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.

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.

Cengage's MindTap and TED enters education

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

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

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

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