At a Turning Point: Trends in college textbook publishing and opportunities for the NSDL Network
Introduction
Everyone connected with higher education from prospective students and their parents to university presidents is aware of the high, and continually rising, cost of university textbooks, particularly in the STEM disciplines. While this issue is by no means new (1), consumer behavior and industry response in recent years may suggest some ideas for “product development” and partnership opportunities for members of the NSDL community. In a March 2007 OP-Ed in the New York Times, a University of Texas accounting professor stated that "the majority of new textbooks cost approximately $120 and most science and math textbooks reach $180” (Granoff 2007). Another alarming statistic, according to a paper given at the American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, indicates that the cost of textbooks as well as supplies, as a percentage of tuition and fees, varies for first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students by the type of institution attended - 72 percent at 2-year public institutions, 26 percent at 4-year public institutions, and 8 percent for 4-year private institutions. The federal government has also taken notice of these price increases, evidenced by a 2005 study by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) where they report that college textbook prices have increased a staggering 186 percent since 1986, a price increase that is more than double the overall price inflation for the same time period, of 72 percent (Boyer 2008). While the publishing advocacy organizations such as the Association of American Publishers counter that year-on-year increase in the average price of university texts have, in fact, lagged behind tuition and other costs students face (Skelly 2008), the view that university textbook prices are out of control was recently confirmed with [http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2009-10/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/House%20Final/1025-S2%20HBR%20FBR%2009.pdf legislation in the State of Washington].
As concerns about rising costs of K-12 texts have themselves have become pressing enough to [http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12602248?nclick_check=1&forced=true influence the governor of California to act], and some industry response is similar to the situation within the higher education market (2), there are some key differences between the K-12 and higher education (HE) sectors of textbook publishing.
* Whereas individual HE faculty have autonomy in selecting texts from extensive lists of titles, K-12 textbook programs are designed for very large, mass adoptions by districts, based typically on lists of certain textbooks approved by state boards. Moreover, a number of heavily populated states such as Texas, Florida, and California exert enormous influence over the industry, decreasing further the level of choice in the K-12 arena. This winnowing of content options frees K-12 publishers from the cost of maintaining large diverse lists of titles borne by HE text publishers.
* Success in the HE market is driven by publishers securing hundreds of adoptions nationwide by faculty members who choose from among many relevant titles. Sales to faculty through adoptions/repeat adoptions, although often very stable, can be influenced by student feedback, recommendations of other books by colleagues, or a convincing pitch from a different publisher - leaving the HE market more subject to change (and therefore less financially secure and predictable) than K-12.
* In the K-12 market, students are assigned, without charge, the text adopted by the distract/institution, which remains the property of the school. In the HE market, students buy their own books - priced for the primary print edition at a point marked for rapid return of a considerable publisher investment (3)- that they may return to the bookstore to sell in the next term, or resell privately back into the same market that publishers seek to attract. Students may try to circumvent the college bookstore from the start, using increasing popular sites like [http://eCampus.com eCampus.com] and [http://cheapesttextbooks.com cheapesttextbooks.com], and, of course, Amazon.com, but the National Association of College Stores in a [http://www.nacs.org/public/research/higher_ed_retail.asp 2009 report] downplays the impact of sales of used texts.
The combination of uncertain revenue streams for HE print texts, given their cost and various alternative purchase options for students, along with the universal availability of Internet-connected computing resources in post-secondary institutions compared to K-12 schools, points toward the college eTextBook displacing the traditional printed book as the principle content source required for university courses before eBooks overtake print for K-12. However, The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that [http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Higher-Education-Ready-to/17771 a lack of university faculty endorsement of eTexts] would suggest otherwise. What are some of the drivers of HE STEM text pricing in recent years?
* Multiple supplements "bundled" with text (everything from workbooks to math reference materials to multimedia CD-ROM's "shrink-wrapped" to the core text, not available for individual, elective purchase).
* Need to maintain revenue stream to meet corporate and shareholder needs/expectations over the fiscal year (see Year End Statements below)
* The very high cost of producing a premiere quality print text (e.g. extensive pedagogic review, creation of artwork, sophisticate images [see Brooker])
* Publishers' contention that in-house costs have increased dramatically as they strive to maintain/enhance production quality of print text while also creating essential electronic corollaries
* Traditional loss of revenue due to used editions available from returns to college bookstores
* Wide availability of current/very recent back editions via online retail sources beyond students' campus (Amazon, Textbook.com, etc)
* Availability of pirated texts and file sharing, e.g. Pirate Bay, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay also http://www.free-ebooks.cc/books.php?id=851586126
* Publishers' cost associated with frequent revision to stay current with advances (4) in the discipline from research findings (GAO 2005 pg. 22) and, perhaps more accurately, to stay "ahead," e.g. sufficiently different, of the sometimes only two- or three-year-old previous editions still on campuses (5).
* Loss in revenue due to competition from Open Text Books and similar initiatives (no data available yet on impact of OA texts)
Some Industry Responses Increase in availability of electronic editions of legacy publishers' lists. * Titles available through CourseSmart - an outlet created by a consortium of higher education publishers that licenses access to e-versions of nearly all adopted textbooks. Works available via CS increased from ~4000 in late 2008 to over 7000 as of this writing, August 2009 [http://www.coursesmart.com/aboutus?aboutview=media see 24 July 2008 and CourseSmart homepage]. NB: e-books available through CS are for subscription license, operable for a specific length of time (6 months, for example).
* E-text available for purchase/download directly from the publisher site at reduced cost (e.g Wiley Desktop Editions)
* Modularization of text content available electronically, such as iChapter, (Cengage) see http://iChapter.com
* Decoupling of the bundled core [print] text and new media offerings
* Research for this report revealed publishers discontinuing the open availability of web companion sites with recent back editions. In such instances, product pages for current editions do not refer to student (or instructor) companion sites as they did for earlier editions. I believe this is primarily indicative of movement toward seamless integration of new media assets into full text e-books, but also possibly reflects a redeployment of assets through new media resource products not specifically connected to texts, such as [http://www.pearsonhighered.com/elearning/ Pearson's eLearning] or [http://www.cengage.com/tlconnect/client/product/findProduct.do?productId=5 CengageNOW].
*Emergence of non-traditional publishers
Non-Traditional Publishers
The past five years have witnessed the emergence of online publishers/clearinghouses for free and open online electronic texts, as well as print on demand firms that offer less expensive, paper-bound, print versions of electronic texts.
http://cnx.org/
Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Connexion's Content Commons contains educational materials for users from K-12 to college students to professionals, organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse, without charge. OER often have a Creative Commons or GNU license that state specifically how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared. OER Commons includes full university courses, complete with readings, videos of lectures, homework assignments, and lecture notes; interactive mini-lessons and simulations about a specific topic, such as math or physics; adaptations of existing open work; electronic textbooks that are peer-reviewed and frequently updated; and elementary school and high school (K-12) lesson plans, worksheets, and activities that are aligned with state standards.
FW offers all its books free online. They offer low-cost choices for students – softcovers for under $30, audio books and chapters, self-print options, and more. Some FW books are open for instructors to modify and make their own. Others are simply available for free online.
Lulu is a online self-publishing firm that has published over 400,000 titles. Lulu Publishing as a service allows authors to publish their work for free with complete editorial and copyright control. Lulu.com has millions of registered users and two million site visitors each month. The company enables authors to sell their work directly to their particular audience. Using Lulu’s publishing tools, authors format and upload their digital content. Then they can take advantage of Lulu’s global marketplace, social networking and author services, free customized storefronts and retail listings on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Lulu’s offers an 80% authors 20% Lulu revenue split. Customers have a number of purchase options: they can buy print or e-Book versions of many titles - where the eBook tends to be substantially cheaper, download the eBook for free in some cases, or preview the fulltext online through an Amazon Search Inside the Book-like interface.
See Lulu's offerings in physics
Opportunities
By any account, the high price of required university textbooks in the STEM disciplines, along with the greater availability of electronic editions, "modulization," and non-traditional publishers, offer the NSDL community a range of potential for project development.
Partnership/development possibilities connected with commercial text publishers recent movements:
* Reference(s) to complete Pathway collections, or specific sections of collections, within print textbook companion websites
* Detailed Tables of Contents of leading texts presented within Pathways as navigation maps aligning PW resources to the texts
* Increased availability of electronic versions of full textbooks present possibilities such as small collections tied to varios text outlines, for example those at the beginnings of chapters: topical navigation of relevant NSDL collections from chapter section summaries
* Selections of specific resources including pedagogic annotations integrated directly into electronic editions of texts, perhaps at the ends of chapters, that are available for license via CourseSmart and in-house ebook platforms (Wiley Desktop Editions/Wiley Plus).
* Targeted exhibit development based on breaking sub-disciplines of interest - hyper-currency being one justification for rapid revision. Here Pathways might look to discipline-specific overview publications, such as review journals, or most current NSF Awards, to inform references to resources related to breaking scientific work. Pathways could work with a group of journal academic editors on examples of articles for small collections tied to widely used texts.
* Pathways might also consider developing, either by curation or original publication, textbook parallel content in the formats typically favored by publishers, see below, to supplant materials publishers are producing in-house.
* High impact new media resources in PW collections that are aligned generally with the scope of first- or second-year college courses, could be valuable as ancillary content related to multiple texts from multiple publishers. A connection could be delivered in partnership with the consortium such as [http://www.coursesmart.com/ CourseSmart].
Partnership possibilities with new players:
* Vetting Free and Open Titles featured through Connexions, OER Commons, or deeply discounted materials published through Lulu
* Pathways compiling complete modular texts based on granular materials described in the Connexions repository and elsewhere
* Pathways partnering with "non-traditional" publishers as a service to introduce reference/enrichment assets into electronic texts as value-add option for existing/prospective authors
Popular University Textbook Electronic Assets Sample
In connection with potential NSDL/PW development opportunities, [http://wiki.nsdl.org/index.php/UniversityTexts herewith is a breakdown of 80 college textbook companion websites.]] The list represents approximately three titles in each of six disciplines: biology, chemistry, engineering, geoscience, physics, and mathematics, published by the five top publishers of higher education materials: Bedford, Freeman, and Worth (Holtzbrinck); Cengage, John Wiley, McGraw Hill, and Pearson Education (SIMBA 2008). Other important commercial publishers of higher ed texts not included are Norton, Oxford University Press, Sinauer [part of Holtzbrinck, same conglomerate as BFW], and Jones and Bartlett.
This summary provides information on which media assets publishers have been including with "blockbuster" undergraduate textbooks (6). This sector of college textbook publishing, cf graduate/advanced undergraduate texts/specialized topics, constitutes the main revenue source for higher education publishers.
The list illustrates the variety of parallel electronic content publishers have been making available in support of the core text. The list tracks 26 types of electronic resources.
My sample size represents a very small percentage (7) of an estimated 5000+ undergraduate texts—based on the number of STEM titles available though CourseSmart — which works with the top STEM higher education publishers represented in the sample.
Detail is included on the top two media assets for university STEM texts across the survey (N=80), online quizzes and web resources, along with prices and publication dates of most recent previous edition the first title in each publisher/discipline category, totaling 30. In instances where quizzes or web resources were not part of a books web companion site, detail on other electronic resources appears.
Following the two top media assets types I identified (Online Quizzes and Web Links), the next most popular are Interactives, Animations, Flash Cards, and "Scaffolded Content," for which I have included tutorials, treatments of concepts that assist the student with the relevant lesson using either partial or leveled explanation, and certain interactives that offer users generous guidelines in using the resource.
Notes
(1) In the March 11, 1992 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, a commentator lamented that "mathematics and science textbooks typically cost $50 or $60 each. (Larson 1992)"
(2) As in higher education programs, publishers of K-12 texts have also expanded significantly their development of electronic assets to accompany print texts. See a sample of these efforts at http://wiki.nsdl.org/index.php/E-TextsMiddle/
(3) Brooker reported in 2008, "I recently completed the 3rd edition of my genetics textbook, as well as the first edition of a biology textbook, which has cost approximately $2.5 million to produce. The $2.5 million figure represents the biology textbook’s total development costs, an amount confirmed by McGraw-Hill’s Higher Education Group." With a $150 this title would have to sell 16,667 units to break even.
(4) Argument to keep pace with research in the relevant discipline, (GAO 2005, pg. 22)
(5) The recent [http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2009-10/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/House%20Final/1025-S2%20HBR%20FBR%2009.pdf House Bill in Washington State] stipulates that university course catalogues "...to the maximum extent practicable, provide the prices and International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) of required and recommended textbooks when students register for classes."
In 2008, the U.S. Senate passed its own version of the “College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007″ (H.R.4137 to amend and extend the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes) by unanimous consent (hence no recorded vote) and appointed members of a conference committee to resolve differences with the U.S. House version. In this case, [http://dltj.org/article/hr4137-on-textbooks-almost-law/ the legislation] also required that publishers provide faculty members with price information, copyright dates of all previous editions in the preceding ten years, substantial content revisions made between the current and previous editions, and to disclose whether the textbook or supplemental materials are available in any other format (House of Representatives 2008 ).
(6) Blockbusters refer to larger first- (and some second-) year texts, which offer multimedia supporting resources and supplementary publications such as lab manuals, teachers editions, and workbooks.
(7) See CourseSmart press Releases, July 24 and August 27, 2008 http://www.coursesmart.com/aboutus?aboutview=media CS estimates it makes available 1/3 of the most popular texts [those expected to sell at least 200 copies nationwide] based on data of R.R. Bowlker. [8/27] CS reported ~4000 titles in it catalog as of July 24, 2008. Using the above figures, as of summer 2008, there were ~12,000 college texts expected to sell more than 200 copies in the Fall of 2008. My research indicated, as of August 2009, CS held 1865 titles in STEM, which does not include social science.
References
NSF Reconsidering the Textbook Workshop
Boyer, T. "Demand for Multimedia in the Classroom: Do Students and Faculty Really Want it All?" American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL, July 27 – July 30, 2008
Brooker, R, "The Value of a Textbook" Chron Higher Ed June 2, 2008
GAO College Textbooks: Enhanced Offerings Appear to Drive Recent Price Increases 2005
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:yvCS2HYW8dIJ:www.gao.gov/new.items/d05806.pdf+college+textbooks+revision&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Granoff, M.“Course Requirement: Extortion.” New York Times, August 11, 2007.
House of Representatives ”Conference Report on H.R. 4137, College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2008.” Congressional Record Online. 30-Jul-2008. Thomas. Available http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r110:FLD001:H57361 July 31, 2008. See textbook section starting at page H7361, sec. 112
Larson, Charles "Book Buying: a Luxury for the Rich?" Chron Higher Ed March 11, 1992
National Association of College Stores "Higher Education Retail Market Facts & Figures 2009" 2009
Nelson, M.R. Is Higher Education Ready to Switch to Digital Course Materials? Chron Higher Ed November 28, 2009
Skelly, S. [http://publishers.org/main/HigherEducation/HigherEd_Comm/Oct_28_08.htm "College Costs Continue to Outpace Textbook Spending"] Textbook Publishers Respond to College Board’s 2008 Pricing Report
Washington State Legislature House Committee on Higher Education FINAL BILL REPORT 2SHB 1025 July 2009
Appendices
Data Summary from SIMBA Report http://www.simbainformation.com/sitemap/product.asp?productid=1609437 Most Recent Publisher Annual Reports
Bedford, Freeman, & Worth (Holtzbrinck) http://www.holtzbrinck.com/artikel/778437&s=en
Cengage http://cengage.com/investor/annual_reports.html
John Wiley http://www.wiley.com/legacy/annual_reports/ar_2009//core3.htm
McGraw-Hill http://investor.mcgraw-hill.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=96562&p=irol-reportsannual
Pearson http://www.pearson.com/investor/ar2007/business/education/higher.html