XplanaZine

Publishing has long been a business devoted to ink and paper. It has been an industry driven by the concept of the book as a physical form or construct. The textbook publishing industry has promoted not only the development and sale of the physical object, but has contributed heavily to our models of teaching and learning using books.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the model being used by many publishers for eBooks and eWorkbooks. For eBooks, most have turned to MetaText, a division of XanEdu. MetaText is actually a Web-based platform for presenting the physical book in an analogous format online. It allows students and teachers to see exactly what they would see with the analog book and to make notes and highlight text, just as they can in the offline world. MetaText eBooks offer multiple view types (with table of contents, or as a full screen), tools, and basic course integration via personal Web pages and announcement functionality.
When it comes to eWorkbooks, many publishers have turned to Quia, a great activity and courseware resource that we have reviewed previously in Xplana. Quia eWorkbooks and handbooks are similar to MetaText ebooks except they also provide a robust assortment of activity types,along with some courseware functionality and grade book integration.
The limitation of these eBook and eWorkbook models is that they are tied exclusively to the print model. The assumptions behind these digital versions is that they will be utilized in the same way as the traditional products. With this in mind, the eBooks and eWorkbooks are presented as entire constructs, as indivisible and inflexible as their analog counterparts, and in a rigid, proprietary format.
We are still in the first generation of these kind of digital assets and, obviously, we will see a gradual evolution toward eTexts that are more flexible and that take full advantage of a dynamic Web environment.
In order to see into that future at what eText evolutions might or need to take place, we can look at the articles Laura Gibbs has written this week on digital libraries and copyright-free texts for use in online learning. Drawing on her observations, we can point out several issues regarding digital libraries in general, and make some inferences about what their texts need to become.

• Digital texts need to be expanded to address active learning meeds and asynchronous and non-linear use. The absurdities of synchronous learning scenarios are all too obvious — textbooks present a linear learning scenario when, in reality, students do not study or learn like this. They do not use the book at the same time classroom learning is taking place (books are studied outside of class) and the book (analog or digital) does not offer the student sufficient learning assistance.
• Good digital libraries can supply you with texts that can be reformatted for specific needs. The idea about study or learning material is that it should be malleable, flexible enough to be repositioned or recreated as the users needs and environment dictate.
• Good digital texts need to be broken into shorter segments. Long chapters in analog texts seem t work well. They don’t online, however. Chapters need to eb shorter and require interrogative reinforcement. Here’s Laura’s final result for her Myth Folklore readings (a Web page is equivalent to a “chapter” of reading): “Each webpage contains text that takes between 3 minutes and 9 minutes to read out loud. “
• Good digital libraries need to have good paths for finding materials. These libraries should bring about the digital equivalent of searching through the stacks at analog libraries, the joy of wandering about and marveling at books and their contents. In order to accomplish this, these libraries need to have lots of books, and they need to have multiple paths for finding and browsing through their materials.

For publishers, then, the evolution of eTexts might look something like Apple’s iTunes Music Store. What Apple has learned (and shown the rest) is that consumers are willing to pay for content — it’s just that content needs to become more flexible and distributable. Using some of Laura’s points as well as lessons from Apple, here are some hints for publishers on how to create eTexts and make money from them.

1. Make content more modular. It’s fine to place entire eTexts online but students and teachers need to be able to purchase and assign content in much smaller segments. The music industry has a tradition of selling entire albums. Apple’s customers are buying millions of individual songs! Besides, most classes never use an entire textbook. On the contrary, we often need only two or three chapters but, due to a lack of resources, we are required to assign the entire text. Apple has already shown that this will not lead to fewer sales. In fact, it will contribute to fewer photocopies and used book sales.
2. Make content easy to find. Making content more modular means that there are more “items” in a publisher’s library. This means that search and sorting becomes a major component of the repository. Content should be searchable by discipline, author, keyword, general subject, etc. There should be multiple paths to every piece of content in the library.
3. Make content extensible and editable. There should be multiple format options for the content and downloading should always be an option. Instructors should be able to “abridge” texts for their classroom use and the optional formats should include readable versions for handhelds.

Making content more modular and distributable via good digital stores/libraries will not lead to a decrease in sales. On the contrary, giving consumers the product they want in the form that they can use best will increase sales and result in a significant decrease in used-book sales. Used books are no bargain when all you need is a couple of chapters that are relatively cheap to buy — especially when that material can be synced to your new iPod or iPaq and taken with you on the next road trip.