Transcript The Transformation of Digital Content in Higher Education ECAR Symposium 2010 Mobilizing Campus and Transforming Community David McCarthy Barnes & Noble 23-Nov-2010

The Transformation of Digital
Content in Higher Education
ECAR Symposium 2010
Mobilizing Campus and
Transforming Community
David McCarthy
Barnes & Noble
23-Nov-2010
What is
Study Smarter, Not Harder

is a free ereading platform with a focus on
features critical to success in with digital textbooks and
educational content.
 Through faculty and student interviews,
was
developed from the ground up based on the needs of
students.
 More than simply an eBook reader,
is an end-toend solution for students to acquire, organize and study their
assigned content.
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Growth of etextbooks
Barnes and Noble has seen a significant
increase in digital sales this past fall.
14% of students have purchased a digital
product as part of their studies.
The general acceptance of digital reading for
pleasure is bleeding over to higher education
content.
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Reasons for Purchasing eBooks
 Price is the primary factor
 Only way to obtain the textbook [out of stock, preference by
the professor, custom PDF type eBook that the professor
created for sale].
 18% of students who purchased an eBook did so because they
enjoy the features.
 10% of students who purchased an eBook did so because they
had never used one and were curious.
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What is taking so long?
What is taking Ebooks so long? Music went digital overnight.
 Barnes & Noble had an ereader ten years ago.
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What is taking so long?
Ereading fundamentally changes the way users interact with
content.
Digital music only changed the distribution of content. Consumption
was still done through speakers of some sort.
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The book works really well
The book is a piece of hardware used for thousands of years. It is
the ultimate “reader”
• Inexpensive – You get free reader hardware with each physical
book purchased
• No batteries needed.
• Very durable
• So simple a three year old could use it
Replacing the physical book is not going to be easy.
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And yes students love them
The digital dream is even more difficult for education content.
No other user interacts with the physical content more than
students
• Highlighting
• Note taking
• Bookmarking
• Flipping
• Multiple books a once
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Three Layers of eReading
Digital reading is accomplished
through the lens of hardware and
software.
Hardware
Reader Software
Content
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Digital Studying
Realize, for students studying is
much more important than reading.
All layers have to be conducive to
studying.
Hardware
Reading/Studying Software
Content
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Why not Digital Readers
B&N.com Company Confidential
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Why not Digital Readers
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What hardware works for studying
The optimal requirements of an higher education ereading
hardware solution :
• 10 Inch screen or larger
• Color
• 8 hours or more of battery life
• Decent input mechanism
• Mouse and keyboard
Or/And
• Touch
• 32 gig or more of memory
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Candidates in the market today
• Nooks and Kindles – Not higher education appropriate.
Nookcolor shows promise for as a satellite device.
• Ipad – Meets the minimum requirements
• Coming android tablets – Shows promise for higher
education content.
• PC/Mac – Currently the best study platform.
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PC/Mac and Mobile Satellites
Reading on the go.
Light studying
Heavy duty studying
Home/Library
S
Sync through
a common
cloud (locker)
Digital Content Ecosystem
Cloud hosting digital locker
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What hardware works for studying
Devices such as tablets will be used for studying as satellites to a
central core of a PC/Mac.
• The PC/Mac will still be the ultimate hardware for some time.
• Almost all students have one so there is no incremental costs
• It is currently the only platform that can handle all of the software
needs of a student (word processing, specialized software…)
• Any solution you review should contain an option for PC/Mac.
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eReading/Studying Software
eReading software need to be conducive to studying
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eReading/Studying Software
eReading/studying software - The reading platform that stands
behind the physcial eReader.
•
•
•
•
Digital Locker – Where books are stored in the cloud
Distribution – How books get down to the hardware
Renderer – What actually displays the content
Reader – The tools that surround the reading experience including
page turning, resizing and accessibility.
• DRM – How content is protected from unauthorized distribution.
• Study Tools – Tools that provide students ways to parse content in
ways that is relevant to them.
• Integrations – LMS integration, university systems…
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Features Students Want
 Based on several surveys related to digital textbooks, students
are saying these features are most important:
– Search within and across content
– Annotation/highlight and sharing of notes
– Downloaded texts over online access - Flexibility of where and when
they can access their books.
– Integration with other course content including lecture notes,
professor guidance…
–
1/2
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Feature Drivers
• Replicate real world use cases of print
textbooks where appropriate.
• Enhance study experience using features
unique to etextbooks.
• Create tools that allow students to manage
and link all of their content including
textbooks, notes, instructor provided content
and study aids.
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Students are “content pressured”
Students need to deal with a myriad of content. Each is managed independently
Textbooks
Class/Study Notes
Internet
Instructor Supplied
Study Aids/Other Books
A true reading/studying ecosystem
Reader Platform
Textbooks
Note Taking
Class/Study Notes
Internet/Other Content
-Commerce
-Sharing
-Messaging
-Annotation
Content
Management
Instructor Supplied
Study Ad-ins
Trade Books
Periodicals
Study Aids/Other Books
Ecosystem
Common Interface , Format and Smart Extracts
Reader
DRM
DRM is a necessary part of a full featured ereading solution.
Major education publishers require a proven system of DRM.
Due to content’s high price and students shared interest, higher
education content is under greater risk of piracy
Components of DRM
• Content distribution limitations
• Print limitations
• Copy/Paste limitations
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508 Accessibility Requirements
Accessibility issues have plagued some instances where reading
solutions have been used.
“Read aloud” content does not mean 508 compliant.
Look for the following in 508 compliant platform:
• Text to speech on content AND controls/navigation
• Navigation without use of mouse
• Defined focus/cursors
Each institutions needs are different so compare the platform
features to the intended user base.
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Digital Content growth
 Digital textbook growth is driven by several factors:
• Content available
• Students adoption of format
• Growth of relevant technologies
• Publisher cost structure and market efficiencies
2010 2011
2012
2013
2014
Digital Availability
10%
60%
Propensity To Opt For Digital
10%
40%
Digital Textbook Market
1%
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3%
6%
12%
25%
Content is not just textbooks
Adopted Content Type
Textbook
63.3%
Professional
15.7%
Trade
12.2%
University Press
1.5%
Other
7%
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Publishers are Torn on Digital
Why Publishers Embrace Digital
 Undercuts the Used Book market.
 Reduces operating costs
 Good PR around lower pricing
Why Publishers Are Fearful of Digital
 Reduced pricing control
 Enables competitive products
 Piracy, piracy piracy
The end results is that textbook content is moving to digital,
but not as quickly as trade books.
Content Formats - Reflowable
• Formatted as a single stream of text
• No concept of page
• Most common standard – epub
• Most commonly used in trade content
Content Formats – Page Fidelity
Page Fidelity
• Formatted exactly as the printed page.
• Most common standard – PDF
• Most commonly used in textbook content.
What about multimedia
Publishers are only now creating digital versions of their flat content.
Next steps will be to incorporate more interactive content but doing
this at scale is some ways off due to costs.
The major issue is there are no standards around mixing book and
multimedia content.
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Content Management is Complex
Barnes and Noble College bookstores by the numbers (2009)
 Over 207,000 unique titles adopted
 Over 201,000 of the 207,000 titles had demand of fewer than
1,000 units
 Nearly 16 percent of these were custom titles
 26 percent of the titles used by faculty do not have ISBNs
 Over 14,000 of these titles had a digital option
 Only 7 percent of titles used by our faculty
 Over 8,000 unique publishers represented
 Online & in-store is expected
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A case study in eTextbooks
 Goals


Collaborate with universities to learn more about digital content and eReader
usage.
Test and inform the NOOKstudy application with design and functionality
feedback from the pilot.
 Methodology





Faculty and students received NOOKstudy and eTextbooks
Students completed two surveys during the program.
Participants and faculty received access to 24-hr technical and program
support.
As possible, “First Day” presentations were given to participating classes.
Campus bookstores reserved physical copies of the textbook as back-up.
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NOOKstudy Research Program: Participation
Participation
 6 universities






Harvard University
Pennsylvania State University
Rochester Institute of Technology
Texas A&M University
University of Pennsylvania
West Virginia University
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CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
Application: Contribution to Performance and Efficiency
91% of students said that ereading platform either improved their
class performance or had no negative impact.

Improved Performance or Efficiency:
 Being able to search for a particular word or phrase in the textbook has improved my
efficiency in studying.
 I use my laptop extensively and take notes on it, so having a copy of the book on my
laptop at all times helped me work on my class work whenever I want without having to
worry about whether or not I have the book with me.
 No 10-lb book to carry around = epic win.
 It really helped me with the tests.
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CONFIDENTIAL
Application: Student Experience
Student Experience
 Slightly less than half of students brought their laptop to class (48%)
 60% of students used NOOKstudy once a week or more often
Frequency of NOOKstudy Use
40%
28%
30%
17%
20%
11%
10%
28%
10%
4%
2%
0%
Never
Less than
Once a
Month
Once a
Month
2-3 Times
a Month
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Once a
Week
2-3 Times
a Week
Daily
Current Features Rated on Usefulness
The Top 5 Current Features, as rated on
usefulness by students
 Reading Controls (paging, zoom…)
 Finding terms in a book
 Creating Highlights and Annotations
 Reviewing previously created Highlight and
Annotations
 Managing your Digital Library
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CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
 Many students objected to DRM (copying, printing, downloading to 2 devices)
on philosophical reasons.
 Non-philosophical reasons for objecting to the limits:
 Wants to download the eTextbook to 3 computers (home, work and school.)
 Desires access to the eTextbook on a lab (shared) computer.
Students' Views on DRM
60%
49%
48%
50%
40%
30%
25%
27%
39%
37%
30%
Don't Know
20%
24%
20%
Enough
10%
0%
-10%
Not Enough
Amount allowed to be
copied
Amount allowed to be
printed
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Download eTextbooks to
a maximum of 2
computers
Overall research conclusions
CONFIDENTIAL
 Given the opportunity, students are willing to experiment with reading
and studying digitally.
 When students do read and study digitally, results indicate that they find it
as effective or more effective than studying with the physical book.
 When students do read and study digitally, their responses to usability of
features shows that their expectations are high.
 Expect basic features to be as good as print experience (e.g., notes and
annotations.)
 Also, expect that there are compelling features that go beyond what is feasible
in the physical book experience (e.g., tags across notes, organizational
capabilities.)
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CONFIDENTIAL
Impact on Campus
 The roles of these entities will be redefined
– Bookstore
– Library
– Colleges themselves
 Issues of eReading on Campus
–
–
–
–
Classes will have a mixture of physical and digital students
Digital students could have a mixture of formats
Students allowed to bring laptops and readers to class
Accessiblity
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Digital textbook players
 Specific Digital Textbook Providers
– Follet - Cafescribe
– Coursesmart – Partnership of major textbook publishers (Cengage,
Mcgraw Hill, Pearson…)
 Ebook Retailers
–
–
–
–
Amazon (HW,SW,Content)
Barnes & Noble (HW,SW,Content)
Apple (HW,SW,Content
Google (SW,Content
 Publishers
 College/Institutions
 LMS – Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai…
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CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
Future Trends
 As portable and tablets capabilities improve they will be
better candidates for etextbook platforms.
 Content trends
– Increase in smaller and specialized content
– Increase in multimedia content
– New distribution models including subscriptions, open
source content, and institution mandated.
 There will be a blurring of lines between ereaders, LMS, and
internet resources.
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CONFIDENTIAL
Wrap up Themes
 eReading in higher education is more about estudying than
ereading.
 Evaluate solutions on the entire ecosystem
– Hardware , eReading/Study Software
– Available Content
 Tablets and portable devices are currently satellites to a
PC/Mac base. This will change over time.
 Constantly poll your students and faculty.
 Don’t over commit. This is going to be a longer transition than
other digital media.
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Q&A
Q&A
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