that according to a recent BISG study as many as 40% of students pirate their textbooks (or have friends that do), the following recent news piece should give some pause to students acquiring textbooks in .pdf formats, and the publishers who produce them.

A MSNBC story reports that PDFs are now the number one vehicle for for web-based attacks. The story notes that currently e-readers are safe but that could change as more content moves to those devices and the devices take on more processing and multi-function capability (like the iPad and other tablets). Students should watch to make sure that textbooks they acquire in pdf format come from trusted sources, as the article notes that "spear-phishing" (targeted and personal attacks to a user from a known source) are a common method used in some of the .pdf-related malicious attacks.

Google and the e-book/e-reader market

Expectations that Google will soon enter the tablet and e-reader space continue. The company's recent acquisition of EBook Technologies fuels this speculation, as noted in one article that details the acquisition. Google's ebookstore, their recent partnership with the ABA, and other initiatives to help make local book retailers more visible in searches, suggest that Google could be a friend to book retailers in a way other large online sources for books are not. There is an opportunity here for retailers to capitalize on what Google could do for them to both retain and regain market share.

The question will be, perhaps, whether booksellers enamored of older print technologies will be nimble and open enough to take advantage of some of the opportunities presented by new technologies -- or if they will buy into the conventional wisdom that the local bookseller will go the way of the local music store. As one of my colleagues in the bookstore industry is fond of saying, "Some folks will drown because when you throw them a life preserver they want one that is square or blue, rather than the one that you are throwing them that happens to be round or yellow."

Students prefer print to digital

Yet another study found that roughly 75% of students prefer print to digital. The recent BISG study, Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education, mirrors similar earlier findings by both the Student PIRGs and NACS. The NACS data went beyond this particular finding to ask if student preference for print over digital was their primary reason not to buy digital. The NACS data saw a significant shift in recent years away from this preference being the primary reason not to buy -- with the availability of digital inventory and faculty preference and usage of print over digital quickly growing among the top reasons why students choose to buy print over digital.

Among other interesting stats from the BISG study 60% of students say they place a high value on their textbooks, and roughly 65% of those are still buying their textbooks from the college store. While promising, this does suggest significant loss of market share among college stores over the past decade. In fact the BISG study found that 20% of students are buying their textbooks from Amazon.com, and more than 40% said they bought a textbook from a pirate site or know others who have. Price and convenience are key drivers in this shift -- similar to the factors that initially stimulated piracy in the music industry.

Regardless, these data points should be leading collegiate retailers to ask some tough questions about their product mix, the return of revenues, market share retention, and how they compete online.

Ebooks by the numbers...

Some of the interesting stats in this month's Book Business Magazine:

• A study by Bain & Co. study concluded that the publishing industry will make a smoother transition to digital than the music industry did. It found that most digital readers are willing to pay for their digital content, perhaps discounting fears around content piracy. The study predicted that approximately 15-25 percent of book sales would be in digital formats by 2014, which is consistent with other projections in narrower college store market as well.
• Roughly 64% of publishers are now offering content in e-book or other digital formats, up 11% from the prior year according to a study by Aptara. However, nearly two thirds of those publishers do not know how to calculate the ROI of their e-book initiatives. E-reader/content compatibility is ranked as the top challenge for publishers.
• Finally, mobile advertising is expected to grow past US$2B this year, with Google currently controlling roughly 59% of that space.

The question for retailers regarding whether or not digital matters seems to be less of the question these days. Just as sales are now moving beyond just being online, to being online and mobile. This, of course, has implications for institutions, students, and others as content begins to not only shift to digital, but also shift to increasingly mobile platforms.

Update on Kno and Other Tablets

The School Library Journal had a recap and video clip from CES this year focused on the Kno. The Kno was unveiled last year as a tablet designed specifically for education. Initially something of a disappointment, the company has come a long way. Kno is a spin-out of Chegg, the textbook rental company. While textbook rentals have existed on a number of college campuses for more than 40 years, it is really Chegg's entry to the market less than 3 years ago which has led to the dramatic adoption of rental as a standard business model across the U.S. textbook market. With preliminary content from some of the largest textbook publishers, it will be interesting to watch where Kno goes in the coming year and how the company will chose to work with educational institutions and the college store community. The School Library Journal provides some additional updates on the device.

The journal also has another story on tablets and CES this month. The piece covers a range of the devices and discusses their implications for education and text.

January EBook Recap

Teleread's list of "what has happened in ebooks" this month has some interesting links, stats and topics. It is a great, short list with a range of interesting links and updates.

Publishers optimistic about year ahead

According to this month's edition of Book Business Magazine publishers expect the online retail channel for books to continue to expand this year for both print and digital. Brick-and-morter booksellers are perceived to be at something of a disadvantage as we pass the point where over half of all books are now sold online. At least one of the publishers within the educational space reported that as much as 45-56 percent of their revenue now comes from digital products (including journals and other products beyond textbooks, but even the latter has seen growth). There seems to be a consistent view forward that sales will be increasingly on mobile devices, and that digital content sales will grow rapidly, and will see the introduction of a number of new formats and variations, including more custom possibilities, over the next few years.

See the current issue for a range of other interesting stories.

Kindle Singles

One of the highlights in last week's digital news was the announcement of Amazon's new "Kindle Singles." The idea is a short work limited to at most 30k words, but well-researched. One of the more interesting aspects is one of the first ever books published by TED -- the site and conference which has the inspiring and thought provoking videos and content.

The concept is an interesting one -- and moves Amazon into a unique content-production business that could be viewed as a first step into new forms of competition for publishers, and begins to change the author-publisher dynamic for certain types of work. I will admit, it is the first real content or development that has made me consider downloading the Kindle app to one of my devices.

To be fair, the concept is not entirely new, though. I see similarities to the "Nooners" and "Spicy Briefs" concepts pioneered more by publishers like Harlequin a couple years ago. That is -- recognizing that there is a niche for short works on a topic or by a favorite author, that can be delivered digitally on demand, and which might be used to drive demand for additional short works, or additional longer works by the same author. It will be interesting to watch where these pieces will go in the future.

Pressure to Use Classroom Tech May Yield Opposite Results

Students tend to learn many new technologies by just playing around with them on their own time. As it turns out, that may also be the best way for educators to become comfortable with technology and more willing to incorporate it into coursework and classroom instruction. At least that’s the view of Rushton Hurley, who leads the Next Vista for Learning project, a library of free online videos produced by teachers and their students.

In this interview with T.H.E. Journal, Hurley discusses how teachers—in an all-too-human reaction—are more likely to turn their noses up at new technologies when their use is mandated by school administration. Like students forced to complete an unpleasant assignment, teachers pressed to master new tech will do just the minimum to get by.

But when administrators back away and give instructors the freedom to monkey around with applications and hardware as they see fit, they’ll try a few things here and there. More importantly, Hurley notes, teachers will support and encourage each other if they have opportunities to share their technology experiences and learn from others’ trial and error.

Crowd Accelerated Innovation

There was an interesting piece by Chris Anderson not long ago in Wired on the concept of "Crowd Accelerated Innovation." He uses specific examples of how video can speed up innovation by "creating new global communities, granting their members both the means and the motivation to step up their skills and broaden their imaginations." He goes on to write how things like videos are

... unleasing an unprecedented wave of innovation in thousands of different disciplines: some trivial, some niche in the extreme, some central to solving humnanity's problems. In short, it is boosting the net sum of global talent. It is helping the world get smarter.

A tall order perhaps -- but the idea is intriguing, particularly as we look at the role of students today in creating new content. What impact will that have on the future of course materials and learning? Will today's students turn tomorrow's learning models (and the key players) on their heads by redefining what could be? Perhaps it is a trend to be dismissed, but remember, radical change typically comes from a quarter that no one expects, and we are still in the early stages of thinking about how video and other multimedia technologies can really change things. Maybe there is another reason to watch the growth of the video movement than just pure entertainment.

iPad pilots to replace textbooks

The iPad pilots at University of Notre Dame, where professor Corey Angst is experimenting with replacing printed books with the devices, continues to get press coverage. This week there are two items worth reading about the experiments:

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed

A Wall Street Journal blog posting

While a fair number of institutions are experimenting with the iPad and comparable technologies, Notre Dame continues to gather more attention. The WSJ posting had a link to a video from Corey's class:

Self-Paced E-Learning Expected to Boom

State budget cuts in education and other financial constraints prompted by the recession are pushing more preK-12 schools to replace classroom instruction with online and electronic courseware products and services that children can use at their own pace, according to a new study by Ambient Insight].

The U.S. Market for Self-Paced eLearning Products and Services: 2010-2015 Forecast and Analysis study examined both web-based products and services as well as tangible media, such as DVDs. The study predicted self-paced electronic instruction will rise 16.8% in the preK-12 market by 2015.

As schools cut teaching staff, more are turning to self-paced systems for such programs as summer school or remedial classes. Schools used to reserve self-paced learning for specialized courses or to accommodate students in remote locations, but an increasing number are now experimenting with self-paced learning in core subjects.

Self-paced e-learning is also expected to grow in higher education. The Ambient study noted the hi-ed market would probably ramp up to become the No. 2 consumer of self-paced e-learning products by 2015, right behind the corporate market. At present, however, hi-ed institutions are more interested in installing lecture capture systems.

Textbook rental programs proliferating on campus

Last fall, 2,200 college stores reported offering textbook rental programs, up from only 300 just a year earlier, according to OnCampus Research, a division of NACS.

Demand for lower textbook prices from both consumers and legislators has spurred college stores to explore new ways of doing business. By renting, students generally pay only 33%-55% of the full price of a textbook.

Based on the results of their initial forays, two-thirds of the stores participating in the OnCampus survey said they plan to expand their rental offerings. Of the responding stores that didn’t offer a rental program, 43% said they plan to launch one. In addition, another 200 chain-managed college stores will add rental programs for the spring semester.

"This means that almost 2,400 college stores are currently offering textbook rentals, and more than 3,000 should be offering textbook rental by next fall,” says Charles Schmidt, NACS director of public relations.

Washington State’s online-course effort faces hurdles

The Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges has launched the Open Course Library, a program of low-cost, online course materials intended to save money both for the almost half a million students using Washington State’s 34 two-year colleges and for the state legislature, which pays a large chunk of the textbook costs for those on state financial aid. The first lot of OCL course modules begins classroom testing this month.

But as this Chronicle of Higher Education article notes, some of the course designers encountered unexpected difficulties while sifting through the available open content, some of which is outdated and little of which is geared to learners at the community-college level. Not topping the mandated $30 price cap for course materials is also proving problematic in many cases, especially where primary sources or supplementary materials are necessary.

However, if Washington can make the Open Course Library work, other states will likely jump on it as a template for their own cost-saving efforts.

Mobile retailing blueprint

The National Retail Federation (NRF) has come out with version 2.0 of the Mobile Retailing Blueprint. This is a product of NRF's mobile retail initiative and was produced with input from a range of retailers, vendors, analysts and standards organizations. It details both opportunities for consumers and retailers and provides retailers with concrete examples and useful information for crafting a mobile commerce strategy.

The NRF's mobile retail initiative aims to serve as a "catalyst for mobile-inspired innovation that enhances the retail shopping experience and improves internal business processes." In addition to providing definitions and simple examples, the document provides a number of lessons learned and best practices from current adopters of mobile commerce technology.

With mobile commerce becoming more common in the higher education environment, and globally, retailers (particularly collegiate retailers) would be well advised to peruse the document or begin thinking about a mobile strategy for both commerce and content. With changes in the collegiate retailing environment, this could be viewed as "one more thing" on top of crafting social networking strategies, content strategies, device strategies, and other issues. Like those others it will be increasingly difficult to remain viable in the future without thinking about some of the associated challenges and begin formulating some strategy.

The NRF document is a good place to start. As we move through 2011 and into 2012, NACS and some of its subsidiaries (particularly NACS Media Solutions) will also begin to offer more education and information to help stores with the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Trial and Error in the K-12 Classroom

A number of K-12 schools are experimenting with the use of laptops, netbooks, and tablets as standard classroom tools, even to the point of replacing print books with the hardware. But, some schools are finding it’s a mixed bag, as this article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shows. Students love the “cool” factor but it is not clear if computers are actually helping them learn better, and schools don’t necessarily save money on course materials.

And the article inadvertently highlights why the publishing industry is skittish about e-books: One youngster who lost his paperback “finds” the novel online and therefore is able to keep up with the class. Problem is, The Lord of the Flies isn’t yet in the public domain (and will not be for nearly 40 more years), so the boy is apparently accessing an illegally pirated copy.

Update on Open Access

Peter Suber from SPARC has produced his annual summary of global developments in the open access movement. While he notes he has greatly summarized the details providing only "highlights" and left many items out, it is still an excellent review -- and has links to prior years reviews and other resources. Here is a sampling from the 'highlights from the highlights:"

3. The University of California. For standing up to an unaffordable 400% price increase on its site license from the Nature Publishing Group. For using its unrivaled bargaining power, especially against a publisher with its own unrivaled bargaining power. For pushing back with an effect that smaller institutions simply could not hope to have. (Today, however, the actual effect is still unknown.) For acting decisively in the interests of research, researchers, and research institutions, and not leaving publishers to be the only players in this game who act decisively in their own interests. For inspiring other institutions to voice a common grievance and take concerted action.

2. The EUR-OCEANS Consortium. For adopting the largest consortial OA mandate ever (covering 29 organizations in 15 countries) and the first consortial OA mandate for organizations other than universities. For a giant step that should inspire other giant steps.

1. The 38 new funder OA mandates in 17 countries (Section 1) and --depending on how you count-- the 72-105 green OA university mandates in 15 countries (Section 2). For giving us a year in which we averaged more than three funder mandates and 6-9 university mandates every month. For preserving and extending the momentum. For bring us closer to the new normal in which research institutions routinely put the interests of knowledge-sharing ahead of the interests of knowledge-enclosure.

Mobile + computer = potential higher ed win

While this BlogU posting from Inside Higher Ed doesn’t view the announcement of 70-plus new tablet devices as “the” big story on the education front from CES 2011, it does rave over the Motorola Atrix Android phone and docking system.

The laptop-like docking station acts as keyboard, screen, and battery, with the Atrix providing the OS, memory, and networking—as well as the user’s files, images, videos, and music. All computing occurs on the Atrix. The combination renders the smartphone vastly much more suitable for classroom use.

“The Atrix is a step closer to the dream of a full computer in a mobile device,” states the BlogU post, adding, “…All of a sudden, the mobile device becomes both a consumption and production tool.”

November ebook sales stats

The latest ebook stats are out from IDPF:

According to sales statistics compiled by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), trade eBook wholesale sales from reporting publishers were $46.6M for November 2010, a 129.8% increase over November 2009 ($20.3M), and an increase of 14.5% over the the prior month of October 2010 ($40.7M). Calendar Year to Date sales (11 months) increased 165.3% from $147.9M in 2009 to $392.4M in 2010.

Note that the usual caveats to this data apply -- specifically around the number of publishers contributing data. These numbers are typically seen as a conservative estimate.

Statistics, historical data and information about eBook sales can be viewed at: http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/industrystats.htm (NOTE: the IDPF website is being revamped and this page will not be updated until the new site is launched later this quarter).

Looking for a few good tablets at CES

This turned out to be the Year of the Tablet at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, with as many as 80 different devices launched, all hoping to become the iPad-killer. None are available at this point and some don’t even exist yet. Most will drop by the wayside. (Remember how many e-readers debuted at last year’s CES? How many of them are still viable concerns?)

This InformationWeek special report culls the herd to pinpoint the new devices that, at first glance, seem to have the best shot at competing seriously with Apple’s tablet.

University presses add e-books to stay in the game

To position themselves as scholarly alternatives to Google Book Search’s 12 million-book archive, university presses and academic content aggregators, acting singly or in partnerships, are rushing to create or expand repositories for digital long-form texts. As detailed in this Inside Higher Ed article, JSTOR, the University Press eBook Consortium (UPeC), and Oxford University Press have all recently announced projects aimed at preserving their revenue streams from scholarly content and keeping themselves from being marginalized by the search giant.

Since these groups will target college and university libraries, rather than individual consumers, via the sale of access licenses, they won’t present any actual direct competition to Google. The addition of e-texts to their archives will, as one university press director noted, enable academics to cut through the “fog” of nonscholarly content that results from any Google Books search. With college stores representing a significant portion of University Press sales, perhaps there are ways for the two constituencies to work together on some of these initiatives.

Three R's begin with i

While watching the list of school closings this morning, there was an interesting story on about the use of iPads in one of the local schools. Each of the students in the fifth grade class has been given an iPad. Here are a couple of the more interesting quotes from the story:

The teacher [Bizan] says iPads have improved student performance in spelling and math and student attendance is up.

"It makes people want to learn. It makes people want to come to school," said Rachel Lyman, a fifth grader.

Bizan says about 75 percent of his instruction takes place on the iPad now and he expects in the not-too-distant-future that'll be 100 percent.

Of course, my favorite quote -- or perhaps the one which is most telling, is the following from the classroom teacher:

"Five to six years from now, or 10 years from now, textbooks, I see them being gone and being on some kind of device," said Bizan.

You can find the story transcript or watch the video clip online on our local news station's site.

What College Students Think

Coming up in February the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) will be hosting a half-day conference in NYC entitled What College Students Think: Making Information Pay for Higher Ed Publishing. The focus will be on the changing needs of college students around course materials.

Julie Traylor (who leads OnCampus Research for NACS) and I will be presenting. However, in addition to speakers, the event will feature an exclusive preview into the findings from BISG's recent student survey: Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education. The survey provides a new look into how students currently enrolled in 2-year, 4-year and for-profit institutions perceive and use different types of educational materials in their course of study.

Kelly Gallagher, Vice President of Publishing Services for Bowker commented that "The timeliness of this event, and the relevance of the data presented, will help academic publishers walk away with tangible insights into these areas." The same is likely true for those of us working in the college store industry, or using textbooks in the classroom.

I hope to see some of you there, and we will report back.

Digital publishers and consumers not on the same page

Publishers run significant risks for their future if they don’t bring their approaches to digital content into better alignment with consumer expectations and desires. A Harrison Group survey of 476 publishing professionals and more than 1,800 consumers indicates a wide gap between those two groups when it comes to digital content management, distribution, and intellectual property.

Seventy-four percent of publishers said they prefer a traditional, subscription-based model for digital content, an option preferred by only 13% of consumers. The vast majority of consumers would rather obtain content under a new model, whether unlimited access for a set price, micropayments for smaller chunks, purchase of single copies, or credits that draw down as content is accessed. Consumers also expect to be able to share content freely with other users and among a variety of devices, including e-readers, smartphones, and tablets.