ECAR Symposium 2010
Mobilizing Campus and
Transforming Community
David McCarthy
Barnes & Noble
23-Nov-2010

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.
23-Nov-2010

 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.
23-Nov-2010

 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.
23-Nov-2010

What is taking Ebooks so long? Music went digital overnight.
 Barnes & Noble had an ereader ten years ago.
23-Nov-2010

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.
23-Nov-2010

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.
23-Nov-2010

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
23-Nov-2010

Digital reading is accomplished through the lens of hardware and software.
Hardware
Reader Software
Content
23-Nov-2010

Realize, for students studying is much more important than reading.
All layers have to be conducive to studying.
Hardware
Reading/Studying Software
Content
23-Nov-2010

B&N.com Company Confidential
4/16/2020 11

B&N.com Company Confidential
4/16/2020 12

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
23-Nov-2010

• 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.
23-Nov-2010

Heavy duty studying
Home/Library
Reading on the go.
Light studying
S
Sync through a common cloud (locker)
Digital Content Ecosystem
Cloud hosting digital locker
23-Nov-2010

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.
23-Nov-2010

eReading software need to be conducive to studying
23-Nov-2010

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…
23-Nov-2010

 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
23-Nov-2010

• 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.
23-Nov-2010

Students need to deal with a myriad of content. Each is managed independently
Textbooks
Class/Study Notes
Internet
Study Aids/Other Books
Instructor Supplied

Reader Platform
Reader
Textbooks
Class/Study Notes
Internet/Other Content
Note Taking Ecosystem
-Commerce
-Sharing
-Messaging
-Annotation
Content
Management
Instructor Supplied
Study Ad-ins
Trade Books
Periodicals
Study Aids/Other Books

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
23-Nov-2010

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.
23-Nov-2010

 Digital textbook growth is driven by several factors:
• Content available
• Students adoption of format
• Growth of relevant technologies
• Publisher cost structure and market efficiencies
Digital Availability
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
10%
Propensity To Opt For Digital 10%
60%
40%
Digital Textbook Market 1% 3% 6% 12% 25%
23-Nov-2010

Adopted Content Type
Textbook
Professional
Trade
University Press
Other
63.3%
15.7%
12.2%
1.5%
7%
23-Nov-2010

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.

• Formatted as a single stream of text
• No concept of page
• Most common standard – epub
• Most commonly used in trade content

Page Fidelity
• Formatted exactly as the printed page.
• Most common standard – PDF
• Most commonly used in textbook content.

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.
23-Nov-2010

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
23-Nov-2010

 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.
23-Nov-2010

NOOKstudy Research Program: Participation
CONFIDENTIAL
 Participation
 6 universities
 Harvard University
 Pennsylvania State University
 Rochester Institute of Technology
 Texas A&M University
 University of Pennsylvania
 West Virginia University
23-Nov-2010

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.
23-Nov-2010

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%
30%
20%
10%
0%
28% 28%
17%
11%
10%
4%
2%
Never Less than
Once a
Month
Once a
Month
2-3 Times a Month
Once a
Week
2-3 Times a Week
Daily
23-Nov-2010
CONFIDENTIAL

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
CONFIDENTIAL
23-Nov-2010

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.
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
48%
25% 27%
Amount allowed to be copied
Students' Views on DRM
49%
30%
20%
37%
24%
39%
Amount allowed to be printed
Download eTextbooks to a maximum of 2 computers
Don't Know
Not Enough
Enough
23-Nov-2010

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.)
23-Nov-2010

 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
CONFIDENTIAL
23-Nov-2010

 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…
CONFIDENTIAL
23-Nov-2010

 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.
CONFIDENTIAL
23-Nov-2010

CONFIDENTIAL
 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.
23-Nov-2010

Q&A
23-Nov-2010