The ultimate content owners--traditional publishers--are beginning to shift their effort toward the online environment in view of the developing trend in distance learning/education and the increasing use of mobile devices to access contents. The formats for contents and delivery for any knowledge-based product, information and contents are determined by the way these digital products are used by end users. Thus, digital technologies, computers and networks will have the greatest impact on the way people use such products in all aspects of their life, and thereby bring about fundamental changes in the way publishing and learning industries operate.
Current efforts to reengineer publishing and learning are at their very early stage. Digital and networking technologies continue to evolve and there is no sure way to tell what technologies, models or frameworks end users will adopt in the end to further their own usage. As a result, today's online publishing is often nothing more than translating existing contents to Web pages or adding multimedia components to static contents. Separately, distance learning is also limited to developing and testing new ways to deliver a "classroom experience" to remote audience. Online contents and delivery technologies will have to evolve together in the digital economy.
Electronic Books
There is a heightened interest in portable reading devices to deliver electronic versions of existing contents. Currently four types of e-books are available:
These intend to deliver digital versions of existing contents. An important player in e-book is Microsoft who actively participate in developing e-book standards.
Online Publishers
There are an increasing number of online publishers which include SmartEcon.com, Electron Press and Online Originals who sell new titles through the Internet only, and online-based magazine publishers such as Salon.com.
A few online publishing businesses target academic market, including GR.AM.P.S., FatBrain, Cybertext Publishing, Optimedia, and Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia University. These enterprises focus on distributing online versions of print titles and are mainly intermediaries who resell online books on behalf of authors.
In reference book market, several players have launched online business. IBooks.com is to distribute electronic books beginning with reference titles. It is in the process of converting reference materials and manuals from print to online format. Versaware allow publishers to convert print reference texts into a searchable digital texts with multimedia support.
Educational Publishing
Educational publishing market is characterized by high capital requirements and resulting concentration by a few players including Harcourt General, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Viacom Inc., Houghton Mifflin, Pearson PLC, Scholastic Corp., Tribune Co. and John Wiley & Sons. Most recent estimates show that book sales in educational, el-hi, professional and reference book segments were about $11 billion in the US in 1997. Traditional college textbooks accounted for about $3 billion.
The most significant trend in educational publishing business is online retailing of textbooks rather than online content delivery. Like Amazon.com, several players have entered to become the online bookstore for college students. They include CourseWeb, run by National Association of College Stores, efollett.com by Follett Corp., Varsitybooks.com, textbooks.com by Barnes & Noble, and BigWords.com.
Web Course Tools Providers
The World Wide Web and the Internet came into the learning market with a small bang in 1997 as some tech-inclined professors used the Web to put course syllabus and selected teaching materials on the Internet and provide students with email and discussion forums.
Efforts to use the Internet as course syllabus and interaction tool are aided by a few software companies that specialize in Web course construction tools. These include:<.p>
Blackboard (merged with WebCourse in a Box)
Question Mark (computerized assessment)
Learning Software and Tools
Software companies started converting their groupware and collaborative applications into interactive learning tools to explore new markets for their software, including:
Lotus' LearningSpace
Centra (Symposium)
O'Reilly's WebBoard
Teaching and Learning Services
At the institutional level, some colleges applied technology to their existing correspondence and extension courses (distance learning). Their focus is on applying Internet technology to existing course delivery structure rather than innovating contents.
Adult learning and corporate training service companies (i.e. learning intermediaries) are one of the fastest growing segments of the dot com business. A few examples include:
Distance Learning Resources
For definition, history, technology and issues, see Distance Education: A Primer offered by The University of Texas at Austin.
Distance Education at the UT Center for Instructional Technologies.
World Lecture Hall, a collection of links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver course materials in any language.
American Center for the Study of Distance Education at Penn State University.
Distance Learnign at a Glance from University of Idaho.