Innovation is all about value.

I had the pleasure of telling parts of the NACS/NACS Media Solutions innovation story in two sessions at the ASAE meeting in August.  ASAE is the American Society for Association Executives -- and YES, there IS an association for everything!  Regardless, innovation was a major theme at the conference this year, and one of the interesting aspects of ASAE's approach is the clear definitional link they have between innovation and value.

There is a great blog on innovation excellence that is worth following -- and which will soon be added to our blog roll on the right.  One of the recent posts was about how innovation is all about value.  The posting includes the following quote:

Innovation transforms the useful seeds of invention into solutions valued above every existing alternative – and widely adopted. [...] Often usefulness comes from what a product or service does for you, and value comes from how it does it. If you’re looking to truly deliver innovative products and services into the marketplace, then once you succeed at the designing and developing the ‘what’, don’t forget to also focus on achieving excellence in the ‘how’.

It also talks about innovation as being more than just about ideas -- and as much about thinking of innovation as idea investment opportunities.  Meaning, that to be successful at innovation we must think about innovation as more than just ideas + execution.  Rather, the author argues that innovation is a product of value creation (i.e., new value for stakeholders), value access (ease with which stakeholders can access the innovation), and value translation (helping/educating people on how the innovation adds value to their lives). 

These aspects of innovation and value have real significance for those of us in the course materials market and can help explain some of the reason why digital course materials have had difficulty in the marketplace.  Things like DRM and a lack of standards for access among content make digital course materials less accessible.  We have also seen that digital course materials require greater consumer education than the traditional format of a book.  We all know how to use a printed textbook more or less, but we have found that digital course materials require more education for consumers, and that when that education occurs, the willingness of students to buy digital course materials increases.

One last piece on this blog post -- a comment from a colleague who is one of the more innovative store managers out there.  He wrote:

Very interesting read. Takes what is typically an intangible concept and adds a practicality that reaches beyond simple "execution" towards excellence and success. It reminded me of the concept of creating a need or market where it doesn't exist yet. One approach is to poll customers and give them what they want, but this is the challenge of identifying (through innovation) something your customers don't yet know they need. This sometimes requires mind reading, but is really about knowing your customer - who they are and how they live, not just what they want. In training & education, this is the "I don't know what I don't know."

I could not have said it better.

The CITE goes Mobile

You can now view The CITE even when you are not at your office.  Use the QR Code below with your mobile device to connect to The CITE's mobile page.  In the year ahead we will be talking more about mobile as a significant emerging trend for retail and course materials.  Thus, it seemed appropriate to make our site more mobile as well. 

The CITE returns!

Hi everyone. Sorry for The CITE being on a longer hiatus than originally expected or indicated. Thanks to everyone who sent messages to see if everything was okay and to everyone who came to the site to see if we were posting again. More than 10k of you came back at least once this month to see if posting was active again, and many days had over 1000 unique visitors -- more than a few of you checked back very often! My apologies for making you wait, but thank you for your persistence!

Regular posts have already been scheduled to start showing beginning on Monday (Aug 29)and we should be back to regular daily posts quickly. A great deal has occured in the past two months while we were on hiatus, so we will try to mix some updates of news from the summer in with current events. A few quick items on the blog to point out:

A new look. You will notice a slightly updated look and feel to the page. Hopefully this revised layout will make it easier to use and find information of value.

Ask Your Questions. In addition we will be experimenting with a "community answers" tool over on the right-hand toolbar. Currently, it only seems work for select browsers or if you log in. The latter should not be necessary. If you can see content under the "community answers" label, then your browser works with this widget. Here you can post questions to me or the community. I will work to see if I can resolve the problems with the widget, if not, it will likely get removed. You can always send messages to me directly with your questions.

New Voices. The blog will have some new voices. We have hired a new Emerging Technologies Strategist (Jeong Oh) who will be a regular contributor to the blog. Our Digital Media Specialist (Veronica Gancov) will contribute occasional posts. Our fantastic publication team will hopefully also continue to send stories to me for posting.

Thank you again for your continued interest and support. On to the blogging!!!

The CITE on a short hiatus.

To our loyal readers,

The CITE now reaches tens of thousands of readers from more than 170 countries. Your continued interest in our part of the conversation is appreciated. However, due to travel and meetings, preparation to launch some larger pilots and programs, and some resource constraints, the CITE will be on hiatus for the month of July.

We plan to make several announcements in August -- and of course, much is happening quickly in this space these days so there will be a number of news stories to report. We will look to get back to frequent if not daily postings next month.

We are also looking at moving the blog to a new platform, and may make that shift in the next month, time permitting.

I hope that many of you return when posting resumes in August. In the interim, please feel free to post questions here which you would like to see answered in future blog posts.

Best regards,
M

The Facebook Mall & Retail Trends

Working through my email archives this week and I came across this message from Karen Hernandez at Normandale Community College Bookstore. She wrote:

I thought this was an interesting article about shopping and setting up a store on facebook. Might be something that stores should think about doing soon while it is still free. If you read the entire article in “All Things Digital” it appears to be something that would be attractive to students when they find out about it.

This piece relates to another story from All Things Digital that has been sitting in my archives for a while. That story was on retail technology trends in 2010 that will change the way consumers shop: mobile, social, and local. Here is an excerpt:

Mobile: There’s definitely an app for that. As smartphones go mainstream, savvy shoppers use apps to price-check and read reviews of products in the store.
Result: Retailers watch in horror as shoppers leave their stores empty-handed and drive across town to another store or go online to order a different or cheaper product.

Social: Friends and social circles influence purchase decisions through the rise of Facebook and Twitter. Users check in on apps, such as Foursquare and shopkick, for discounts and incentives.
Result: Retailers who don’t bone up on their social media skills may miss out on generating conversations across the Web that result in online sales or traffic to their stores.

Local: Advertising begins shifting to Groupon and LivingSocial, as group discounting and daily deals gain popularity.
Result: At least initially, these deals have been successful at locking in sales for local stores and restaurants looking for a bump in visitors.

The story goes on to discuss what various retailers are doing in each of these areas with ideas for driving traffic or changing business practices. The world of retail is changing--time for folks to get on board.

Move toward digital series

The Textbook Guru blog has begun a new series on the "Move Toward Digital." The series includes guest posts, interviews and the author's view point on the every changing world of education and the move from physical books to digital.

Here are some of the initial postings in the series:

- Consumer Trends and Drivers toward e-Textbook Adoption
- Four Obstacles to Overcome Before Digital is Universally Adopted
- How the Internet is Changing Education (Infographic)
- The Status of Math in the United States, and the Classroom of Tomorrow

Perceptive Computers and Educational Technology

Adaptive software capable of "theory of the mind" intelligence was the topic of a recent keynot at the International Society for Technology in Education. As reported in Education Week, the keynote by molecular biologist John Medina proposed applications that could "be capable of involuntarily detecting student confusion, determining what the student's learning gap is and adjusting instruction accordingly. This could be done both by analyzing student work in a program, but also by computer recognition of facial expressions and physical behaviors."

Medina also questioned the ethical or cultural implications of such technology where the computer could detect whether a student is bewildered or inspired, or if an individual has innate ability for things like teaching. Self-paced learning and comparable technologies are already under development in the digital course materials space, and adaptive learning is almost certain to be an important part of the digital learning landscape by the end of this decade. The question, Medina posed, is whether the use of such technology could be used to harm as much as help students in the future.

EBook numbers rise

According to AAP figures ebook sales for trade books continue to rise, now accounting for just under 19% of all trade sales (from reporting publishers) in April, and 22.1% of reported sales for the first quarter. Even with growth in ebook sales, overall sales in trade were down by just over 10 percent from the prior year.

Where have all the readers gone?

Wake Forest Profs Trying to Reinvent the College Textbook

Research has shown humans learn best when they put facts together in an order that makes sense to them. Now, a pair of professors from Wake Forest University is trying to turn that concept into a digital biology textbook call BioBook. The effort is based on the free, open-source learning management system Moodle, according to an interview with one of the authors in Campus Technology.

BioBook is being created in HTML5 and set up so students can see information on the left-hand column of the screen and track their progress on the right. It will also be available online and in a mobile format while allowing the ability to type notes.

A pilot program with 10% of the students at four schools using the text will begin in the fall. Results produced by the 10% using the digital textbook will be ultimately compared to the 90% who didn’t use it.

“There are other digital textbook initiatives underway at other colleges, although most involve taking existing, linear books and making them digital. BioBook, on the other hand, is truly digital from its roots,” said Jed Macosko, an associate professor of physics at Wake Forest who teamed with senior biology lecturer, A. Daniel Johnson, on the project.

EduTone's Android tablet for K-20 education

In a press release last week, EduTone announced new developments for their Android-based tablets. EduTone seeks to distinguish its tablet devices by making them more directly focused on the education market. The devices have security mechanisms built in to support CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) and enable easy but secure connection to school-based applications. The device will now also come bundled with a number of other peices of software designed for education. An interesting aspect of their product offering is that they offer a lower-cost device coupled with a subscription based service for educational content. Like phone companies with smart phones, it is likely the subscription piece where they plan to build enough earnings to subsidize the cost of the device. Regardless, with the departure of the Kno from the landscape, and rumors that the Entourage Edge has or may soon follow, the EduTone line of educational tablets may still face stiff competition in the marketplace.

POD's tipping point approaches

A recent Publisher’s Weekly article (available only to subscribers) discusses Print-On-Demand (POD) technologies, with particular focus on the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) by On Demand Books (ODB). The simplified concept behind POD is to enable bookstores to print needed books while eliminating storage stockouts, expanding inventory options while reducing actual physical inventory, and reducing other supply chain costs, thereby reducing total costs while enabling more content sales.

The EBM, which according to the story now retails for $185,000, is one option that bookstores today have to fulfill book orders in-house. ODB CEO Dane Neller says the rise of e-books has contributed to some of the EBM’s success by opening up new opportunities for print. He is also quick to point out that the EBM is not a POD solution, but a sales solution.

In the last year, ODB established a partnership with Xerox. According to Xerox’s first Thought Leadership Workshop about the EBM, many bookstores are using the EBM to compete with Amazon. For some stores, they see the book machine as the “salvation of the neighborhood bookstore,” says Jeffrey Mayersohn of Harvard Book Store. Stores that have book machines are seeing great growth at about 1,000 to 2,000 books per month in some cases.

Other options in the print arena include Hewlett-Packard’s Raptor machine, which has been in testing with three college stores for the last year. A philosophically different approach to the in-store solution, the Raptor could provide EBM with direct competition.

Recognizing that not all stores can invest in an in-store solution at this time, and seeing that there are other challenges to building a successful POD business, NACS Media Solutions (NMS), a subsidiary of the National Association of College Stores, is currently running a pilot program to create a regional POD network that can enable short runs of 1 to larger runs of 1000 or more, with rapid turnaround. The regional approach offsets downtime and will expand to provide printing "close to to the point of consumption" in order to reduce shipping and other supply chain costs. The NMS service will also utilize a cloud-based repository and include other service offerings designed to increase store success at POD.

We will be releasing more information about this program, our partners, and the pilots as we proceed over the next few months. If all goes well, NMS expects to do a soft launch in January, with a full launch expected perhaps as early as next March’s CAMEX.

Life is for sharing...

Every once in a while you come across a video that is worth sharing. This is one of those, I think. Those who know me know of the near-infamous bad travel karma that I seem to experience. I have a lot of funny and unsual travel tales, but this is one that goes beyond my experiences. Not a normal posting for this blog -- but there is a connection. Think about how technology has lead to some very innovative and creative uses of media. How will this type of creativity and media eventually change the nature of course materials? What will students be creating in the future? There are a lot of interesting applications of video and media at the moment, but we are probably just at the beginning.

The following video has moments that are funny, others that are touching, but all-in-all cool. It ends up being an ad for T-Mobile-- but you would not know it until the very last couple of seconds when you see the sponsor once the video ends -- the message is that "life is for sharing." Have a great weekend and enjoy! (and one of these days I would love to see something like this happen live! I wonder how much work and practice it took for them to get this one down so well?)

When technology trends (and textbooks) collide...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IBM: Typewriters to the Cloud

This week, IBM turned 100, and their website to commemorate the event has a number of interesting pieces of content.

From an innovation perspective, IBM has always been an interesting company. There are many things those of us who work in industries experiencing technology-based change can learn from IBM's history. One of those things is reinventing oneself. IBM has done an excellent job of reinventing itself as a company over the past 100 years as the times and technology have changed. Below is a video by the BBC which talks to this aspect of IBM's history in particular. My favorite quote from the video is:

To stay ahead in the technology race IBM has had to accept that it has to give up on much of its past.

Another interesting clip within the video that might interest some readers of this blog is a short piece on the "supermarket of the future."

A second video on IBM's history is also quite interesting. It is a bit longer (at 13 minutes) but provides a "100x100 view" of their history, by featuring one hundred people, who each present the IBM achievement recorded in the year they were born.




Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!

Video for learning: Corrected

Sorry -- I accidently embedded the wrong video in the original posting. I have since edited that posting so that the correct video appears.

Video for learning

At the end of this post is Hans Rosling's health and wealth statistics video that has received a fair amount of attention. Not only is this a great video -- it provides a good platform to talk a little bit about the future of course materials from today's vantage point.

I remember an EDUCAUSE video by Richard Katz from 2006 on how technology could influence higher education. Part of that incorporated the idea of EDUtainment. Subsequently, I have occasionally heard discussions that explored the idea that "star faculty" could be broadcast online across many institutions -- creating economies of scale, and local faculty would facilitate discussion, activity, or provide local support and expertise. You find the "best of the best" to teach the "intro-level" courses in a consistent way via video or multimedia, and then faculty at each institution contribute upper level lectures or offerings on their areas of expertise. Other faculty provide educational support and guidance and the "local touch" which enhance and reinforce the educational experience and provide for 1-on-1 or group interaction in a way that much video and multimedia currently cannot.

Among the challenges here, however, is the cost -- and the appropriateness -- of using technology in learning. Creating the video below certainly required some financial support. Creating similar content for lots of different concepts will take time and far more resources, and not all content is suitable to this type of format. As in other domains, we must be cautious about using technology for technology's sake, and we must think about the most effective uses of technology in course materials. Odd argument to hear from a technology guy, I know.

In the short term, until technologies evolve that make creation of content like this even easier and lower cost, creating a large suite of educational content that is truly born digital will take time, effort, and resources -- implying that a large volume of digital course materials that go beyond the "pdf of the book" will likely take some time to really produce yet. Doubting that it will eventually arrive is probably not a safe bet.

OER infographic and accuracy of OER data

The Atlantic recently published a piece which included an interesting infographic that compared Open Source Textbooks to other textbook options. As with much of the media on open source textbooks these days, there is a fair amount of incorrect data being bandied about, which leads to some false conclusions about the benefits. Such items make for good teachable moments, though.

If you scroll past the infographic, you will find among the comments one from our government relation's director, Rich Hershman. Rich and I are both proponents of the open source movement, and together crafted a policy position for our Association's board. That position, in support of the OER/open textbook movement was adopted nearly three years ago and remains in effect. That aside, there is room for constructive criticism of the open textbook movement and a number of the claims used relative to the movement. I think Rich's comments do a great job of capturing some of these perspectives.

Here are Rich's comments from the posting:

While this is an interesting graphic, I would question some of the facts it displays. The National Association of College Stores has been tracking the cost of textbooks and other course materials for years, and our data and that of others in some aspects are quite different.:

1.) According to actual student surveys, the average full time student spends between $600-$700 annually on course materials , not $900. This $600 to $700 includes purchasing new books, used books, rental, and ebooks. It does not factor in financial aid, tax credits, nor if students sell their textbooks back, all of which would further reduce the net costs -in some cases significantly. Student spending on college textbooks has actually been declining in recent years, according to at least two recent national surveys of students.

2.) The $184 average cost estimate of open source textbooks does not factor in the total costs of the content , since the open source textbook community now advocates for and and in some cases receives federal, state, and institutional subsidies (beyond student fees) in order to develop, update, maintain, and support such textbooks. Therefore, some of the costs of open source textbooks would be hidden from students, though they likely would pay for some of these costs indirectly. Also depending on how a fee would be established, if it was a mandatory school-wide fee as some have advocated, students from low-cost content subjects, like literature, would be forced to subsidize students taking higher cost science and math courses.

3.) Switching to open source textbooks would cost states and localities in states like California, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Illinois hundreds of millions in lost sales tax revenue. This would likely be offset with further cuts to education funding, and result in higher tuition and fees. It would also reduce income tax and eliminate thousands of jobs and employment opportunities for students and recent graduates.

4.) The average price of new course materials, including textbooks, at colleges and universities in 2009-2010 was $62, not $171. Implying that the average cost of all new textbooks actually used in schools is $171 greatly misrepresents the potential savings as you look beyond single title examples and attempt to jump to claims of aggregate savings.

Open source textbooks are a valuable and an important development in the marketplace for courses materials. There are many reasons why institutions should support the development and experimentation of open source textbooks for academic reasons separate from the perceived cost-savings arguments. There are opportunities to make course materials more affordable through the adoption and use of open textbooks. However, the case for open source textbooks from an affordability perspective should be made with a complete understanding of all the direct and indirect costs and benefits to students. This info-graphic, cool as it, seems to fall short of this test.

It would be great to see the infographic updated with correct information, as such graphics can be useful tools for communicating complex data. OER can have a positive effect on education. However, if we fail to measure the effects accurately, we may come to false conclusions and reap some unintended consequences.

As one example, most college stores are independent non-profit businesses today, and even if they are part of one of the contract management chains, they return revenue or provide other services to the academic institution in most cases. Most revenue from course materials goes to support financial aid or student services. While improving textbook affordability via open source textbooks, educational affordabilty can also be affected, and we are hearing more anecdotal examples of this happening on campuses.

I believe that part of Rich's point is that in addition to the inaccuracies in the infographic, there is a larger set of economic implications here connected to textbooks and textbok affordability. The OER movement needs better and more accurate data on "total cost of ownership" at the student, institutional, governmental, and national levels. This would enable us to better support OER initiatives and find models that are true wins for students. A deeper conversation and investigation of the true costs associated with OER should occur -- otherwise we risk taking a positive innovation and turning it into a shell game with educational affordability at stake.

Short of this type of investigation, why not just take the billions of dollars going into developing open access textbooks and give it to the current textbook publishers to make their content free for the students with greatest need? Or use it to subsidize the top 20 percent of titles from publishers, or the top X percent of most widely used textbooks, making the current high quality products free to students rather spending money to reinvent an industry that already exists? Sure, this would have unintended consequences as well, but we might start with a higher bar and have an immediate affordabilty impact across the widest possible range of students.

My comment here is meant to be somewhat flippant or extreme -- the point being that we cannot throw money at OER and just expect that it will produce high quality, affordable results. There are reasons to support OER and the OER movement beyond affordability. The movement would be well served to make more of those arguments, and fact-check some of their current assumptions related to affordability.

What's wrong with my technology???

Well, things have been a bit busy lately. I have dozens of items awaiting write-up for posting, and certainly there is no shortage of news happening in this space lately. I hope to be back to a more regular posting pattern in the very near future.

In the interim, a colleague shared this video with me over the weekend, and I thought it would be a good way to start out a Monday morning for everyone. British humor applied to technology -- what could be better?

CAMEX question answered: campus relations

There are not many “CAMEX questions” left – and those that remain are a bit more complex or challenging to answer in the space of a blog post. This week’s question relates to campus relationships with administration.

Q. How do I convince my administration that they need to partner with the bookstore to develop digital strategies for the future? Is there a ‘how to” from other schools?

Good questions. The answer to the first question likely depends on many factors such as school size, reporting structure, how the store has traditionally been positioned on campus, etc.. On the second question, I am not aware of a “how to” guide, but NACS does have some resources for members on how to engage different groups on campus. There is the communications toolkit, which includes templates and questions for talking with different administrative groups on campus. There are new resources and case studies being built relative to the College Store of 2015 initiative within the Foundation. Additional resources are in development.

If your store currently has little partnership with the campus administration, then now is an excellent time to start. Relationships are built on trust, and building trust takes time. Work on building relationships long before you need them.

One tactic you can use is to find out what initiatives are underway on campus. Likely pockets of activity are in IT (look for instructional designers or folks who work in academic computing), or in the library.

Look at your current textbook adoptions compared to prior years. Which faculty use technology (e.g., MyMathLab or clickers) or an open source textbook? Has a textbook adoption disappeared?

Is the faculty member using nothing, or are they using materials put on e-reserve in the library, placed elsewhere, or being acquired directly from the content provider.

Another tactic is to become a resource expert for your administration on digital course materials. Point them to good articles or resources on the transition to digital: case studies of what other campuses or bookstores have done; trend reports; reports on other technologies or experiments; or industry analysis.

Another approach to building expertise is to sponsor or help coordinate a campus or committee meeting on digital course materials strategy. There are multiple ways to approach this depending on your school size and type, along with other factors. Consider inviting an administrator to a webinar or meeting. We have conducted digital sessions for a fair number of institutions and are likely to do so again in the future as time and other resources permit.

Put some skin in the game – innovation is a contact sport. Experiment with digital or communicate to administration how you are helping reduce the cost of course materials – or what you are learning from digital sales and experiments at your store or others.

Remember to be optimistic yet realistic. Convey that you have a positive sense of urgency about the role of digital course materials and your store’s willingness to be part of the future and solution. Also articulate the strengths your store brings to the table that explain why you ought to be a part of that future. People like solution providers more than obstructionists. If you find yourself arguing that something cannot be done make sure you are not doing so because that is the way you have always done things.

There are many other tactics to consider and I ask readers to share their ideas here, via email, or on NACS listservs. I think the above boil down to some key concepts:

(1) Adopt a winning mindset (and think like a retailer).
(2) Be a resource and point of expertise.
(3) Find out who the influencers are on your campus relative to digital.
(4) Experiment.
(5) Think of your job as store advocates – to students, faculty, and administration.

Good luck, and thanks for a great question.

Store question: What will digital mean to you?

I recently received the following message from a college store manager:

What would the top 3 titles going to digital on any campus look like? For us 5 out 2500 titles could have have a profound affect on our operations. Our top 10 titles represent close to 10 percent of our total textbook activity in September. We learned last week that there is a strong likelihood we will lose our largest adoption to an online only approach 2012-2013. 1500 -1700 copies gone to the ether ..... where will the staff and physical plant go ?

I have heard a number of stores argue that, "Digital sales are only 2.8%, why should I care?" And another store manager recently asked if I constantly beat my head against the wall. (Another store colleague answered ahead of me that I have probably beaten my head against the wall so much that my brains are now probably mush.) Humor aside, stores that do not think digital matters, even at 2.8%, could be in for a surprise awakening -- and sooner rather than later.

Back in 2007 I projected that digital would start having real impacts within the textbook industry beginning in the 2010-2012 school years. It looks like those predictions were close to accurate.

What would your store do if you lost the top 10 best selling titles in your store in the next 2 years? What if you lost the top 10% of best selling titles? This is the thing about digital -- it is like the old Gibson quote -- "The future is here, it is just not evenly distributed yet." Large adoptions are likely to move to digital first, and when that happens, if your store cannot provide digital products what are you going to do? You could see a substantive loss of sales in a very short order -- which will then lead to more difficult managerial questions than those before stores today. The question is not, "Should I do digital?" or "Why should I do digital?" The question is, "How do I best provide digital so that I continue to provide a value proposition for my customers in the future."

What does digital mean to you?

Concerns Partly Cloud-y for the Future

Apple CEO Steve Jobs demoted the personal computer to “just a device” when he announced the launch of iCloud computing at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference. Jobs might be correct, but a March 2011 study commissioned by Qwest Software suggests that while higher education leaders see cloud computing in their future, they aren’t as certain of how to make it happen.

In Pulse on Public Sector Virtualization and Cloud Computing, potential cost savings were cited as the biggest incentive for adopting cloud computing to a third of the participating institutions. However, a third also said security breaches were the biggest obstacle. All told, about half of the schools surveyed were optimistic about the prospects of cloud computing.

“There are some challenges around security, funding, and around access, but all those things can be tackled," Paul Christman, vice president of sales for Qwest’s Public Sector division told Campus Technology. “Of the three market segments in this survey, the feds are driven by mandates, the states by cost savings. But education is really driven by what this can do, what this can accomplish, and what this can’t accomplish in some other way. The search for the positive [aspects of cloud computing] is really borne out in the academic side.”

Free e-book on analytics in retail

IBM has made available a free e-book version of the limited edition book Business Analytics in Retail for Dummies.

The use of analytics in retail is not new, but it is a fairly new practice for many in the campus retail environment. Various POS providers are adding analytics modules, and other industry suppliers, such as Verba, also provide some analytics capability. Improved data-driven decision making is critical for retail businesses today (large or small), and will be even more so in the future.

As with many books in the "Dummies" series, this book provides a good introduction and some practical action items for individuals or businesses that lack experience with business analytics. From its description:

Business analytics isn't a new concept, but new technologies are emerging that make it possible for average business users to analyze and understand the data. This book offers principles and tools you can use to discover how your customers behave – and how to put that knowledge into action to drive more sales. In this book, you'll learn how to: Understand the basic concepts of business analytics; Dispel business intelligence myths; Set up scorecards and dashboards; and, Measure consumer sentiment through social media.

Industry icon Rich McDaniel might refer to the concepts here as "measuring what matters." The book is a good one to help retailers start thinking more about how they use data in decision making. Some of the chapters include topics like: using analytics to meet the demands of smarter consumers, measuring the impact of decisions, and ten ways to improve shopping experiences. If you are looking for some summer reading and have yet to start using analytics, this might be the [digital] book for you!

Rethinking Education Video -- M. Wesch

Michael Wesch videos related to anthropology, the web, and higher education are always interesting. Here is one he created a while back, but which I had not posted here before. It is called Rethinking Education. He has another in production on the Visions of Students Today 2011 that is looking for student submissions.

Rethinking Education Video - M. Wesch

Michael Wesch videos related to anthropology, the web, and higher education are always interesting. Here is one he created a while back, but which I had not posted here before. It is called Rethinking Education. He has another in production on the Visions of Students Today 2011 that is looking for student submissions.

The E-reader Effect

[Note: Sorry for the lack of extensive posting lately, the last week has been particularly busy].

There was an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed this week on how the shift to digital is beginning to affect university presses. The article opens with a reiteration of how ebooks in higher ed are off to a slow start, compared to trade books. This is not surprising to most of us who follow the ebook business. Trade books, in many ways, are easier to render to devices -- and devices like the Nook or the Kindle are designed to support trade book reading. However, we still lack an effective device and reading environment that effectively supports the more complex engagement patterns that surround textbooks or other course materials.

What was of interest in the article was the reporting out from a recent survey of AAUP members. Citing the study, the piece notes that, "As of last December, e-book sales or licenses accounted for less than 3 percent of total revenue for the overwhelming majority of university presses." Interestingly, this is nearly equivalent to the percentage of ebook sell-through that the college stores see on average. However, the piece goes on to note that, "60 percent of respondents expressed “serious concern” about the viability of their current business models" as a result of declining print sales.

The article points out that ebooks are one of the only segments of the university press business that is growing, and that the rate of growth has increased since the original study was deployed. University Presses are also seeing particular success in making backlisted titles available to consumers.

New Readers Target the Ed Market

According to this press release, “the first-ever e-book readers for the educational market” have now arrived. The "first ever" claim is a bit of a stretch given other devices released in the past two years, such as the Entourage Edge as one example.

Apparently for the U.S. market alone (for now at least), the jetBook K-12 features “speaking dictionaries” in English and Spanish—with promise of 38 more languages to come—as well as an electronic SAT-prep course, speed-reading courses, a text-translation system, calculators, preloaded reference books in a variety of academic subjects, an audiobook player, and more.

For the world market, the jetBook Color boasts a 9.8-in. color E Ink screen, all the features of the jetBook K-12 plus “extra components based on each region’s educational system.” This seems to refer to the release’s claim that the jetBook Color will be “implemented in schools across the U.S., China, and Eastern Europe,” although no specifics are provided about any actual adoption agreements or timelines.

The devices are the result of collaboration between Ectaco Inc., a New York-based producer of handheld electronic dictionaries and translators, along with the existing jetBook line of e-readers, and China’s Hanvon Technology Co., which specializes in pattern-recognition technologies and products and also manufactures the WISEreader e-reader.

It will be interesting to see what sort of reviews post after readers get hands-on experience with these devices.

Students Show a Tablet/Textbook Disconnect

A recent Pearson Foundation survey of college students and college-bound high school seniors contained good news for tablet-makers. Even though only about 7% of college students queried own a tablet, 60% of them envision owning one in the future (15% within the next year), and nearly 70% said they believe the devices will transform higher education.

The survey results were less rosy for e-textbook publishers. According to this Inside Higher Ed article, students’ belief that tablets such as the Apple iPad and Barnes & Noble Nook will revolutionize learning isn’t matched by any enthusiasm for digital textbooks. While almost 70% of those who said they wanted a tablet claimed they would read e-textbooks on it, only 39% of students who own a tablet actually use it to access such content.

That statistic, coupled with the mixed results from tablet pilot projects on various campuses, suggests that firsthand experience with the current crop of tablets may curb students’ enthusiasm for leaving print textbooks behind.

A Textbook Future: Cheap with Lifetime Updates?

As detailed on CrunchGear, a $49 biology e-textbook is the latest product unveiled by the new Nature Education division of Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Slated to go on sale Sept. 1, the college-level Principles of Biology is actually a web page rather than an app or “traditional” e-book, and features continual content updates with no additional charge to the original purchaser.

“Lifetime access is difficult to picture for many kinds of app-based books, because of how rapidly the underlying technologies and devices will evolve,” said Nature Publishing Group executive Vikram Savkar, “whereas a browser-based solution has a good likelihood, in our opinion, of being accessible decades from now.”

Having the content—which includes quizzes, assessments, and an online gradebook—stored in the cloud means access is available on any device the owner uses, from a tablet to a flip-phone, without any additional setup, as long as they employ the same username and password.

To maximize the usability of the gradebook component, Savkar added that Nature Education plans to integrate its text with most major course management platforms by the end of this year.

Principles of Biology has already been adopted for introductory biology courses at California State University’s Chico, Los Angeles, and Northridge campuses.

Square Turns iPad into Cash Register

It seems there’s a new report every day detailing what the Apple iPad can and will do for education and students. Now, the device appears to be ready to serve the college store as a new type of cash register.

According to reports, including this one from Information Week, the mobile payment startup firm Square has developed a free application that allows merchants to use an iPad to accept payments and receive sales analytics. The Square Register app works with Card Case, a consumer app available to both iPhone and Android users.

“Every single merchant that uses the Square Register has Google-style analytics for everything they do,” said Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and cofounder of Twitter. “They can easily answer the question: ‘How many cappuccinos did I sell today?”

The potential fly in the ointment is that both merchant and consumer must have the right software installed to operate properly, according to IDC analyst Aaron McPherson, who also suggested Square should integrate its system with a PC-based point-of-sale system.

Adapting to new business reality

I am at the SIIA Educational Technology conference this week. The opening keynote was great. Maybe more of the same messaging I have heard elsewhere (and am often sending myself), but I liked the presenter's approach to conveying the information.

The presenter was Genevieve Shore, worldwide CIO and Director for Digital Strategy for Pearson. Okay -- she is a CIO and leads digital strategy, like me, so admiting biases, that won points in my book up front. Anyway, her presentation was "how do we adapt to new business reality" and she offered five points of advice:

1- Be disruptive.
We must challenge our companies, customers, employees, etc. How do we change everything while holding on to our traditions? She commented, "This is the moment of our lives when we will see the most changes to [learning]. The next 5 years will be mind-blowing." going on to talk about the disruptive trends that would fuel this radical change to learning in the next five years: gaming, tablets, continuous assessment coupled with artificial intelligence, and location.

2- Be global.
As we transition to a more global community, we must do truly global thinking. She then provided interesting data points or perspectives on India, China, Africa and elsewhere.

3- Be social.
Through several examples and discussions of different technologies she boiled down to a couple questions: How can we be social? How can we make many-to-many work, yet at the same time, how do we make and keep it increasingly personal?

4- Be Valuable.
She commented that, "The world has changed. The most important word on the internet is no longer 'search' but 'share'." In discussing business models she noted that you "need multiple business models today to have a business," which suggests to me the need to think openly and broadly about what we do and how we do it -- and recognizing that we might have "multiple business models co-existing at once" and that there may not be any "one" business model for the future. Her point being that things will be more complex in the future, and that looking for the "one" model is probably a fruitless effort. If anything, the one model is a combination that provides several other models simultaneously.

Her other point in here, which I particularly appreciated was "sometimes you have to be wrong to eventually be right." I would have put this observation under "Be Disruptive," but the lesson to be open to failing and failing fast was well made. She noted that we are just starting to see the first ebooks for education -- and that it is a new product that is not really an ebook. Much as I have tried to talk about "digital course materials" as a more accurate term than "ebook." She also suggested that we find time to talk about metadata -- that it is critical to make it easy for students to search and share. She asked the group to think about working toward global, open metadata standards for the benefit of all.

5. Be Trustable.
Her last set of comments reminded me of comments Chris Tabor at Queen's University often makes about trust. She talked about how we must be careful in how we manage the ownership of data about customers, and the importance of trust in our relationships with students.

Overall, a great session. In the panel I chaired today I pulled out several other comments of interesting, but one particularly stuck with me in the context of the points Genevieve made. Matt McInnis from Inkling had a captivating image of a coming "renaissance of learning materials," that he sees as just beginning. I agree, and that is yet another concept I have been promoting for a while.

It is always reassuring to hear, once in a while, that other thought leaders think things are going in the same direction. The future is not yet determined -- but it is taking shape. I will bang my head on that wall one more time and suggest that stores that stores and the store channel have an opportunity to act, and waiting until 2015 to begin adapting to what will clearly be a new business reality for our channel is not a particularly good strategy for making it to 2016, 2020, or beyond.

My Modern Tech

An interesting message went out to a range of different institutions this week. We have not found or received additional information on this new company yet. The concept is "Microbooks" by a company called My Modern Tech. From the description, the technology does not seem that different from other entrants in this space -- like CafeScribe, NookStudy, or VitalSource. What is interesting is some insight into where Amazon is headed next with textbooks.

Do you like seeing your students in the history books? How about putting your campus there? We're inviting your campus to be one of the first. Partner with us and industry giant Amazon Inc. to be one of the first campuses in the country to start offering microbooks, the newest online tool in student learning. This is not only going to change your campus, but change education around the entire country. Partner with us and Amazon Inc.to put your college in the history books.

Microbooks are the same textbooks you currently use, only made available online for the ease of use of students to access them via their smart phones through android, iPhone, and iPad apps or even via a computer. The power comes in the convenience, but also the state of the art features such as the ability for teachers to make notes, highlight text, and have everything reflected to students books, as well as give quizzes, and even see the last time their students read their books. The main point behind this project is that since it's made available in an electronic format the cost of the books are up to 50% cheaper for students than the same physical textbooks. By utilizing these state of the art books you make the books more accessible to all your students including low income students. With the backing of Amazon Inc. we're getting ready to push this new program to colleges and universities across the country and we're exclusively inviting your campus to be one of the first to start using it.

Give your campus and your students the opportunity to make history and be one of the few exclusively invited campuses to change the world of education across the country.

Thank You and we look forward to your acceptance of our invitation and to discuss with us any questions that you may have."

We do not yet know how many campuses received this invitation, or the diversity of the campuses invited. We are interested in learning more if anyone has more information to share.

More tablets on tap

More tablet devices are on the way, with familiar names behind them. With the languishing position of its e-reader device in the single-purpose device niche, SONY recently announced two new tablets, focusing on their strength: media. B&N is rumored to be making a big announcement this coming Tuesday at BEA. That announcement is expected to relate to a new Nook, that will likely be an Android-based tablet. Amazon is also rumored to be releasing a new tablet soon (date unknown).

Why more tablets? With all of the hype you would think that everyone in the world already owns an iPad. Nielsen reported this week that less than 5% of the US population own iPads. It is estimated that penetration is even lower in other countries. While Apple may own 80% of that market, it means that there is still room for other competitors to enter the space and gain market share.

There may be some question yet as to the ultimate niche and place of the tablet in history. We are still at the very early stages of a new technology. Expect more innovations, variations, and ultimately applications of this technology in the year ahead.

Looks Like Tablets Are Ready for School

The Apple iPad pilot programs on college campuses have been completed and Vineet Madan, vice president, McGraw-Hill Higher Education eLabs, says the device passed the test. In fact, he offers six reasons why tablet computing is ready to take the classroom by storm.

Versatility is the first reason Madan cites, noting that enhanced e-books provide text, video, and audio, making for a more integrated learning experience that is more engaging for students. In addition, the iPad allows students to highlight and jot notes in the margin, just like in a printed book.

Students’ growing familiarity with touchscreen technology is another reason to think tablets are ready for the classroom, according to Madan. The tablet also appeals to students because it is thin, lightweight, and turns over much quicker than a laptop with much longer battery life, while innovative software is being developed specifically for tablets to render them compatible with online teaching and learning platforms.

Tablets also align with cloud-based computing solutions, which are becoming more popular on campuses because of their portability and constant connection to the Internet. Finally, Madan reminds readers that tablets are much easier to acquire now and increased competition from Android OS devices will only drive prices down on all tablet models.

Video: Next generation book

There is a new 6-minute video from TED of interest. It is Mike Matas from Push Pop Press introduces their first full-length interactive book for the iPad. The talk is entitled, "A Next Generation Digital Book." There are some interesting features and capabilities, that could have great implications for textbooks in the future.

Rentals Keep Print the Top Choice on Campus

A survey from Student Monitor found that devices such as the Apple iPad are making gains on campus, but the printed textbook remains alive and well thanks to rental options. The study, detailed on Inside Higher Ed, found that 24% of the surveyed 1,200 full-time students at four-year institutions rented course materials, up from 12% the year before.

Those who rented saved an average of $127. The rental trend should continue to rise, since 36% of underclassmen said they are likely or very likely to rent a textbook next year. Campus bookstores remain the most popular source for rentals, thanks to their efforts to get out in front of the trend. Yet students said they were most satisfied with their experience using the textbook rental site Chegg.com because of price, punctual delivery, and ease of use.

On the electronic side, just 5% of those surveyed said they purchased access to an e-textbook during the spring, and only 2% bought e-texts for more than one class.

However, that may be about to change. The survey found that while just 8% of the students owned an iPad, nearly half expressed interest in buying the device. Students also placed the iPad alongside coffee—but behind beer—when asked to rate media and “lifestyle” choices.

In fact, “drinking beer” was the only nontech pastime students listed in the top five, alongside Facebook, iPhones, texting, and laptop computers. More than half (54%) of those surveyed own smartphones, up from 41% from a year ago, reinforcing the notion that print rentals may be a short-term solution.

Learn from Wiley’s Legacy and Leadership

Guest Blog: Veronica Gancov, Digital Media Specialist, NACS-MS

The transition from print to digital for many publishers can be a difficult one, but for Wiley, a company that has been in business for more than 200 years, persistence has been key to their online success. Their transition from print to digital is examined in the Book Business webinar "Learn From Wiley’s Legacy and Leadership." Wiley began its digital transition more than 10 years ago, and it has honed its online presence into that of a leader in the field of academic and scientific publishing.

Since 1995, Wiley has explored all avenues of online and ebook formats, beginning with “Journal of Interactive Surgery.” In 2010, Wiley launched the “Wiley Online Library,” which is the second most-visited academic publisher web site according to Alexa Web traffic metrics. They have amassed more than 9,000 books, and hundreds of multi-volume reference works, laboratory protocols, and databases.

Under Wiley’s outgoing CEO and President of 23 years, William J. Pesce, Wiley consistently gained market share and profitability, and executed three of the largest and most successful acquisitions in the company’s history. Pesce says that the development work in going digital is incremental, layering on technology along with print.

Wiley has looked for multiple formats and multiple modes of delivery on its path to becoming a digital leader, and has designed and redesigned many workflows to find the optimal one. Wiley also acquired different partnerships with other companies, as well as acquiring other companies outright, and recruited talent from outside the publishing business in order to have greater control over their digital formats.

Stephen Smith, Wiley’s incoming President & CEO, who has been with the company since 1992, commented on the way that Wiley has prioritized what they wanted handled in-house as opposed to outsourcing the digital process. According to Smith, Wiley has always wanted to add value to the customer. He emphasizes that digital strategy is a huge consideration for any publishing business, and that the more flexible the content formats are that are offered, the more value is added to the customer.

When Wiley InterScience was launched, the company knew they needed a partner for the technical project of putting the journal online and developing access controls and search functions. Since Wiley did not have the capabilities in house, they brought them in house and found ways to work with them.

In December, Wiley Blackwell, the STMS and scholarly business publishing division of Wiley, announced the launch of mobile apps for select science journals. Smith sees this as a stand alone revenue opportunity, and he sees mobile as part of the overall mix, with advertising opportunities that will be interesting as well. Smith also states that although they are exploring these new avenues, they have not abandoned print altogether, but utilize POD to handle the lesser print load.

Publishers Try to Come to Grips with Digital Challenge

Publishing executives painted a rather gloomy picture of their world at the first World E-Reading Congress recently in London. According to this article in paidContent UK, the printed book is in trouble and publishers just aren’t yet sure what to do with its digital counterpart.

“The entire publishing industry is going down the drain,” an executive from Siemens told the publishers in a sponsored address about a tablet publishing software service. While most attendees probably don’t actually believe that, they are trying to tell their stories in new ways through technology such as iPhone apps.

They want to learn from the painful lessons of the music industry, but also fear competition that ranges from self-publishing authors to e-tail giants such as Amazon, which recently launched its own publishing imprint for romance novels.

“We need to anticipate and create new business models that give consumers access when they want it,” said Victoria Barnsley, international CEO at HarperCollins.

CAMEX questions answered: marketing

This week's question provides a good example from a store of "why digital," the importance of relationships, market share orientation, and other topics:

Q. We have had good relationships with our publishers and faculty in crossing the digital divide hand in hand. We have come to find that the MyLab products and other digital content have helped secure market share and lower prices at the same time. We even have created displays to highlight those ebook products to our students. [Example provided with data on sell-through, savings for students, and percent of market share captured]. Has NACS looked at in-store merchandising, loss prevention, and in-store promotion material for publisher's ebook options?

Thanks for your question. It sounds like you have started off in the right direction -- building positive relationships, paying attention to market share in addition to margins, and thinking about how to merchandise digital products as something different from traditional products.

To answer your direct question, yes, we have thought about some of these questions. In particular the in-store merchandising and in-store promotion materials. In fact, we convened a short-term task force who helped us develop a first phase marketing toolkit for stores. That toolkit was about 85-90% complete, but then stalled with the departure of the key staff person who managed the project. It is our intention to resurrect that project later this year as the task force did some excellent work and we do not want that information to be lost or go unshared with stores.

We have observed that the stores who report higher sell-through on digital content are typically the ones who provide more transactional education to students about what they are buying when they buy the digital option. Students know what they are getting when they get the physical printed textbook. The same is often not the case with digital. Different DRM, different licensing terms, different user experience, and other differences between products in the same category make it a more complex (and potentially less satisfying) purchasing decision.

I saw a statistic earlier this week that reported consumers weigh trust as nearly 10x more important than price when making an online purchasing decision. The same is true, in a sense, with digital. Students are not as sure of what they are buying (they trust the product less) and so are more reticent to purchase. Stores that have recognized this challenge and provided educational information have seen sell-through on digital sometimes up to double the typical average. This educational information can be displayed in a number of ways -- whether comparison details on an in-store sign or terminal, explanatory information provided along with the student course list, or creating a "demo-bar" concept to let students "see what they are buying."

Because of differences among products, the transaction cost of selling digital is higher for retailers because it requires more education of the consumer. Focus your in-store marketing efforts in that direction and you should see some success. Beyond that, our marketing toolkit initiative looked at a variety of methods to promote digital options in-store, and again, we hope to get those resources out to stores later this year.

A final quick note -- the question also asked about loss prevention. This is not an area we have looked at closely as it relates to digital options. Perhaps some of the other readers on this list have some suggestions to share -- either marketing ideas or ideas for loss prevention.

Open Road Making Backlist Authors Accessible

A new digital publishing venture, Open Road Media, is dealing directly with authors or their estates to publish and aggressively market well-known backlist titles as e-books. National Public Radio highlights the firm’s efforts on a new electronic version of James Jones’s From Here to Eternity, which restores passages from the original text that were deemed inappropriate when the book was first released in the 1950s, and also includes videos to enhance the project.

The strategy of targeting backlist authors from traditional publishing companies has caught the attention of those venerable firms. “The question is: In what direction will they evolve?” asked publishing consultant Lorraine Shanley. “We’re all watching with eager anticipation.”

Open Road is headed down other paths as well, publishing its own titles that appear first in digital form, called “e-riginals.” And it’s formed partnerships with smaller publishers that can make use of its digital and marketing expertise.

Open Road Media hasn’t turned its attention to the textbook market—at least not yet—but is providing one more convenient avenue for readers to become comfortable with digital text.

McGraw-Hill Digital Resource Platform

University Business has a new On-Demand web seminar (free if you sign up) on McGraw-Hill's new digital resource platform. According to the seminar, via the platform McGraw-Hill will give all professors full access to all curricular resources and tools, whether or not they use a McGraw-Hill textbook.

For professors, getting access to relevant and trusted online instructional resources and tools has been an ad-hoc, hit-or-miss process. This web seminar will demonstrate McGraw-Hill Campus, a new service that provides all faculty members across campus with one-click, unlimited access to McGraw-Hill's entire library of academic e-content and associated tools - directly from within the course management system. There is no fee for the platform, and instructors can use it regardless of whether or not they use a McGraw-Hill textbook.

This is the same platform which BlackBoard and McGraw-Hill have been piloting on different campuses this year. The McGraw-Hill tools include "an application to help faculty create digital course content and assignments and do automatic grading" and another which "lets faculty compile textbooks that use their own materials as well as content from the company's publishing portfolio." The integration of the tools with BlackBoard can allow students to buy the textbooks via a link on the course site.

Students Slowly Accepting Tablet Computing

Apple’s introduction if its iPad a year ago appears to have upended the personal computing world according to this article in the Los Angeles Times. Among the repercussions, Microsoft stock recently experienced its largest single-day drop in two years on declining software sales.

Experts expect 50 million tablets to be sold this year, up from 19 million in 2010, with more than 100 million in 2012. While laptop sales will continue to be strong worldwide, manufacturers say they believe tablet sales will eclipse laptop sales in the United States next year.

Yet questions remain on college campuses. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that students at the Stanford School of Medicine stopped using iPads given to them a few weeks into the first term of use, preferring printed course materials instead. In addition, rebuilding wireless infrastructure on campus to support mobile devices can be expensive while getting students, faculty, and staff working together on the educational possibilities of the gadget often works better in some fields than other.

E-Readers Aren’t Ready for School Yet

College students will likely continue to watch the development of e-readers from the sidelines because the devices simply aren’t yet suited for use on campus. That’s the conclusion of a blogger for the Seattle Times, who looks at the findings from a pilot study using Amazon’s Kindle DX at the University of Washington.

After seven months of use, fewer than 40% of the computer sciences and engineering graduate students taking part in the study used the device for homework. They found the Kindle DX to be poor for note-taking, and said skimming text and looking up references were difficult.

While those are all problems that could be fixed with future upgrades, the study also suggests the digital text disrupts a learning technique called cognitive mapping, which allows readers to use physical cues, such as the location of words on the page, to help retain and recall information.

A possible solution may be found in tablet computers such as the iPad, because the Apple device is able to bolster conventional text and images with interactive and multimedia content, according to Fast Company.

CAMEX questions answered: DCP

This week's question from CAMEX relates to our digital content platform or DCP project within NACS Media Solutions. Many aspects of the project have been led by Chris Tabor at Queens University and the Canadian Campus Retail Associates (CCRA). I asked Chris to help me respond to this week's question.

Q. When will the DCP platform be available in the US, including textbook access codes for content? What else will be part of this platform?

Its a good two part question and perhaps worthy of a longer article on the complexities and broader implications of the platform. This project has been evolving over the past 12-18 months. Currently we have about 115 schools participating, with roughly 75 of those being in the US and the rest in Canada. New elements are typically rolled out and tested in Canada first, and then subsequently rolled down to the states. The participating US stores are currently live with a selction of free, public domain content.

In lieu of a longer article on the platform, for now the short answer to Part A is that the next phase of the system will begin to be deployed over the the next several weeks at select schools with select publishers. The goal is to have a solution ready for a large number of US schools in time for fall 2011.

Part B, As you may be aware the Canadian version of the platform system has commercially distributed mainstream publisher access codes for two academic terms. More recently faculty authored content and ebooks were added for commercial distribution at two universities. The platform also distributes classroom management applications or licences.

To date the system distributes only those codes and materials required by the instructor, which accounts for the near 100 percent sell through . However in the US version optional codes and materials will be available as will many trade titles. Of particular interest to developers is the capability of the platform to distribute software applications or licenses.

Think of it this way: generally the system distributes access to two kinds of materials. The first is static content such as pdfs and epubs or etextbooks. The second is dynamic content (think web site) and the system sells access to the web site in the form of licences or access codes.

The shorter answer to Part B: The platform can and will accommodate most forms of digital course materials and, more importantly, most digital course material distribution models.

We are planning increased communication to current participating stores, and then to our broader membership over the summer months of 2011. Some additional information can be located at http://campusebookstore.com/

Educational Publishing at Work

Today's post is a guest-posting by Veronica Gancov. Veronica is the new Digital Media Specialist within NACS Media Solutions. She joined us in February and is leading some of our work in the regional print-on-demand area. Veronica will likely become a regular guest blogger to the CITE. While this first posting is publisher-focused, I think many stores will see the parallels in, and implications for, educational retail.

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I recently attended BISG's “Educational Publishing at Work” webinar. The panelists included Charlene Gaynor, CEO, The Association of Educational Publishers; Michael Ross, SVP, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and Christian Schamberger, VP of Operations, Mercury Book Printing. The webinar raised many interesting points, the first being that since students today are “natives” of digital technology, such as the internet, video games and mobile technology, teachers need to adapt and become more tech savvy in their teaching methods in order to reach these students. Likewise, as teachers must, Publishers today must adapt to digital technology in order to maintain their business standing and reach those students as well. New business models must be written, and new delivery systems must be explored in order to stay current and relevant in the wake of the digital age.

Gaynor's main point was that moving products from print to digital will be one of the top five strategies for impacting the bottom line of any publishing company. She also believes that “free is your friend,” and that supplying some free content is also good for your bottom line, as sales have been proven to increase when some content is given out for free. Gaynor also recommends hiring for a digital future, in other words, choosing people who are technology minded and can see the benefits of digital progress.

Encyclopaedia Britannica has been around since 1768. Ross commented on how change is a must in order to stay relevant. In addition to pursuing digital formats such as online databases, print sets, ebooks, and e-learning solutions for all age groups and readers, Encyclopaedia Britannica strives to provide specific curriculum products for everyone from Pre-K to college and university students. Ross stresses that pricing must be kept low and attainable for everyone, and that subscription models, in particular automatic renewals, work for his company. He stresses that Publishers interested in switching to a digital format must establish a 5 year strategy, and that they need to hire people who will move their digital strategy forward.

Schamberger said that “times can look bleak for printers who do not adapt to the current economy and technology.” Mercury is no stranger to change, and has grown from a printing press in someone’s basement, to a successful printer with three print divisions: Offset, Book, and Fulfillment. Mercury is adapting to the economy and new technologies by continuing to invest in new digital printing technologies, such as inkjet printers that are faster, increase automation, incur cheaper costs, and enable enormous volume capability. He also sees Print on Demand as a great way for printers to fulfill a need in the market. He says that publishers need the flexibility to offer both an electronic format of a product as well as a printed product, and says that they must embrace new technologies and partner with printers who have, as well as challenging traditional thinking and norms.

Correction on projections on etextbook sales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inventing the college store of the future

Campus Technology has an article this week about what happens to college stores if "dead tree tech" gets edged out by digital textbook alternatives. It is an interesting piece which echoes some recommendations we have made in the past -- and re-emphasizes that a shift to digital does not need to mean the end for physical stores. One of the early quotes in the piece -- from Isabella Hinds at Follett, captures this idea well. She notes:

The advent of this technology isn't going to eliminate the need for college bookstores. It's disruptive--or it will be, eventually--but the role of the bookstore is already evolving. The college bookstore of the future is likely to be a very different environment. The digital textbook is going to be one of a range of course-material offerings...delivered on a variety of devices. As these options proliferate, the expertise of the bookstore personnel will be much more important. They will become trusted advisers who can talk knowledgeably about the strengths and weaknesses of increasingly sophisticated and complex products.

Hinds' comments reflect similar recommendations and reactions here at the National Association of College Stores (NACS), and can be found in our report, Defining the College Store of 2015, which is available to members.

It is about creating value and relevance for students and faculty in new ways. Two additional quotes from the article:

"The stores that are becoming the resident experts on these educational technologies are gaining tremendous favor points with professors, administration, and students," Gallagher notes. "It's about maintaining a relationship with the customer and adding value in the form of expertise." -- K Gallagher, Bowker

"College stores must earn students' 'love' by being relevant to their specific, evolving needs and expectations. Growing share of campus life must be a top priority for campus stores--followed by communicating this valuable role to key stakeholders." -- NACS

Indeed, we are already seeing a number of stores create "genius bar"-like concepts designed to help faculty and students understand their digital options and how to access them. Have a problem accessing a digital textbook, or don't understand how to access one publisher's content versus another (or why they are different)? Well, that is a role that the store will be able to help answer.

Given the early stages of many of these technologies, another challenge for students and faculty is matching content to devices. Stores will ultimately be the device and format agnostic providers, and will help students make sure the content they are buying is not only the right content for the course, but the right content for their device(s). It also means that stores must explore multiple approaches to delivering content -- print or digital. Yet another quote from the piece highlights this point:

"There's absolutely no doubt that the long-term survival of the college bookstore will require some strategic adaptations," he says. "And you really just have to embrace the technology. We decided our best bet would be to invest in multiple approaches, to jump right into the deep end with both feet.

"My words of wisdom to my colleagues are pretty simple. You can't do all this in a tepid fashion--you have to commit all the way. You have to invest in multiple approaches to hedge your bets on the shifting winds of the technology. And monitor your results. The evolution of this thing we call a bookstore isn't over." -Jeff Levin, Varney's Bookstore

The article contains a number of interesting points and quotes -- from discussing the lingering preponderance of print, to print-on-demand (POD), to talking "tech rather than textbooks," building relationships with students, textbook rentals, open source textbooks, and redefining retail. In the end it is really all about adding value and reconsidering the retail role of the college store:

"If textbooks do go mostly digital, then the campus bookstore simply has to become more of a retail center. [The college bookstore is no longer the place] where you have to go to get everything. Students have more choices now. There's local competition, as well as the internet. But we're convinced that there's still a lot of value to the college bookstore. Students aren't paying for shipping charges, returns are easier, and they get help to make sure they're buying the correct book. In the end, it's about adding value." -- Sue Riedman, NBC

All-in-all, a great piece that covers a lot of textbook and college store ground in a short space. It is great to see a positive and opportunity-focused piece on the college store industry. However, the piece does make one thing clear -- the business is ours to lose. College stores are uniquely well positioned to make it through a transition to new business models. However, success in doing so requires intention and willingness to experiment and move toward an as yet somewhat unclear future vision.