Results Should be Interesting from Expanded E-Text Pilot

The results from the first round of the e-textbook pilot program from Internet2 and Educause showed students liked the savings and portability of digital content, but weren’t as thrilled with the reading experience or the fact that instructors often failed to use collaborative features built into the platform.

This fall, the program has been expanded from the original five schools to 26 nationwide, with each paying between $20,000 and $35,000 to collect feedback from the fall 2012 semester. While the 2012 pilots use McGraw-Hill Education e-titles on the Courseload software platform to replace paper books, Internet2 and Educause are planning a new test next year using multiple platforms and publishers.

“It’s important for higher education and, most importantly, for students to have options going forward,” said Shel Waggener, senior vice president for Internet2, in a Center for Digital Education article. “Now, we have the option to rethink the integration of content with the pedagogy with collaboration between students in very new ways.”

The pilots provide a way for the industry to work out issues such as accessibility, according to Waggener, who encourages other universities to jump on the e-textbook bandwagon.

“Universities should not sit on the sidelines and wait for this to become resolved because resolution is not going to be absolute; it’s going to be a continuum, and we all need to have a stake in the game to influence the outcomes,” he said.

Weggener acknowledged the college store in his “do and don’t” list in a blog post at Educause Review Online. Even though the reference is a “don’t,” his suggestions providesome thoughts stores might want to focus on. Since stores are not often invited to participate and more than half of the institutions in the fall 2012 pilot have independent campus stores, collegiate retailers need to find ways to be part of the discussion.

MHE Offering LearnSmart Directly to Students

McGraw-Hill Education announced plans to make its LearnSmart adaptive learning program available directly to students in time for fall 2012 classes. The plan, an effort to open new revenue streams for the company, is the first time MHE has marketed and sold technology directly to students.

“Making these study tools available directly to students—and their parents who want to help them succeed—signals a new era for our business as we work to ensure that more students are getting the most out of their college education,” Brian Kibby, president, McGraw-Hill Education, said in a press release.

Use of LearnSmart has grown to more than 40 introductory courses since it was introduced in 2007, with MHE reporting more than 800,000 students use it to answer questions each day. But many college store professionals view publishers bypassing them in favor of selling directly to students as a threat instead of just “good business” on the part of the publisher, according to Mark Nelson, chief information officer of NACS and vice president of NACS Media Solutions.

“On one level, it is a threat, but if stores were providing sufficient value to publishers, particularly on the digital side, the publishers would have no need to go around the stores,” he said. “Stores have good mechanisms when it comes to print, but their mechanisms for handling new business models and technologies are inadequate.”

Another issue is that MHE plans to continue to sell the product in campus stores as part of the McGraw-Hill Connect online course-management platform, which combines digital learning with class materials. But rather than a call to arms, Nelson sees the news as an opportunity for stores to work with publishers to define better solutions.

“Publishers themselves would be stronger working with us,” he said. “If stores want it to stop, then they must more effectively demonstrate value. Complaining or continuing to do things the way they have always done them or resisting change does not do a whole lot to get the publishers to alter their practices.” 

Libraries as a Retail Outlet

Peter Brantley (Internet Archive) is probably one of the more interesting and vocal folks in the library community regarding digital -- at least in terms of those we hear often outside of the library space.  He has written and presented a number of interesting pieces in different forums. 

Recently on the Publisher's Weekly Blog he took some time to consider the role of the library in the future of publishing and retail, particularly given the "rental" type of model many digital options are moving toward.  He says, "The most important strategic opportunity for publishers rests where it has never before existed: in essence, considering libraries to be their best retail outlet."  Back in 2007 we forecast that libraries and college stores would have increasing potential for overlap.  Some of the points in his piece seem to reinforce that perspective.  It is also interesting (again) to hear how companies like Amazon threaten the future existance of libraries as much as they threaten many traditional retailers.  Again, the potential for collaboration between bookstores and libraries seems like one part of the solution to the challenges and options that Peter describes. 

Peter goes on to note that:

What is important in this observation is not merely the availability of an alternative: It is that the alternative is founded upon an entirely different set of economic and market criteria. What that means is that if market competition dwindles — for example, if a large bookselling chain is forced to ultimately close its doors — publishing is not left with one or two firms operating out of a commercial technology space for whom content is ancillary. Instead, they also have the ability to conduct business through a very different kind of not-for-profit collective that reaches into nearly every single community in the country — constituting a marketing and distribution model that could be replicated to a great extent internationally.

In 2007 college stores, libraries, and IT units sat down to discuss the future of content and information in our areas.  Much has changed in the last five years, and clearly each area is clearly pursuing initiatives with increasing overlap -- but unfortunately, without increasing collaboration.  If each of our areas see survival as an imperative, perhaps it is time to rejoin in conversation, and collaboration, again to pool our strengths and create a joint roadmap for the future.

Of course, we should at first note that the majority (yes, the majority as in over half) of college stores are non-profit organizations tied to the academic mission of non-profit academic institutions.  In many ways, college stores already operate as something of a non-profit collective within academic communities across the country.  Peter suggests some extensions to our traditional model, though, that are intriguing to consider and could be the basis for future store-library collaboration, that benefits publishers, libraries, retailers, and consumers.  Our related "content-with-a-purpose" missions lend us to approaching problems and solutions a bit differently, and those approaches have value.  That value, as Peter notes indirectly, partly lies in providing publishers with alternative channels as a point of leverage against what may otherwise become a fairly monopolistic set of distribution options. 

ISU Bookstore sees 2-3% increase in digital sales

Iowa State University  bookstore store saw 2-3 percent increase in e-book sales on 2011, according to this article.   However, the program director says, “the print book is not dead considering sales from 2009-2010 were about the same when the amount of sales from e-books was subtracted.”

The bookstore offers comparison shopping too where they can compare prices with Amazon and halfpricebook.com and students can purchase books from any of these competitors. “Of all the students that used these comparisons, 83 percent of them bought from the ISU Book Store,” says the Director.  Price comparison remains a good way to build trust, provide transparency, and retain or regain market share for college stores. 

Happy National Student Day!

Today is the inaugural National Student Day, a day celebrating and promoting college students’ social responsibility. More than 500 college stores across the United States and Canada are holding celebrations recognizing their students. Some of the events taking place include food drives, giveaways, and even a pet adoption. Visit the National Student Day Facebook page often over the next few weeks to see pictures of the celebrations.

Also, the National Student Day contest will close on Oct. 14 at 5pm EST. We have more than 100 stories! If you haven’t already, take a few minutes to read some of the entries as some of them are very heartwarming.

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/

Google and the e-book/e-reader market

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

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