Transcript The new kid on the eBlock: eTextbooksand their

The new kid on the eBlock:
eTextbooks and their implications for
learning, teaching & academic libraries
Dr Gillian Hallam
Adjunct Professor
Library & Information Science
QUT
Developments in digital textbooks and
eLearning products are fostering a paradigm
shift that is disrupting and decentralising
standard publishing models.
Overview
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Background to the study
Definitions and descriptions
Advantages and disadvantages of eTextbooks
The eTextbook market
eTextbook availability and trials
Business models
Learning in the information age
eTextbook policy & practice in Australia
Opportunities and challenges for academic libraries
Summary
Background
• Briefing paper commissioned by CAUL to examine the
current picture and evolving role of eTextbooks and
third party eLearning products in the academic arena
• Focus on:
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Industry trends
Major players
Current research, policy and practice
Different stakeholder perspectives
Implications for university libraries
• Research approach
▫ Environmental scan
▫ Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders
Stimuli for the study
• Ongoing developments in online learning
• Rapid increase in uptake of iPads, tablets and smart phones
• Growth in the acceptance of eBooks generally, and of eResources
in universities specifically
• Changing user expectations about access to academic information
• Emergence of new publishing models for:
▫ Digital textbooks
▫ Online add-ons for print textbooks
▫ Content delivery via online learning platforms
 Text, multimedia, interactive exercises & assessment activities
▫ The concept of ‘integrated education publishing’ enabling
teaching staff to:
 Repurpose digital resources
 Blend them with their own materials
 Create innovative publications that are customised to specific
learning contexts
Areas of potential impact
• Library acquisitions, purchasing and licensing
• Academic content management
• Virtual learning environments
• Curriculum development in different disciplines
• Pedagogy, approaches to learning and teaching
• Student assessment
• Academic policy
Potential impact on stakeholders
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Students
Teaching staff
Learning support
eLearning services
IT support services
Academic policy makers
Campus bookstores
Library staff (management and operations)
The wider community
So…
what is a
textbook?
So - what is a ‘textbook’?
• Supports the study of a finite subject area
• Presents a logical sequence of content that synthesises
current knowledge about the subject
• Used by educators to provide additional material
beyond the limited class time available
• Used by students as a learning aid to help them
understand and master the content of the course
• Began as textual materials, then
▫ 1980s: diagrams, illustrations, photos, graphics
▫ 1990s: additional resources – floppy discs, CDs, websites
▫ 2000s: online education, distance learning, LMS
Textbooks gradually increased in size – and price
And what is an eTextbook?
Evolution of eTextbooks
• Hybrid
▫ Print textbooks with CD-ROM insert with
supplementary digital learning materials
• Digital textbooks
▫ Replicas of print textbooks, in various formats
• Enhanced digital textbooks
▫ Delivered online as well as in eBook formats
▫ Additional tools and content, beyond being
a replica of print
• Proprietary publisher solutions
▫ Online T&L environments that integrate the
digital textbooks with flexible resources,
designed for a variety of learning styles
Changing formats of eTextbooks
• ‘Page-fidelity eTextbooks’
▫ Exact screen renderings of pages of the printed textbook, eg PDF
▫ Basic levels of functionality, eg search and annotation
• ‘Reflowable eTextbooks’
▫ Content from the print textbook, but fluid line and page breaks,
eg XML
▫ Standards:
 EPUB for trade publications
 EPUB3 for academic publishing
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Allows customisation for screen size, font size, colour etc
Can be optimised for smaller devices
Better options for visually impaired users
Offer publishers new production efficiencies and wider
distribution options
Formats cont.
• ‘eTextbooks that are media-rich, integrated, interactive –
and beyond’
▫ Generally accessible through third party platforms
▫ Increased interactivity
▫ Audio, video, 3D models, interactive pictures, built-in
quizzes etc
▫ Students can make annotations and share notes with
others, using text or multimedia
▫ Assessment tools can be integrated into the resource
▫ Tighter controls through digital rights management (DRM)
▫ Restrictive conditions re:
 ‘Borrowers’
 The amount of material accessed, copied and/or printed
What about eLearning solutions?
Third party eLearning products
• Web-based portals established by large educational
publishers for access to their own eLearning products
• Students
▫ Immersive enquiry with the content
▫ Learning through social interactions with other students
• Teachers
▫ Integrated assessment tools that allow teachers to
monitor student progress, what work has been completed,
how well it has been understood
• Adaptable learning paths
▫ Adjustments to the ordering of study units
▫ Immediate learner remediation based on assessment
results
• Pearson, Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Wiley & Macmillan
• Online environments that can be:
▫ Used as stand alone products
▫ Can be linked to companion print or digital textbook
• Key technologies (activation keys or access codes)
▫ Students log in to external websites to access
supplementary materials and assessment tasks
▫ Each student requires his own unique key
▫ If key is distributed with a print textbook, the key
cannot be on-sold as part of a secondhand book
transaction
• Latest developments – education publishers are
buying up technology companies
What is an open textbook?
Open textbooks
• Open Educational Resources (OER)
• “Teaching, learning and research resources that reside in
the public domain or have been released under an
intellectual property licence that permits their free use
or repurposing by others” (Creative Commons)
• Open content is free for all to use, and to adapt and
change as needed
• Goal of reducing the cost of textbooks, more affordable
for students
• Providing free access to high quality learning
opportunities
• Educational resources can be shared by an academic
community of practice
• Opportunities to design and collate content from a
range of sources in a variety of formats
• Can be regularly updated so they remain current and
relevant to the field of study
• Crowdsourced content: can be peer reviewed for quality
assurance
• Business models:
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Institutional funding
Grant funding
Philanthropy
Crowdfunding
Apple’s interest in education
• iPads
▫ 1.5million iPads used in educational institutions
▫ Over 20,000 educational apps
• iTunes U
▫ Used by over 1,000 universities
▫ Over 700million downloads
• iBooks Author
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eTextbook tool
Simple solution to creating own learning materials
Integration with iTunes, iPhoto, iWorks suites
Publishing via iBookstore
 Requires international ISBN, US tax ID and a bank account!
 Apple charges 30% agency fee
• Locked into iOS
By automating the compilation process
and providing a simple distribution system,
new software makes the task of creating
customised textbooks open to all academics.
It may prompt academics to fashion their
own textbooks based on material they teach,
or draw on similar compilations by colleagues,
as an extension of the reading packs familiar in
so many classrooms.
Glyn Davis, VC, The University of Melbourne
Electronic texts represent a potentially
transformative technology through the
new kinds of reading experiences that they
make possible.
Horizon Report 2011
Advantages of eTextbooks
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Portability and access
Availability
Currency
Flexibility
Navigation and readability
Interactivity
Accessibility
Costs
Digital Rights Management
Environmental factors
Disadvantages of eTextbooks
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Licence periods and restrictions
Infrastructure and equipment
Changing technology
Responsibilities
Availability of titles
Costs
User experiences
User expectations
Classroom activities
Need for new pedagogies
Personal identity
Environmental factors
Barriers to adoption
• Higher education sector is less market driven and
slower to change than the business sector
• Academic resistance to technology:
▫ Love of the printed word
▫ Conservatism → ‘Luddite stubbornness factor’
▫ Most academics are not using new technologies for learning
and teaching (nor for organizing their own research)
• Lack of understanding about appropriate pedagogies in the
digital learning environment
• Anxieties about required levels of digital media literacies
• Lack of investment in skills development
• Student preference – not all students want to live online
The highly competitive textbook market
• Progressive process of mergers and acquisitions
• A small group of major multinational companies
dominate the content and the distribution channels
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Pearson Education
Cengage Learning
McGraw-Hill Education
Macmillan Education
Wiley
An ‘interesting’ economic phenomenon
• Publishers market their products to decision makers
(academics) who are not the actual consumers who
purchase the products (students, or even parents)
• ‘Luxury items’ : not an absolutely essential, core
commodity of higher education
• They offer more than the consumer actually needs
• They cost far more than the basic requirements
merit
• Cost of textbooks rises ca 5% per annum
• Price of each new edition increases ca 12%
▫ Textbook content = 20c per page
▫ Fiction content = 6c per page
• Typical model for textbook sales for a course with 1000 students
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Year 1 of new edition: 70% of enrolment = 700 copies
Year 2 of this edition: 50% of enrolment = 500 copies
Year 3 of this edition: 20% of enrolment = 200 copies
Total = 1400 copies, compared with potential market of 3000
• Leakage:
▫ Secondhand copies, private photcopying, sharing of texts,
pirated Asian copies
▫ Access via the library
• Secondhand market has flourished at expense of the new book
market
▫ Now 50% of textbook market
• Campus bookstore markups:
▫ New books: 33%
▫ Secondhand books: 50%
• Publisher response
▫ Shorten the revision cycle of textbook editions
▫ Increase the amount of digital learning content
 Undermines the secondhand market
 But increases the overheads and reduces the profit margins further
The textbook market in Australia
• A different beast from the US market!
• More aligned with the UK market
• Greater diversity in approaches to T&L
▫ Prescribed textbook in one university course may only be a
recommended text in another, or not used at all
▫ Academics are not prescriptive in teaching a subject:
students encouraged to read widely on the topic,
especially in the arts and humanities
• Australian content required:
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Current and relevant material
Case studies
2000-2008: increase in Australian titles from 34% to 61%
A developing export market for Australian titles in Asia
The eTextbook market
The eTextbook market in the US
• 2009: total textbook market worth US$8.2 billion
• New textbooks represented 65% of the market
• eTextbooks represented 0.5% of the market
• Fall semester 2011: 1% of textbooks were digital
• Spring semester 2012: 9% of textbooks were digital
▫ Arrival of tablets increased the sales by 6% in a very
short time
• Projections: 100% increase in sales year over year
to reach 25% market share by 2015
Challenges facing publishers
• High development costs for academic textbooks,
greater for Australian titles
▫ Curation, marketing, sales and distribution
▫ Need to employ learning designers and media
specialists
▫ Short print runs
▫ Publishers seek crossover with the professional market
(Business, Law, Engineering, Life Sciences etc)
• Difficult to source, attract and motivate academics to
become textbook authors
• Current authors unwilling to revise their work
▫ Tensions between research and teaching commitments
What is available?
• Blackboard ePacks
▫ 60 discipline areas
▫ Questions and quizzes, practice exercises, self-tests, eBooks,
interactive elements, instructor resources
• Pearson Education
▫ Own LMS and webportals
▫ Pearson MyLab and Mastering: 80 online products with
supplementary learning materials, homework exercises, tutorial
assistance and immediate feedback
▫ Seamless integration with Blackboard
▫ Partnership with Skype for shared learning using VOIP and group
video sessions
• Cengage
▫ eTextbooks – up to 45% cheaper than print
▫ Available as whole eBook or as individual eChapters
▫ Companion resources: quizzes, flashcards, glossaries
• McGraw-Hill LearnSmart
▫ Adaptive learning program that tailors the learning
experience to students’ individual needs by continually
assessing their knowledge and skills
▫ 40 introductory courses in the major subject areas
• McGraw-Hill eBookstore
▫ 900 titles, digital replicas of print, 50% cheaper
• WileyPLUS
▫ eTextbook plus supplementary learning resources
▫ Students receive immediate feedback, personalised
learning plans and self-evaluation tools
• Macmillan Education
▫ Primary and secondary schools sector
Open textbook publishers
• Flat World Knowledge
▫ Open publishing involving writing, reviewing and publishing
eTextbooks , under Creative Commons licences
▫ Users can edit, rearrange, and add links
▫ Can use MIYO platform to adopt a title, edit and make
available to as a specific course text via a personalised URL
▫ Free access & downloads to resources for any eReader
platform
▫ StudyPass (US$19.95) allows students to add interactive
features
▫ Teamed up with MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) to offer free
high quality eTextbooks to learners
• Connexions
▫ An open platform to support the development and
distribution of eTextbooks and digital learning materials
▫ It describes itself as “a new paradigm” for the creation, use
and distribution of educational content.
▫ It is free and modularised, allowing academics to:
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Customise the content
Swap chapters in and out
Correct errors
Add new examples or new contexts
Create the optimum text for their course, rather than an offthe-rack learning experience
▫ Connexions books are being used in 2,000 colleges in
44 countries.
• Boundless Learning
▫ Offers ‘free substitutes’ for traditional textbook
material
▫ It has raised US$9.7 million through venture capital
▫ Content is pulled from an array of open-education
sources to develop a new resource
▫ In April 2012, Pearson, Cengage Learning and
Macmillan Higher Education sued Boundless Learning :
 Allegations that the intellectual property rights of their
authors had been violated
 The ‘replacement textbooks’ are created from, based on
and have a layout that is overwhelmingly similar to the
copyrighted materials
• OpenStax College
▫ A not-for-profit organisation that seeks to improve
student access to higher education, especially through
quality learning materials
▫ An initiative of Rice University
▫ Funding is provided through philanthropy, eg through
foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation
▫ There is no cost to students to access and use the
eTextbooks.
eTextbook trials
Some eTextbook initiatives
• Indiana University (IU)
▫ Sought to dramatically reduce the costs of digital textbooks for
students on all of its campuses
▫ A pilot project in 2009-2011,
 Agreements with five publishers to provide student access to digital or
printed hard copies
 Uninterrupted access to all of their eTexts while they were enrolled
 Agreement also with McGraw-Hill Higher Education
 All students purchased materials: publishers achieved 100% sell through
 Publishers were required to sell digital versions of their textbooks for no
more than 35% of the print list prices
▫ The fact that all students have access to a digital resource fosters
greater opportunities for collaborative learning.
▫ In the pilot, students did not have to pay anything
▫ Normally students would be charged for course materials and tools as
part of their tuition fees
• Internet2 eTextbook pilot
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Builds on IU project led by Internet2
Spring semester 2012: 5 universities embarked on trial
McGraw-Hill and Courseload reader platform
Cross-institutional stakeholders involved
Fall semester 2012: 25 universities involved
 Led by Internet2 and EDUCAUSE
 Move to site licences, with flat fee for content, platform,
integration with LMS and support
 Evaluation of:
 How the model supports lower costs for educational materials
 The extent of scalability of the model
 The overall appeal of the eTextbook environment
• Ohio Digital Bookshelf
▫ Pilot study involving 70,000 students enrolled in the subject
Introduction to Psychology
▫ Five publishers involved in the trial
▫ 24 textbook titles made available in digital format
▫ Teaching staff had autonomy in selecting their preferred
prescribed text
▫ Students were given licences for 180 to 360 days
▫ A community of practice
 To share ideas about their use of digital learning materials
 Publishers agreed to share sales data
▫ The pilot has since expanded into the disciplines of
engineering and construction
• University of Virginia, UC Berkley, Cornell University,
University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin,
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McGraw-Hill & Courseload reader
Textbooks available to students at no cost
Need for access from a variety of platforms
Really important for teachers to take full advantage of
the capabilities of digital materials and the affordances
of mobile technologies
Cenage pilot project in Australia
• Invitation to some university libraries
▫ Limited electronic access to already adopted textbooks
▫ Instead of offering print textbooks via usual short term loan
services
• EBL eBook platform
▫ They offer a variety of access models
• To test student behaviour
• To test the effect on textbook sales
▫ Acknowledged to be the greatest concern
• Subject areas
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Social work
Linguistics
Nursing
Microeconomics
Education
Business models
Business models
• Tensions between:
▫ The wholesale model
 Fixed price to the retailers and they determine the price
▫ The agency model
 Publishers set the price, the agent receives 30%
• eBooks
▫ Site licensing for institution-wide access
• Textbooks
▫ Currently a ‘student pays’ model
▫ Academic libraries acquire a small number of textbooks
▫ Acquisition of textbooks by libraries requires a completely new
model of funding
▫ Problems with access codes for supplementary eLearning
materials
▫ Students need to also consider the hardware costs
Business models in HE
• B2C (Business to Consumer)
▫ Traditional retail model
• B2B (Business to Business)
▫ Publishers sell the eLearning platform to the
academic institution with integration with the LMS
• New option in the US
▫ Publishers sell the eLearning platform to students
(or parents) with the goal of academic achievement
(B2C)
• US: eTextbook fee as add-on to course fees
Licence models
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Hybrid (print plus digital)
Digital only (access keys)
Site licences
Multi-institutional licences
Institutional discount for 100% student purchase
Textbook plus subscription to updates
Individual chapters
‘Just-in-time’ access
Try before you buy
Discount codes and coupons
Generous return policies
Lifetime access
Rental
Legislative provisions in Australia
• Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA)
• Higher Education Provider (HEP) Guidelines 2003
• Provisions relating to “fees that are incidental to studies”
• Students can only be charged for goods or services if:
▫ Alternative access is made available at no extra charge
▫ The student has the choice of acquiring the goods/services
from a supplier other than the university
▫ The cost is for equipment or items that become the
physical property of the student and are not consumed
during the course of study
HESA and textbooks
• A textbook can be required for a unit of study, as long as
specific conditions are met:
▫ It is relevant to the course requirements
▫ It is also readily available free of charge, eg through the
university library
▫ It can be purchased from somewhere else other than the
immediate university
• Fees cannot be levied for examinations or assessment
• Costs for assessment via an eLearning platform must be
covered by the university, not the student
• Publishers can:
▫ Separate assessment tools from the eTextbooks
▫ Provide access to supplementary materials at no cost
▫ Provide the lecturer with a number of access codes that
they can give to students, at their discretion, where there
are issues of equity
Learning in the information age
Top three trends in Australian HE
1. People expect to be able to work, learn and study
whenever and wherever they want
2. Increasingly, students want to use their own
technology for learning
3. Educational paradigms are shifting to include online
learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models
Horizon Report 2012
• Further changes promised by the introduction of the
National Broadband Network
Developments in eLearning
• Online learning
▫ Open Universities Australia reports doubling of student
numbers over past 4 years
• Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
▫ edX: Harvard, MIT, UC Berkley, + + + +
▫ Coursera: Stamford, US, Canada, UK, France, + +
• Students take the courses for free
• No credentials for students who complete courses, but…
▫ University of Helsinki will award credit for the humancomputer-interaction course offered by Coursera
• Blackboard now entering the MOOC space
• Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
▫ Issue Brief, Oct 2012
▫ Concerns over copyright and fair use, open access and
accessibility
There’s a growing awareness that the environment in
which learning takes place is becoming more complicated.
Students are bringing their own personal technologies and also
expect the spaces in which they are working to be equipped for
digital work.
We’re beginning to see a blurring and blending of the physical and
the digital worlds.
This is making the creation and management of learning
environments a more challenging and important task for many
people involved in education.
As well as traditional teaching skills, teachers now need to
think like designers.
(Goodyear, 2012)
Issues to consider
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Digital media literacies
Attitudes to reading on-screen
Digital pedagogies
Academic workload
Institutional recognition of and support for
innovative teaching practice
• Mobile devices and enhanced resources will change the
way students access and use textbook-based learning
materials
• eTextbooks will stimulate new forms of teaching and
learning which will involve :
▫ Students sharing and reflecting on their learning
▫ Lecturers monitoring and assisting the learning process
▫ Computer systems orchestrating the whole process and
providing feedback to both students and teaching staff
• There will be a shift from assessing the outcomes of
learning towards guiding the learning process
Many implications
• Dynamic books can enable a more social form of study
▫ Groups of students can work together on reading, annotating and comparing
one or more texts on the same topic
• Social tools can allow students to create layers of shared annotation
▫ They can see who else is working online and can request a real-time chat about
the content
• Students will be able to provide their own interpretations, explanations
and examples of content, which they can publish alongside pages of the
book
• Potential for crowd-authoring of complete student eBooks, using similar
principles to Wikipedia and Wikiversity
• It will be possible to exploit the functionality of tablets and iPads:
▫ Voice recorder, camera, GPS locator etc
▫ The eTextbook can guide the reader through inquiry-based explorations and
experiments, such as understanding properties of light and colour using the
device’s camera
• Assessment can be embedded in eTextbooks
▫ Opportunities to provide diagnostic feedback and to offer constructive
personal and contextual advice
To what extent do digital media…
• Impact on student attendance, retention, attitude, success
and overall achievement?
• Contribute to improved learning outcomes?
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New understandings?
Autonomous, self-managed learning?
Critical thinking?
Creativity?
The creation of new knowledge?
• Interactivity does not in itself result in a better learning
experience
• Interactive elements need to be well designed and
‘fit for purpose’
• The quality of multimedia resources may vary considerably
• Is there a danger of a movement towards ‘edutainment’,
rather than ‘education’?
It’s not just about giving iPads to students
and hoping that change will happen
You really have to change the curriculum
and the teacher…
The move to digital content:
▫ Facilitates new literacies for students
▫ Requires lecturers to develop fresh pedagogies
▫ Enables academic institutions to regenerate curriculum
design
The primary goals for digital pedagogies
• To achieve a richer student experience
• To offer academic staff a more rewarding teaching
experience
• To reduce the cost of learning materials
eTextbook practice
eTextbook practice in Australian universities
• The concept is not new, but the market has moved very
slowly
• Sales of print textbooks are dropping
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▫ First year motivation to obtain textbooks drops
▫ Levels of sales determined by lecturer’s use of the textbook
Increased demand for library copies of textbooks
Steep rise in the adoption of iPads and tablets
Many students and staff using multiple devices
Students are time poor and looking for convenience
▫ They will assume textbooks will be available in digital formats
• Concerns about how students actually locate and use
relevant digital study materials
Lack of evidence-based practice
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An uncertain market for eTextbooks
Print textbooks are still the dominant format
Publishers are seeking ‘the total solution’
Lack of coordination in academic institutions
Marketing directly to academics will result in a
patchwork of solutions with challenges in terms of
scalability
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Integration into LMS?
Single sign-ons?
User support?
Current downsizing of IT support?
• Diversity of educational philosophy and practice
across Australian universities
▫ Spectrum of F2F/blended/hybrid/virtual learning
▫ Varying degrees of importance of the LMS
• Dichotomy of views
▫ Publishers want to maintain/grow their revenue
streams
▫ Internet has resulted in naïve expectation amongst
students and lecturers that all things digital come at
zero cost
• Low levels of understanding about licensing and
about legislative requirements surrounding equity
eTextbook policy
eTextbook policy in Australian universities
• Developments in the eTextbook field are happening
haphazardly and with little coordination
• Institutional diversity
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Centralised vs decentralised structures
Differing power factors
Diverse models of cross-institutional communication
Varying levels of technological infrastructure
Differing level s of interest and experience in eLearning
• Multiple stakeholders
Issues to be considered
• Business models and price negotiation
• Contract negotiation
• Financial management
▫ Licence payments
• Legislative requirements
▫ HESA/HEP Guidelines
• Technical requirements
▫ Integration with university systems, including the LMS
▫ Student data management
▫ Responsibilities for service and support
• Quality assurance
• Training and development
▫ Staff and students
• Pedagogies
▫ T&L support
• Communities of practice
▫ Sharing innovative practice
• Communication
Academic readiness
• Academics tend to fall into four categories:
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Those who are trail blazers, innovative in their teaching (15%)
Those who watch with interest, and follow when ready (35%)
Those who are more traditional and follow if they have to (35%)
Those who are resistant to change (15%)
• As yet, only low levels of interest in eTextbooks
▫ Lack of understanding about new pedagogies
▫ Uncertainty about the quality and value of open resources,
and how to participate in the open movement
• Potential Achilles heel: adoption of third party eLearning
solutions as strategy to reduce teaching load
• Lack of understanding about HESA/HEP Guidelines
Opportunities and challenges for university
libraries
• Academic libraries are at the juncture of the teaching
process and the resources required to support learning
• Library support for undergraduate students: copies of
print textbooks & reading list materials
▫ Model of ‘student purchase – library backup’
▫ Principles of equity and accessibility
• Strong belief in the ‘public good’: community access to
library resources
• Library support for lecturers to independently manage
links to eResources in the LMS
Challenges
• Not feasible to shift from ‘student pays’ to
‘library pays’ model
• Need for new business models, but publishers are
not keen to engage with the issues
▫ Libraries are viewed as a threat to the publishers’
revenue stream
▫ Concerns that libraries are being purposefully excluded
from the debate
Academic libraries’ positions of strength
• Leadership, advocacy and advice in multiple areas:
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Scholarly communication
Digital repositories
Creating and hosting digital solutions
Authors’ rights
Copyright & DRM
Resource discovery and integration into LMS
eResource acquisition and management
• Nurturing relationships with academics and students
• Training and development of digital media literacies
Libraries adding value
• Doing what they have always done well:
▫ Locating, distilling and disseminating meaningful information to
students and staff
• Partnering with faculties and students
▫ To integrate and embed information research and learning skills
into the curriculum
• Acting as guides and mentors
▫ To help staff and students adopt and adapt different technologies
▫ To help locate and collate relevant digital content to support personalised
learning
• Supporting students at the immediate point of need as learners in an
increasingly digital environment
• Facilitating the development of information and media literacies
▫ Lecturers, students, library staff
• Developing integrated policies and strategies across institutional
boundaries
• Evaluating impact
▫ Identifying the correlations between library usage, librarian interaction and
student attainment
Factors that will influence market growth
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The growth of eBooks in trade publishing
Effective format standards for digital textbooks
The increasing availability of digital textbook content
The popularity and evolution of tablet devices and
smartphones
The advance of eReader software/hardware technology
The popularity of online retail and distribution options
The continued growth of online learning
The increased popularity and availability of OER and
open digital content
The cost of textbooks and other learning materials
Student buying and sharing trends
The winds of change…
• The time has arrived for a fundamental shift in learning
and teaching
• Disruptions in the eTextbook paradigm represent a
microcosm of the changes that will take place across
the higher education sector as a whole
• There are gaps in our understanding of the complex
eTextbook environment and how it might fit into the
rapidly changing context of educational technologies
• If transformative change is about to happen, some
uncertainty surrounds a number of key issues:
▫
▫
▫
▫
Content delivery
Academic acceptance
Student demand
Institutional readiness
…for publishers…
• Serious efforts - by textbook publishers and other
companies - to redefine the core textbook construct
• The inevitable growth of open textbook and open
educational resource initiatives
• An increased market share for new digital-first and
low-cost textbook providers
• The disaggregation of core content into more flexible
and reusable components
• The shift from content-as-product model to a
content-as-service model
• Changes in textbook pricing strategies and new
business models
…for academic librarians…
• Unique blend of knowledge, skills and experience that has value
across diverse areas of the university
• Close liaison with both teachers and learners
▫ Appreciation of their respective needs
▫ Sensitivity to the interplay between:
 Pedagogies
 Information skills
 Learning outcomes
• Understanding of the technical requirements of eResources
▫ Can provide advice and guidance to academic staff
• The need to build on their skills in digital literacies
▫ To provide specialist expertise in the evolving eLearning environment
• The ability to continually reinvent themselves and the role of the
library in the academic community
▫ A strong foundation for further adaptation to meet changing needs
The winds of change…
…for academics…
…for students….
…for learning support….
…for eLearning services…
…for IT support….
…for academic policy makers…
When the winds of change blow,
some people build walls
and others build windmills.
Chinese proverb
Please contact me:
[email protected]
www.gillianhallam.com.au