Migrating from Hardcopy
Course Materials to DigitallyDelivered Course Materials
HOW IT MIGHT PLAY OUT
Why a Migration Away from
Hardcopy Materials Is Underway

Both students and instructors believe (correctly!) that hardcopy texts
have simply become too expensive


Bookstore prices for textbooks in business and economics have risen
steadily from the $20-$25 range in 1975 to the $220- $250 range in 2014
Why has this happened?

There are multiple reasons
Expectations about What a Textbook
Should Look Like and Contain Have
Changed Drastically
In the Old Days
Today

Simple cover design

Snappy 4-color cover designs

All black and wide interiors

Appealing 4-color interiors

No photos

Lots of color photos; multi-color graphics

Simple graphics


Short chapter-end section containing
discussion questions/problems
Fancy chapter intros, complete with wise
quotes and chapter learning objectives

Margin notes throughout chapters to indicate
coverage of particular LOs

Margin notes highlighting
concepts/principles/key points

Learning assurance exercises covering all Los

Elaborate online software for completing
exercises/measuring learning (separately
priced from textbook
Instructor-related Reasons

Instructors expect (demand?) lots of supplements that facilitate their use of
the text

A snappy set of PowerPoints

Detailed lecture notes for each chapter

Accompanying videos for each chapter that can be shown in class

Learning assurance exercises for each chapter that can be completed online
and then automatically-graded and recorded

Automatically-graded and recorded chapter-end quizzes

Big test banks for creating multi-chapters exams (with both multiple-choice
questions and essay/short-answer questions (with answers!!!) ; all questions must
be tagged with course learning objectives, question difficulty, and other
typologies

A full-blown Instructor’s Guide that includes advice on how to teach the course,
recommended course learning objectives, sample daily course schedules (for
terms of varying lengths -- weeks and number of class meetings)

Extensive teaching notes for cases

Videos to accompany a sizable number of cases
Publisher-Bookstore Reasons

Rising publisher costs to produce/print/distribute textbooks have made
charging higher prices mandatory

Bookstores have increased their markups over publisher cost from a oncestandard 25% to 30-40%---revenue-needy university administrators now view
their on-campus bookstore as a major profit center

Bookstores are big into buying and reselling used textbooks—they make
more profit from their used book business than from selling new texts

Students have welcomed the opportunity to buy lower-priced used books

Most all students now sell their textbooks at the end of the term (in past decades
~33% of students kept their textbooks, especially in their major areas of study)

The shift to greater use of used texts has eroded sales of new textbooks,
especially in the 2nd and 3rd year of each edition

Eroding sales per edition of each text have driven publishers to raise the prices of
new textbooks even faster (to make up for the shrinking revenues per edition)
Publishers Are Trapped in a Death
Spiral


Rising costs to produce, print, and distribute a hardcopy text,
coupled with eroding unit sales per new edition of a textbook, have
made publishers increasingly reliant on raising the prices of most all
their textbooks and accompanying supplements ANNUALLY

Even then, however, publisher profitability is mediocre at best—some
publishers are losing money, some are barely breaking even, a few are
earning paltry profits

They are all addicted to charging higher prices to try to grow their
bottom lines, but rising prices serve to further erode sales of new texts
We have reached a juncture where further increases in the prices of
new texts are really beginning to cut into publishers’ sales of new
texts and make matters worse rather than temporarily better
What’s Happening Today in the
Marketplace for New Texts


Many students have begun sharing the use of whatever textbook is required—shared
texts are increasingly likely to be used or rented

In growing numbers, students are borrowing a text from a friend and using their own printers
or paying 5¢ or less per page to copy whatever portion of the text they feel they need to
have

Renting texts has rapidly grown in popularity!!!! Takes market share away from used book
business in bookstores
Growing numbers of instructors are telling the members of their class at the first class
meeting that a text is recommended but not required/expected (which, of course,
means students can safely forget about heading to the bookstore after class)

Instead of having class members learn from a text, instructors are posting on their course
websites a copy of their lecture notes and/or the PowerPoints from their favorite text for
students to use in gaining the knowledge that they will be tested on
Should this be worrisome? Will it “dumb-down” student
understanding/command of the subject matter?
What’s Happening Today in the
Marketplace for Course Materials
Other than Texts

The migration from hard copy to digital is virtually complete !!

Courseware for student use is made available only online (quizzes, problem
sets, Learning Assurance exercises, etc. )

All Instructor Support materials are delivered to instructors digitally
 Instructor Guides and case teaching notes
 Test banks
 PowerPoints
 Videos
There’s been no significant resistance from students or instructors—it’s
accepted as the new way such things are being done
So Where Are Things Likely to Head
from Here? How Do Publishers Break
Out of the Death Spiral?

Long-term the solution for publishers is to begin aggressively marketing etexts and incent instructors and students (via attractively lower prices) to
use e-texts instead of hard copy texts

E-texts are far cheaper to produce and to distribute
 It’s quick and easy to create chapter pages for an e-text that look identical to those
of a hardcopy text—shortens production process from 6 months to 2 months
 Once PDF pages for e-text are ready, no printing costs
 No inventory costs, no distribution/shipping costs for e-texts
 No used texts to compete against

Hence digitally-delivered e-texts can be sold in greater quantities and at much
lower prices—and with profit margins that enable decent profitability
What Are the Stumbling Blocks to Gaining
Greater Market Acceptance of DigitallyDelivered Text Books?

Instructor resistance to adopting digitally-delivered e-books and
promoting their use to students


Using digitally delivered support materials (chapter-end quizzes, problem
sets, Learning Assurance Exercises, etc.) does not seem to be a problem
Student resistance (real and perceived) to using an e-Book (most
surveys show they want/prefer a hard copy text)

But there is no resistance to using all other types of digital/online course
materials (most all students either have laptops/tablets or ready-access to
computer labs)

Do many students know there is a big price difference between hardcopy
texts and e-texts?
So how are we going to complete
the migration? What needs to
happen?
YOUR THOUGHTS?
Q&A / DISCUSSION