Ruling Handed Down in GSU Copyright Case

A ruling in the copyright infringement suit against Georgia State University was announced May 11, with the judge rejecting 95% of the specific readings challenged by the publishers that took GSU to court.

The judge also outlined the ways institutions can continue to cite the “fair use” doctrine when making electronic copies of material for use in classes and rejected publishers’ contentions about how to regulate e-reserves. However, she also imposed strict limits about how much of a book may be covered by fair use and that a publisher may have claims against university e-reserves if that publisher offers reasonably priced systems for getting permission to use book excerpts online.

Examinations of the decision started almost immediately. Kevin Smith, the scholarly communications officer at Duke University, blogged about the decision mere hours after it was released. Posts also appeared on the Inside Higher Education web site from editor Scott Jaschick and Barbara Fister, a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, before the sun was up on Mother’s Day morning. The Chronicle of Higher Education also chimed in.

Appeals appear to be certain, but in the meantime, neither side goes away completely happy with the decision.

Bad E-Book News or Just a Quiet News Day?

News from the e-book industry hasn’t been all that rosy of late. Profits are down at Harlequin, the Association of American Publishers announced numbers for e-book growth in February that were less than expected, Simon & Schuster digital sales continue to decline, and even sales of the Kindle Fire from mighty Amazon fell off in the first quarter of 2012.

Is this a harbinger of things to come, or just evidence of a slow news period in the digital market?

“I’m not hearing alarm bells from publishers yet, so I can’t say whether there is an overall softening or just unevenness in the data or just that each of these things is potentially explainable as due to circumstances specific to the players involved,” said James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester who covers the book industry, in this article from Digital Book World.

In the first place, those huge increases the e-book market was seeing could not last forever, said Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publishing services at Bowker Market Research. He also opined that the new group of e-book consumers may not be as devoted to e-reading as early adopters.

“The early-adopter, heavy book buyers who make up over 60% of volume of all e-book sales have continued to slow in their migration to digital,” said Gallagher. “Without the ongoing influx of these key buyers, the market is more reliant on a greater increase of casual to moderate buyers to move the needle.”

In addition, a recent study by the Book Industry Study Group suggests consumers are buying more tablets than e-readers, but are not buying e-books at the same pace as those who read on dedicated e-readers. Over the last six months, consumer preference for e-readers has slipped from 72% to 58%.

“Tablets will adversely affect the e-book business in that the tablet is a multifunction device and will therefore draw the reader into nonbook activities and therefore cause them to consume books slower and therefore buy fewer books vs. a single-function e-reading device,” said Gallagher.

Inkling, Follett Deal Expands Store Reach

Inkling set out to reinvent the way people learn. The San Francisco-based start-up wanted to create a better, interactive, and engaging textbook by taking advantage of new technology the Apple iPad provided.

Now, Inkling is teaming with Follett Higher Education Group on a distribution partnership that will make hundreds educational titles available online and in Follett-managed campus stores. Inkling also provides content through Verba, an NMS partner, making its titles available to any store that uses the Verba price-comparison tools.

The new Inkling agreement provides students with the option to buy entire Follett e-titles or use Inkling’s “Pick 3” pricing method that allows the purchase of just three digital chapters instead of the entire book, along with the flexibility to pay for the titles using financial aid or campus cards.

For the moment, only students using iOS devices, such as the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, will be able to access the titles. But Inkling is working on an HTML5 application that will expand availability to other gadgets.

“I think the important part here is that Inkling is making its content available via stores,” said Mark Nelson, chief information officer at NACS and vice president of NACS Media Solutions. “Previously, it was only available from them directly or through the Apple channel. It is an interesting example of a company who has become more in favor of working with the stores once they learned more about us as a retail channel. There are other avenues through which they can reach stores as well—and if they want their content adopted, ultimately they need some help from the stores.”

McGraw-Hill President Talks e-Books

Textbooks have been part of Brian Kibby’s life for most of his professional career. As president of McGraw-Hill Education, Kibby’s thoughts on textbooks, and particularly e-textbooks, carries significant weight. Kibby recently sat down with John Biggs, editor of TechCrunch.com, for a video interview for TCTV.

He’s ready to embrace the future of bookless learning where costs are reduced and learning is improved.

Blogger Weighs in on E-Book 'Rush'

The CITE featured a blog from University of Virginia professor Daniel Willingham who wondered what the rush is to adopt digital course materials (scroll down to May 8). His point was that course materials are more difficult to read than books for pleasure. Besides, digital he added textbooks aren’t much cheaper than print editions in the first place.

That post brought a reply that led to a different and perhaps more cynical conclusion on the reasons behind the push for digital. This blogger questions why both the federal and state governments are pushing digital materials so hard and finds the answer in big business. He says he wants to believe that all the legislation is about making things better for students, but is concerned it’s just about money for publishers.

“The thing is, if my conclusion about how digital textbooks got so hot so fast (is right), then it raises serious doubts as to whether they really have so many virtues,” writes Nate Hoffelder. “What if all the supposed advantages of digital textbooks are really the invention of a sophisticated marketing department and not the observations of enthusiastic adopters?”

Clearly, these are very different points of view. So what’s your thoughts?

Are Libraries Latest Threat to e-Booksellers?

Amazon has been the Goliath of the e-book battleground. Booksellers, publishers, authors, and libraries have all taken turns bemoaning the buying power and aggressive price strategy employed by the Seattle company. But that notion may not be correct any longer, according to Chris Rechtsteiner, blogger and publisher of the weekly newsletter Thinking Out Loud, who suggested four months ago that libraries were the real threat to e-book sales.

Now, Rechtsteiner, who is also the founder and chief strategist for research firm BlueLoop Concepts, says people simply not reading is now the biggest challenge facing booksellers, publishers, and libraries. They’re not reading because there are so many low-cost alternatives to capture their attention, whether accessed via television, tablet, or smartphone.

In a recent post for digitalbookworld.com, he speculated that libraries have dealt with the issue of people not reading for quite some time and have been forced to adapt more quickly. Creating programs to lend e-books and e-readers is the sort of innovation booksellers and publishers have not been doing with the same sense of urgency.

Booksellers and authors are trying, but need help from publishers, according to Rechtsteiner.

“Publishers (both old and new) must step up and provide the platforms (and rights-management frameworks) for innovation needed by booksellers (all types of booksellers) and authors to push reading forward,” he wrote. “If they don’t, publishers will fall by the wayside as true innovation will be limited to a few (one?) large players investing on their own behalf (see Amazon, Barnes & Noble + Microsoft), while authors take their storytelling to completely new platforms that are altogether outside of the bookselling and library frameworks.”

Cool Hardware Won't Win Educational Tablet War

There’s little debate about the potential electronic devices have in the realm of learning. The problem comes in realizing that potential, says to Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of Rafter, the parent company of BookRenter.com, in this guest post written for Forbes.com.

Cost is one large stumbling block to reaching that potential. At this point, the cost of the device and the educational content assigned doesn’t ensure a savings for students compared to printed textbooks, which is a primary reason why e-books remain less than 5% of all textbook sales.

There is also the issue of supporting the device and getting educators to use digital content effectively.

“Simply putting digital books on a device is not enough to truly digitalize education,” Maghsoodnia writes. “In order to make real inroads at colleges and universities, devices must be accessible for students, and adopted by their professors and administrators.”

Becoming the device of choice for education will not be a race to the coolest features or content. It will be a race to solve the problems of cost and scale to help institutions find their way into the digital future, according to Maghsoodnia.

Amazon Turns its Sights on High Fashion

Chances are this is the first, and last, time high fashion will be discussed on this blog. But it’s a story that bears watching since Amazon is using its “go big and spare no expense” philosophy on the fashion industry.

“It has the latitude to set prices and charge whatever it wants,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for Forrester Research, said of Amazon in The New York Times. “That is a huge threat for brands.”

Sound familiar?

Amazon’s investment of millions into high-end fashion has the potential for much higher gross profit dollars per unit than books or CDs. The company is hiring photographers to produce 3,000 images a day for shoppers to browse. It’s also offering free shipping and returns on apparel to attract online customers to its online storefront. Amazon is working to recruit high-end fashion firms, such as Michael Kors, and was even a sponsor for the Costume Institute Benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Many in the industry worry they will not be able to compete with Amazon’s purchasing power and its willingness to undercut traditional retail markups. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo has said his firm will not take the low-price approach it’s used to disrupt other industries on its high-fashion project, but most are unconvinced.

“A manufacturer does not want to kill a business, and the best way to kill a business is to have the same product selling for less on Amazon,” said Ron Friedman, a retail accountant at Marcum LLP.

Incorrect Metadata Is An Issue for Publishers

Publishers understand the information about their e-books, such as author, title, and ISBN number, needs to be right. But, new Book Industry Study Group findings show that 95% of the metadata publishers use on their e-book titles is incorrect by the time it reaches the point of sales of online booksellers.

The research shows nearly half of the responding publishers use an automated system to check if their metadata on an online site is correct. A third check manually, while a fifth don’t bother to check their information at all. The study also suggests that when publishers are aware their metadata has been changed, about half have no idea where the change has occurred.

“When something is wrong at retail, it can be hard to fix because it isn’t clear where the change took place,” said Brian O’Leary of digital publishing consultancy Magellan Media, who is authoring the study. “If you don’t fix it at the source, it keeps coming back.”

E-Book Nation

This very cool infographic about the shift from print to digital reading material appeared at Online University.com. Scroll down to find who those e-consumers are, along with statistical information on e-reading habits. Americans seem to like e-readers when they want a book quickly, but still prefer print when reading to their kids or sharing the title.

Brought to you by: OnlineUniversities.com

Interest Builds in IU's eText Initiative

A used-textbook market, piracy, and students opting to not buy assigned course materials are issues the Indiana University is addressing with its eText initiative. The solution IU created negotiates deep discounts on textbook list prices from publishers in return for a guarantee that every student will buy the e-text.

The system appears to be working, according to Nik Osborne, chief of staff for IU’s office of the vice president for IT, in this Q&A with Campus Technology. He said he believes the program saves students money and allows publishers and authors a fair price for their work. Other universities around the country are showing interest in setting up a similar NET+ service that provide McGraw-Hill e-texts, Courseload readers, and a platform to add notes, combined with their learning management system.

“We're pretty sure that a shift to digital and print is going to happen,” Osborne said. “It seems to be where the publishers are going. It seems to be where the Department of Education is trying to push people, as the software and the devices get better. There are just going to be things in the next three to five years that you can do on an e-text that you can't do on a textbook. Not only in higher education but in the K-12 market there's going to be even more of a push to digital.”

The college store is not part of Osborne’s equation. Store professionals should be exploring every possible way to leverage their expertise in course material adoptions, coursepacks, retailing electronics, and delivering print-on-demand options to become part of the discussion.

Blogger Wonders What's the Rush to E-Text?

It's probably shouldn't be a surprise that students aren’t flocking to electronic textbooks. After all, most have been handed print textbooks at the beginning of every school year for most of their academic lives. Besides, they are consumers who tend to look for low price first, and e-textbooks don’t always offer much savings.

Now, Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, weighs in on the subject on his blog. He observes that while popular e-books are written in a narrative style and are read for pleasure, textbooks deal with difficult material that is being read to learn and remember.

Willingham points to research which shows that while all the videos and hyperlinks that e-texts are able to provide can certainly be an advantage to students, they can also be a distractions that actually limit understanding.

He’s not trying to suggest there’s no reason to replace the printed format. He’s just asking what the rush is.

Sony Courting Higher Ed Market

Sony Electronics is making its pitch to the higher education market with its Sony Digital Academy, a partnership with nine institutions to “foster and fuel innovative approaches and facilitate new expressive applications of digital media technologies,” according to the Sony press release.

The nine schools participating in the initial stage of the program developed digital projects for the upcoming year which Sony will support with camcorders, computers, cameras, and its tablet device. The schools are:

• American University, School of Communication, Washington, D.C.
• Drexel University, Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Philadelphia, PA      
• New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, New York
• School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
• The Florida State University, College of Motion Picture Arts, Tallahassee
• UCLA, School of Theater, Film and Television, Los Angeles
• UC San Diego, Division of Arts and Humanities
• University of Central Florida, College of Arts & Humanities, Orlando
• University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles

"The program is designed to expose students to the latest Sony technologies and equipment, building on mutually beneficial goals, in order to help education to stay ahead of the curve and evolve with the ever-changing landscape of technologies," said Steve Zimmer, business development manager at Sony Electronics. "There is a shared commitment and investment with the schools and we will help facilitate the development of production, research and curriculum with new Sony products."

Harvard, MIT Partner on edX

Following on the heels of the MITx online learning project launched last December, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has teamed with its Cambridge, MA, neighbor, Harvard University, to launch a new nonprofit partnership offering free online courses from both schools.

The project, know as edX, is the latest venture into the world of massively open online courses, or MOOCs. Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan announced in April their partnership with Coursera, a for-profit company that started with Stanford’s experiments in offering free online courses.

“Through this partnership, we will not only make knowledge more available, but we will learn more about learning," Harvard President Drew Faust said at a news conference on edX. “Anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can have access."

MIT and Harvard have each committed $30 million to the project, which will offer its first five courses in the fall. The courses will be free and certificates will be available on completion with no college credits. EdX classes will not only focus on engineering, math, and the sciences, but also include humanities subjects that require grading by peers or essay-grading software.

According to the edX web site, the platform is based on MITx, which offered video lessons, embedded testing, real-time feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, and student-paced learning.

“If I were president of a midtier university, I would be looking over my shoulder very nervously right now, because if a leading university offers a free circuits course, it becomes a real question whether other universities need to develop a circuits course,” said George Siemens in a New York Times article. Siemens is a MOOC innovator teaching at Athabasca University, a Canadian school that offers distance online education. 

TED to the Rescue

TED (technology, entertainment, design) is coming to the aid of teachers who want to use the educational resources on YouTube in their classrooms. TED, a nonprofit organization that promotes ideas through conferences and free online video, has developed a web site that helps instructors find educational videos and provides a tool for “flipping” them.

“Flipping” refers to a blended learning method that makes use of technology to allow instructors more time to interact with students rather than lecture. Students are encouraged to move around the room, helping each other, while teacher-created videos keep the lesson going outside the classroom.

The new site, the second part of an effort called TED-Ed, is a portal that organizes the videos by themes and tags them to traditional subjects taught in school. The site also offers additional material, including multiple-choice questions, open-answer questions, and links to more information.

The site allows instructors to “flip” the videos, or edit them in a way that customizes the lesson. Each flipped video creates a web link for the instructor to distribute the lesson and track student answers.

There’s also a special tool that allows teachers to create a lesson from any video on YouTube that permits third-party embedding. These enhanced videos can be offered for wider distribution and the best will be featured on the TED-Ed site.

“We didn’t want to limit what people might want to use to teach,” Long Smalley, TED-Ed director, said in an article that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Breathing Room for B&N in Microsoft Deal

The partnership between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft is providing the bookseller with an infusion of capital it needs and the software giant with the foothold in the e-book and college textbook market it wants.

The deal calls for a new B&N subsidiary formed by spinning its digital and B&N College Booksellers divisions together into a new company, temporarily named Newco. Microsoft is investing $300 million into Newco for a 17.6% equity stake.

The infusion of money will allow B&N to grow its e-book business, while at the same time fending off shareholder calls for it to sell the Nook business or the whole company. In addition, it ends speculation that B&N doesn’t have the funds to go head to head with Amazon.com in the e-book business.

“Our biggest concern for Barnes & Noble has been its ability to compete against Apple and Amazon, two of the deepest-pocketed players in the technology and media world,” said Matthew Fassler, a Goldman Sachs analyst. “Newco now has an equally deep-pocketed partner.”

The investment also gives Microsoft a path into the e-book business and a presence on college campuses to compete with Apple. It was reported that a Nook app for the Windows 8 operating system would be developed, but B&N CEO William Lynch told Forbes that the only plan at this moment is to embed NFC chips into the device.

The deal should also give consumers greater confidence in the Nook, according to David Carnoy, executive editor at CNET News. Speculation about the future of B&N had Nook readers wondering about the titles they’ve purchased and if those would vanish if the company were to fail. But Microsoft’s willingness to invest millions means the Nook will remain.

University of Minnesota Launches Online Open Text Catalog

An issue facing open educational resources (OER) is having a collection of open-content textbooks in one, easy-to-use site. The University of Minnesota is doing its part, recently launching Open Academics textbook catalog that allows students to read textbooks online for free or order a printed version for a nominal fee.

The site has 90 open-license titles available from the school’s largest entry-level courses. It also lists reviewed texts and awards a stipend to faculty members who review or adopt an open book.

“Faculty share student concerns about high textbook costs and are willing to consider high-quality, affordable alternatives like open textbooks,” said Irene Durancyzk, associate professor of the College of Education and Human Development at the university.

The hope of the Minnesota project is to attract not only the tech-savvy instructors, but all faculty members looking to lower the cost of adopted textbooks. OnCampus Research’s Student Watch 2012: Student Attitudes and Perceptions found that 52% of students responding did not buy at least one of their required textbooks for the fall 2011 semester and price was the main reason for the majority of those students.

“High textbook costs are one of the many factors that are contributing to the increasing financial burden that students are facing,” said Lizzy Shay, the undergraduate student body president at Minnesota. “Affordable open textbooks would go a long way in relieving that burden.”

OpenStax Helps Steamline Open Ed

It seems there’s news of another open education resource (OER) initiative every other day. All show promise at providing students with quality material at little or no cost. Now, Rice University has launched its OpenStaxCollege program to make the process easier for students and faculty.

“We realized that if the open ed movement was ever going to go mainstream, it needed to cross this chasm, and it needed to evolve in a way that isn’t just focused on sharing,” said Richard Baraniuk, the Rice professor who founded the open education initiative Connexion, in Campus Technology. “There needs to be a focus on creating quality, turnkey, adoptable solutions.”

The answer to Baraniuk is free materials written by professional content developers, that go through peer and classroom review, and include ancillary items such as PowerPoint presentations, tests, and homework keys. Faculty using the materials are urged to report errors they can be constantly updated and can customize the information to suit their needs.

“The problem is that there’s not enough open ed recourses in people’s hands yet,” he said. “We first need to get books into people’s hands; then we can get faculty on board with customizing their books. Ultimately, we’ll be moving from a world of better access and cheaper materials to a world of vastly improved learning outcomes.”

Merging Content Approaches Can Lower Textbook Costs

College stores know all too well that students complain about the prices of textbooks. They’ve been doing it for years, but the noise has gotten much louder over the last decade—so loud that state and national legislators keep churning out laws and regulations in an effort to provide solutions.

Advances in technology have only increased the amount of criticism because most assumed that digital would automatically reduce costs. It hasn’t turned out that way because those assumptions never considered the price of content, according to Caroline Vanderlip, CEO of SharedBook Inc., in this Inside Higher Education essay. The prices have students staying away from digital format, when the cost is nearly the same as the printed version and rental is available as an option.

Some see potential in open educational resources to lower costs, but there’s work to be done in developing a system that delivers both the “free and open” OER content and commercially produced materials to students.

Vanderlip says merging traditional and free content has the best chance to make a quick impact on textbook pricing. Such merging would allow students to purchase only the material an instructor deems necessary, which would lower costs regardless of the format.
 

Readers Browsing Library E-Book Catalogs in Drives

Studies continue to show that college students have yet to warm up to e-textbooks.

That’s not necessarily the case for the general reading public, according to the Big Data report released at the London Book Fair by OverDrive. In the study, the distributor of e-books, digital audiobooks, music, and video found that more than five million visitors browsed its catalogs in libraries around the world. The catalogs logged more than 408,000 visits each day, with viewers looking at 11.6 pages for an average of nine minutes, 34 seconds.

According to the study, nighttime is the right time for browsing, with the 8-9 p.m. window the most popular hour, followed by the 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. windows. Nearly half of all e-book readers (49%) did their browsing on Windows computers. Apple iOS devices, such as iPhones and iPads, were a strong second at 28% of users, with Android devices used by just 5% of visitors.

“This report gives a sample overview of the type of data we’re collecting, and we’ll customize future reports to meet the individual needs of our library and publisher partners,” said Michael Lovett, an OverDrive spokesperson. 

Print Preferred by College Instructors

Students are not the only ones on campus reluctant to embrace digital course materials. A new study from the Book Industry Study Group and Bowker Market Research found that print is the format of choice for faculty as well as for students.

In Faculty Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education, a survey of college faculty perceptions on classroom materials, 93% of the instructors surveyed equated success in the classroom to use of assigned materials. However, only 32% of faculty make e-book options available and just 2% of students select that format.

Comparing the faculty survey with BISG’s Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education survey shows just 12% of faculty prefer digital to print, while 16% of students would choose electronic options. The faculty research also suggests a high level of satisfaction with e-textbooks once they are adopted. Of the 20% of faculty members who reported using digital course materials, 90% said they were likely to adopt an e-text in the future.

“The emergence of e-books has led to a lot of confusion in the marketplace about what faculty want from publishers,” said Angela Bole, BISG’s deputy executive director. “While students may be the ultimate consumers of course materials, professors are not only influencers, they are decision-makers. Understanding where they fit on the e- vs. print continuum is essential for any organization serving this market.”

Lexington Passes New "E-Literacy" Test

Priceonomics, a San Francisco online firm that offers price-searching and price comparisons, recently posted on its site results of its “e-literacy” study in the United States.

It turns out that Lexington, KY, and Ann Arbor, MI, are the “most electronically literate places in America,” based on Priceonomics’ database of eight million electronics for sale by city. The company looked at the sales figures of Amazon Kindles in each city, then found the results didn’t change when sales of the Nook e-reader were examined. The data also suggest dedicated e-readers are not a big part in the total landscape of consumer electronics and sales of the Kindle barely register on the resale market that Priceonomics tracks.

One thing that did stand out was that major metropolitan cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, were soundly beaten by midsized cities in the Midwest and South when it comes to e-literacy.

Washington, D.C., was the largest city in the Top 10. Washington was also named the most literate city in America for the second straight year in a study released earlier this year by Central Connecticut State University. The CCSU research was based on very different criteria, including data on the number of bookstores, library resources, newspaper circulations, and Internet resources for each city. Seattle finished second in the CCSU study, compared to a distant 43rd in the Priceonomics data.

College towns also appear to have an edge when it comes to Kindle ownership, while the Kindle was the least popular in places with the best weather. That brings to mind the old adage about statistics: They can mean pretty much anything you like. 

Stores Need Ways to Join E-Text Discussion

Educause added to its “7 Things You Should Know About…” series, this time focusing on the evolution of textbooks. The PDF offers the scenario of an art teacher who receives help creating “textbooks” that are animated and interactive. The brochure discusses the many new ways to craft an interactive book and the implications this type of resource has for teaching and learning.

A number of colleges and universities have already begun exploring some of the many tools now available for creating media-rich formats for both iOS and Android devices. Boston College, the University of New Mexico, and English students at Montclair State University are all working on iBooks Author projects. Instructional technologists at Chatham University are designing a text on the Vook platform, while those at Michigan State University are developing open-source options on an HTML5 framework.

College stores appear to remain largely out of the loop so far, but Services is one of the four core retail requirements of the College Store of 2015 and a possible way for stores to become part of the interactive textbook discussion. Store staffers can become the go-to sources on campus for things such as technology. Take the time to understand how these online publishing tools work and offer that expertise to faculty.

Legal Experts Question Antitrust Claims Against Apple

After weeks of hints, the U.S. Department of Justice finally brought antitrust charges against Apple and the publishing industry over the agency pricing model for electronic books. Apple, Macmillan, and the Penguin Group were hit with lawsuits April 11 claiming they conspired to raise retail e-book prices and limit competition in the market. The DOJ also announced it had settled the same complaint with Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster.

Then on April 18, the Toronto Globe & Mail reported a class action suit is being filed in British Columbia charging Apple, the publishing companies, and their Canadian subsidiaries of fixing e-book pricing.

The complaints have caused a predictable stir around the industry. Some argue that agency pricing forces consumers to pay more for their e-books than necessary. Others claim the pricing model actually created competition and the DOJ move only makes it easier for Amazon to finish off its opposition, namely the other publishers and booksellers big and small.

Amazon has been pretty quiet about the whole thing, although it has announced a new round of aggressive price cuts on e-book titles. That has many predicting a new round of doom-and-gloom for booksellers, as well as the suggestion it might ultimately lead to a DOJ investigation into monopoly claims against the retail giant.

The really interesting twist to the current debate is experts saying Apple will likely win its part of the case.

“The case against Apple will be more difficult to prove given that Apple was a new competitive entrant into that market and was trying to find a way to compete with a dominant market player, Amazon,” attorney David Vance Lucas told MacNewsWorld. “Apple’s attempt to enter the market actually was pro-competitive, long term.”

Apple also appears to have legal precedents on its side and wants its day in court. The DOJ had to admit its 1982 antitrust case against IBM was “without merit” and federal appeals courts ruled against the DOJ when it tried to use antitrust laws to split Microsoft into two companies.

“The DOJ knows its case is not a slam-dunk, so, all things being equal, might very well prefer not to go to court, so you would expect there to be continued discussions between the holdout publishers, Apple and the DOJ over terms of settlement they could all accept,” said Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law and Economics.

One question remains: What does this all mean to the average reader?

First, e-book readers will likely see lower prices, but probably not until June, the earliest that the DOJ settlement with Simons & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins can go into effect, according to an article in paidcontent.org. In addition, all the legal sparring does not mean an end to agency pricing because the model was not declared illegal, just the way it was created.

Back on Track

It took a bit longer than planned, but the hiatus for The CITE is over.

Mark Nelson gave his reasons why he was passing the blog he created over to the publications team of the National Association of College Stores in this space yesterday. The publications team has helped Mark in the past and looks forward to keeping this blog useful to its readers. But taking over is quite a responsibility, especially considering the thousands of visitors who have made it one of the top textbook blogs over the last four years.

Cindy Ruckman, publications director; Michael von Glahn, editor of The College Store magazine; Dan Pender, news editor of Campus Marketplace, the e-newsletter of NACS; and Dan Angelo, assistant editor, will all post to the blog. Mark will continue to contribute as time allows and the mood strikes.

Our focus will be on information and ideas to serve our NACS members. Our hope is that those reports will continue to be of interest to all readers of The CITE. We encourage you to participate with your comments and suggestions, and look forward to your feedback and ideas that will help us better serve your needs.

Passing the Torch

Hi Everyone,

Let me begin by saying thank you to all of the regular and occasional readers of this blog.  The CITE turns 4 this week, and in the past 4 years we have had 1240 posts, and more than 73,000 visitors from 175 different countries.  We received recogition as being among the top textbook blogs, and I have appreciated the many kind emails and comments people have shared with me about how they enjoy reading The CITE. 

When the blog began, there was little news and discussion out there about the future of course materials.  Now that discussion appears to be everywhere, and new informational items come out a few times a day. It is hard for anyone to deny that that the transition is underway.

As the volume of activity increases, I have found it increasingly dificult to keep up with blog posts on a regular basis.  Thus, I have decided that it is time to "pass the torch" and step down from managing The CITE. 

Within the near future the NACS publication team will take over as owners of the CITE.  They have an excellent staff of writers and they follow developments in this space quite effectively.  They will ensure that The CITE remains a useful resource for folks looking to understand or have awareness of the latest course material and retail technology innovations. I am sure the blog will continue to be as good -- and most likely even better -- under their ownership. 

It has been a great four years and I hope this resource has been valuable to many of you.  Thank you again for your continued readership. 

Keep innovating!
Mark

Temporary Hiatus

Hi everyone,

Due to some staffing changes and heavier than usual travel this month, I need to put The CITE on hiatus for 1-2 weeks.  There are many interesting things going on and I have some topics queued up. Hopefully posting will resume again early in April.

Thanks,
M

OER Search Engine- Gooru

If there is a recognized problem out there you can bet that someone is working on a solution.  Often people dismiss new technologies or solutions because of their initial shortcomings compared to traditional products.  However, over time those solutions can build market share and momentum as various problems or challenges get addressed.

This seems to be case for the OER movement.  For example, initially there was no way to gauge how good OER materials were, and variability in quality was a challenge.  To address this challenge we see innovations like the Connexions peer review model, or the OER Evaluation Tool  released by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) last November.  As these and related innovations take hold, a key challenge to OER viability decreases.

Another barier to OER adoption is that the search and discovery process for OER materials is timing consuming and confusing.  Initiatives like MERLOT have attempted to address this problem in the past.  Now, there is another solution for this problem. Search engine Gooru has organized OER resources into easy-to-locate categories and collections to helps educators and students more easily find materials online, according to this article in eClassroom News.   

“Anyone can now easily search for resources, collections, or quizzes; study individual resources or entire collections; practice with an adaptive assessment system; interact with peers or teachers; and save and customize their favorite learning materials,” the article states. 

The story says that more than 5,000 invited students and teachers currently use the resource, and all schools, students, and teachers will have access to it beginning in June.

Right now, these tools are mostly used in K-12 education and have not gained a lot of momentum on college campuses, at least not yet.  It is only a matter of time, however, before these and other innovations reduce barriers to OER adoption in higher education. 

For the OER movement, as a piece of advice, remember that value is not determined by price alone.  There are barriers to OER adoption, and just making more content available for free does not effectively address some of the underlying fundamental challenges to the adoption of this approach.  Perhaps more emphasis should be placed on the long-term sustainability of OER approaches, improving quality, ensuring accessibility compliance, and other barriers to adoption.  If those problems can be solved effectively, then it might make more sense to continue expanding content offerings.  The OER movement weakens its own effectiveness by failing to resolve key barriers to adoption.

For stores, expect that developments like Gooru, Connexions, and others will change the presence and "adoptibility" of OER content for course use.  While OER may not be having a significant effect on adoption now, it is important to track the evolution of these tools, become familiar with OER terminology and resources, and engage with the OER community where we can.

Encyclopedia Britannica stops its press after 244 years

The digital revolution takes another bite out of popular print medium.  Encyclopedia Britannica announced that after 244 years, it will put an end to the print edition and be available only in digital form, according to this CNN story.

Encyclopedia Britannica has been in print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768.  It will no longer be available when the current copies run out. The Chicago-based company will continue to offer digital versions for subscribers, as well as educational products (online learning tools, curriculum products, etc.) which comprise the majority of the company's business today.

"This has nothing to do with Wikipedia or Google," Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. President Jorge Cauz said. "This has to do with the fact that now Britannica sells its digital products to a large number of people.  The sales of printed encyclopedias have been negligible for several years," Cauz said. "We knew this was going to come." 

The final hardcover encyclopedia set is available for sale at Britannica's website for $1,395.  The company plans to mark the end of the print version by making the contents of its website available free for one week, starting Tuesday, according to the article.

Print Textbook Price vs. iPad Textbook Price

An info graphic that recently appeared in MercuryNews shows that the cost of switching students’ four core courses from traditional textbooks to Apple’s new iBook 2 digital textbooks could cost school districts three times more.   Based on a classroom size of 32 students and four textbooks, including workbooks, lasting six years, the research shows that a school district would incur cost of approximately $11,328 for a traditional textbook program.  For an iPad textbook program that includes replacement of hardware after four years along with software, and e-textbooks, the cost is estimated to be $36,000.

The info graphic is a good step towards accounting for the factors that goes into the economics of e-textbook programs in K-12.  However, considering schools can resell the iPads after four years the cost for the iPad program could be much lower.  Of course, that could be off-set by replacement costs from lost, stolen, or damaged units. Nevertheless, until there is ample evidence that indicates technology such as iPads improve student’s learning, school districts should be wary about diving into a device-driven e-textbook program.   

CAMEX follow-up

I apologize for the absence of blog posts in the past week. CAMEX was even busier than usual, and I will likely be digging out for the next few weeks yet.  Much continues to happen though, and as I promised some attendees, I will put together a brief, 1-page summary of highlights from my CAMEX digital update session. 

NMS had a lot of activity at CAMEX around our three major initiatives:  Regional POD, Community-based self-publishing, and Grow Custom.  More information on each of those initiatives for members is available on the NMS website and will be forthcoming in the months ahead.

CAMEX 2012 is past, but plans are already in the work for CAMEX 2013.  We are planning a highlight around the future of course materials -- so if you are interested or involved with course materials, plan to be in Kansas City for CAMEX 2013!  Much more news to come... but for now, back to regular posts.

Developing a Digital Textbook Strategy

The videos from the Developing a Digital Textbook Strategy for Your Campus symposium hosted on Feb. 8, 2012 by the Florida Distance Learning Consortium are now available in YouTube, accessible from the Open Access Textbooks Project website, and will soon be added to The Orange Grove repository. Also available on the Open Access Textbooks Project website are presentations, implementation checklists for state and institutional textbook initiatives, publisher and vendor handouts, as well as other symposium documents.

Open Education Week: March 5-10-2012

March 5-10 is Open Education Week where people around the world will participate in local events to increase awareness and understanding about the open education movement and open educational resources.  Advocates for open education can be involved in the following ways:

1.       Provide a pre-recorded informational virtual tour of your project, work, or organization.

2.       Offer a webinar.

3.       Pre-record a presentation on open education concepts.

4.       Create or share text-based, downloadable information.

5.       Sponsor or host a local event during the week of March 5-10.

For more information on what is happening around the world and in your local communities please go to http://www.openeducationweek.org/

March 4-10 is Read an E-Book Week

The Chase Calendar of Events recognizes March 4-10 as “Read an E-book Week.”  This week is to promote and engage in events that encourage reading with an emphasis on reading e-books, worldwide.  The events are supported by authors, publishers, manufacturers, distributors and retail outlets around the globe.  Read an E-Book Week encourages people to educate and inform the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically through events that can include: public readings, library displays, reading challenges, school visits, newspaper and blog articles, chat show appearances, internet radio interviews, e-book giveaways, and banners on your website.  To learn and read more about Read an E-Book Week please visit this site http://www.ebookweek.com/

Canadians declare March to be "Read an E-book Month"

The Canadian Parliament passed a motion declaring the month of March “Read an E-Book Month.”

The Order reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) recognize that the ePublishing industry has created economic opportunities for entrepreneurs, authors, publishers and e-reader manufacturers; (b) recognize that e-books present significant benefits for seniors and children; (c) recognize that e-books are an environmentally-friendly alternative to books; (d) declare the month of March as "Read an E-book Month"; (e) support the goals and ideals of "Read an E-book Month; and (f) encourage Canadians to observe "Read an E-book Month".

Canadians are leading the world in promoting e-books by recognizing not only the benefits to the readers and the environment but also sees e-books as opportunity for economic development for Canada.  This is something that is not emphasized enough in the U.S. and it is something that book retailers should recognize.  That is, there are new ventures that are being established in this industry and retailers should be thinking about ways to work with these potential partners.

Grow Custom: Symtext

CAMEX starts today with the launch of education, and we have our most recent sponsor of the Grow Custom Initiative to announce.  Symtext (CAMEX Booth 6924) has also joined in sponsorship of the Grow Custom Initiative.  Enjoy CAMEX, please stop by the NMS area of the Opportunity Hub to learn more about the Grow Custom initiative and visit our sponsors.

What do you see as the future of custom course materials?

I think we still underestimate the future impact of custom. Every major trend and technological development points toward a growth in custom as a share of the overall market. We aren't looking at a simple transposition of print custom (e.g., coursepacks) to digital but rather a major market shift toward digital custom learning materials. This is driven by everything from devices (which are profoundly altering the nature of demand for learning materials) to publishing processes. The barriers are coming down; we should see more custom business as an overall percentage of the market. Educators, as they realize just how simple it is to produce multi-publisher, multi-format custom learning materials, are moving toward custom in greater numbers. That said, we also underestimate the technical and business requirements of providing a custom digital learning materials experience. It is not enough to offer downloadable PDFs, for instance; the requirement for digital custom learning materials is that they be "always on", device neutral, and social. This creates a set of technical and business challenges that aren't easy to overcome.

What role do you see for stores with custom course materials in the future?

Upon initial examination, the e-textbook market seems a hard one to win for campus stores. The obvious threat is one of disintermediation, driven by low prices and ease of access to e-textbooks. But custom learning materials are different. In many cases, "some assembly required" is the norm, given that many faculty want help and support sourcing, assembling, and distributing learning materials into the classroom. This represents an enormous opportunity for campus stores. It is also the antidote to low cost generic e-textbooks: the campus store can add tremendous value by acting as the assembly, commerce and data hub for custom digital learning materials. The opportunity is at hand to take on a strategic role in learning materials content management -- and, again, the commerce and data that comes along with it -- which includes critical roles in the assembly and distribution of custom digital learning materials. What's needed is more than just a means of delivering custom materials on a course by course basis, but rather a custom digital learning materials platform: a universal solution to a fast growing opportunity.

What makes your product or service unique?  What products or services do you offer in this space?

The Liquid Textbook platform is used by schools -- via the campus store -- to deliver:

• The ideal mix of chapters, cases, videos, presentation materials, links etc., for every course. Content may include fee-based, open, and self-authored learning materials. All materials are fully rights managed, and supported by our authentication, e-commerce and royalty payment processes.
• Cloud-based, device neutral, HTML5 custom learning materials. Liquid Textbooks are not tied to a specific device, and are not dependent upon installing and managing software. It's an always-on, stable, secure, and truly online learning experience built around perfectly customized learning materials.
• Social learning. There are Liquid Textbook applications for online, offline, and device use which are all synchronized in real time: annotations, comments or self-authored materials may be added and which appear immediately to all users regardless of the device they are using.
• An ever increasing set of easy-to-use tools for campus stores. Building Liquid Textbooks is simple, but we can also add support for custom branding, Learning Management System integration, custom metrics, distribution for faculty authored learning materials, the inclusion of materials from electronic reserves and more. We can integrate with campus store online purchasing, and create unique versions of Liquid Textbooks for each section of a course. Materials may be added during the course itself to create a truly responsive, fluid learning experience. We can even offer differentiated pricing for students taking the same class, which is often a billing headache for schools to solve.
• Personalized training and support. While the platform itself is easy to use, Symtext provides both technical and business support, so that there is always someone to call, and someone to help you get started.
• Integration into Print on Demand services.
• High rates of purchase. We have proven that custom digital learning materials, built to be device neutral and social, maintain their rates of purchase term over term.

Who should stores contact for more information? 

Ian Barker: ian@symtext.com, or via Twitter @irbarker.

Follett's prediction of digital learning

Follett Higher Education group recently published a white paper titled “Are Textbooks Dead?” that assesses the evolution of course materials and the future of digital learning.   This is a must read for everyone involved in the course materials business.  Here are some quotes and highlights of the paper that are consistent with the messages of this blog for the past few years.

“As the campus appetite for digital materials increases, it stands to reason that publishers and providers will concentrate first on evolving a select group of textbooks because they are most widely used and produce the most revenue.”

i.e., large adoptions will move to digital first because of economies of scale and effect. 

Follett predicts that there will be two paths for digital: Native Digital and Enhanced Print.  We have traditionally referred to Native Digital as "born digital," but agree that Follett's labeling in this report is more consistent with the more common terminology that has evolved.  Enhanced Print takes the "PDF-equivalent" digital and "enhances" it with multimedia or other elements.  Inkling textbooks might be an example in this category.  From there, Follett has some interesting discussion within the report.  For example, their comparison of the two paths:

Native Digital

PACE OF GROWTH:  Faster

DISCIPLINES: Problem-based with linear learning

PURCHASE DECISION: Faculty select

BENEFITS: Better student performance; Engagement and retention; Adaptive learning;

Enhance Print

PACE OF GROWTH: Slower

DISCIPLINES: Theory-based with conceptual learning

PURCHASE DECISION: Student select

BENEFITS: Efficiency; Cost and social learning with ability to share notes and link to additional resources

Within the paper Follett provides their prediction for how course materials will evolve. The report provides an interesting table outlining the evolution, along with several other great charts and graphs.  Finally, in the report Follett proposes seven key considerations for decision makers on campus:

1. Develop a strategy to address issues surfacing as course materials evolve from print to digital. 
2. Give key stakeholders a chance to bring their ideas and concerns into the decision-making process, a collaboration that offers the best prospect for practical solutions and long-term success.
3. Consider IT support when making digital course material choices – both how the material might work in conjunction with existing campus technology and also how much time students and faculty will require to become familiar with the platform.
4. Standardize platforms and applications adopted and used by faculty and students, minimizing IT support and reducing learning curve.
5. Take advantage of the campus bookstore’s ability to leverage established relationships with publishers, soliciting and vetting faculty adoptions, then aggregating and making them conveniently available.
6. Guard against quickly adopting technology because of pressure from industry “noise.”
7. Be willing to relinquish the past.

 A very solid set of recommendations and advice, consistent with our prior recommendations.  The Follett report should definitely be on every store's reading list as they prepare and engage in their course materials strategy discussion.