May 2007 — Features
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Digital Publishing :: Out of Print
"It's fair to say that we're all in a transition period," says Harris. "Until recently, the schools haven't had quality instructional programs that are core to what they are required to teach. What they've had are more like ancillary components that supplement what they do, but few materials that are an integral part of what they teach every day. We're helping schools to have a reason to make the changeover."
The key to this transition from print to digital media for Scott Foresman is the depth of the parent company's engineering assets, Harris says. As a division of Pearson Education, the 100-year-old textbook company has access to the cutting-edge technical expertise of the staff at Pearson Digital Learning, which handles the company's digital content business.
Harris observes that traditional textbook publishers do tend to be cautious when it comes to unproven innovations. "It's a huge investment to go into something like this with the chance that no one will want it, or that it won't be approved by the state," he says. "So some publishers have been slower to move in this direction. We've sort of broken the ground, so other companies are less likely to be fearful because they've seen our success."
Another issue causing some traditional textbook publishers to drag their feet, says OverDrive's Potash, is the concern about copyright protections. Potash has been at the forefront of digital copyright issues, both as president of the International Digital Publishing Forum and as a provider of digital rights management solutions at Over- Drive. He says reassuring authors and publishers that their rights are safe in the digital world is essential to the development of the K-12 market.
"The textbook publishing business is an established and conservative business, and they're worried about copyright issues," Potash says. "Everyone is going to have to address that issue. At OverDrive, every book that is downloaded from our site and similar sites that we host has the associated copyright protection service. The kids can download it, but if they try to e-mail the file to their friends or throw it on a thumb drive and transfer it, it won't open. It will only open on the PC of the student who logged in to download it. It's these types of protections that will lead to more curriculum coming into this kind of channel."
One development helping to motivate print-and-paper publishers into moving their products into the digital age is a new generation of teachers who are quite at home with the technology. "The older teachers who may not have been as comfortable with computers are getting ready to retire," says Harris. "The next generation of teachers is very comfortable using this technology as a teaching tool. They're digital natives."
Another driver in this market is tight textbook budgets. The Texas Education Agency, for example, provides free textbooks to all elementary, middle, and high school students in the state. With 4.5 million students, that's a lot of ink and paper. "It's an increasingly significant investment," Givens says. "We're looking for more cost-effective ways of providing current, relevant content. Electronic instruction materials can be more cost-effective while delivering much more currency than traditional print materials."
But don't expect digital content to completely displace paper-and-ink textbooks any time soon, says Givens. The Texas plan, for example, is what she calls "a blended approach" that combines printed textbooks with digital content. "Rather than trying to replace all of the print materials out there and do everything electronically, we think there's the right mix that needs to be put in place."
OverDrive CEO Potash agrees: "We don't claim that e-books replace print. At least not right away. But one of our slogans is, ‘Digital books for digital kids.' The world is changing, the students are changing, and we do believe this form is going to gain more and more acceptance over time."
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John K. Waters is a freelance writer based in Palo Alto, CA.
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