So what was the reaction from the corporate learning segment? Here’s a couple of noteworthy initiatives that have reached mainstream online discussion.

1.ADP’s National Sales Leadership Conference bore witness to a coaching exercise that made use of iPads. The aim was to engage, motivate and excite sales managers into preparing for a challenging year ahead, while introducing a new sales profile. While several unique facilitation tools were used to create experiential learning, there was a definite ‘wow’ factor missing, that the company’s sales training team introduced in the form of iPads on every conference table for use during coaching exercise. Managers working in teams made use of limited apps (Pages to type in answers, Safari to take a live survey, Video for instructional e-learning tutorial), and iPad usage was small compared to the actual event (presentations, research, workshops, community, etc.).

2. This next one’s from the defense segment – the Royal School of Artillery, Wiltshire, UK are running trials on the iPad through a custom app that teaches soldiers strategy based scenarios for thinking through fire missions. Troops have reportedly picked up jargon and procedures faster, and are running healthy internal competitions to score higher. With the initial success of this programme, tablet/smartphone technology is being considered for further implementation in training.

Why aren’t we seeing sweeping iPad giveaways in large organizations, much like some universities are doing? We know that Apple is selling to enterprises, and has been fairly successful with iPad sales too. The likes of SAP, Mercedes Benz and Wells Fargo have been quick to get their hands dirty with the device, far quicker than iPhone adoption. According to Tim Cook, operating officer, during Apple’s earnings call,  just in the first quarter of its release, as much as half of the Fortune 500 companies are testing/deploying the iPad. It is more than likely that learning and development experts at these firms were itching to try their hands at the device, with the powerful didactic, collaborative,  and interactive learning potential it has to offer…so where are the deployments?

Is it the price (x no. of employees, that’s a massive learning budget in itself!), or is it the lack of confidence in the tablet’s capabilities to fit in and facilitate learning in the workplace? Or is it the breaking away from form, more specifically, from Flash – a medium that has defined much of corporate training in the last decade? There is also serious competition from iPhone 4 and upcoming devices running on alternate platforms (will cover this in my next post)…is the community playing a waiting game, while quietly experimenting on a small scale? Simply porting existing content from desktops will not do, and will, in my opinion, put to waste the advanced functionality that the iPad offers towards interactivity and ‘hands on’  experiential learning. Perhaps this is one reason that inhouse developers/ e-learning vendors are deliberating…there is an acute need to rethink, redesign and recode learning technology to suit the new capabilities.

If you are a corporate learning professional, I would like to ask you whether you think the iPad has a place in your organization’s learning function…and if you are a third party e-learning provider, are you currently experimenting with any iPad based solutions?

So, why did Seth decide to self-publish?

Seth Godin had an agreement with Portfolio (an imprint of Pearson’s Penguin Group USA). The agreement entailed Portfolio bearing costs of printing and promoting the books, while Seth got advances and royalties on his titles. His flagship title ‘Linchpin’ sold 50,000 copies (according to Neilsen Bookscan).

Image credits: KarlSakas.com, Amazon.com

In spite of the successful partnership with Portfolio, Seth decided to move onto self-publishing. His plans include:

• Releasing titles using various digital channels and print on demand
• Leveraging the community (his blog), which is 438,000 member strong
• Using a ‘good quality’ editor

Publishers offer authors quality editing, the ability to bear costs, and leveraging their distribution and marketing channels to promote the book. Seth had outgrown his publisher.

So, how much does Seth Godin stand to earn?

The figures here are purely illustrative and offer an insight into the potential of self-publishing. The calculations are based on a  few assumptions :

• All calculations are made for the title ‘Linchpin’
• Print and Kindle prices for the title are from Amazon.com as on 01 September 2010 (Print – $ 17.13, Kindle – $ 11.99)
• Value of print and Kindle are calculated on 100% basis for number of units sold (For example, what is the value of 50,000 units sold in  print version or e-book version)
• The size of Seth’s community is a constant at 438,000. % refers to units sold as a percentage of community members. This is an assumption of the scope that his community has to offer
• The first calculation is based on actual sales of the title

(Of course, 40% of the community buying Seth’s titles might be a tad bit unrealistic. However, as his community grows, a 10% conversion rate will mean that many more units in the absolute value.)

Considering the title will be released mostly in digital form and with the option for POD, there will be fewer expenses to contend with. So, how much money will Seth Godin earn by self-publishing? A lot.

Are you an author or writer?

If you are, we would like to know your opinions on self-publishing. Please take a few minutes to answer our survey. As always, we will share a copy of our findings.

The traditional relationship between authors and publishers centered on the capital outlay required to create, print and sell books. Publishers would provide authors with advances, bear the expenses of producing, printing, distributing, marketing and promoting the books. Proceeds from the sales of the book were largely the publisher’s and a portion of it goes to the author as royalty. The value of the publisher, thus, centered on printing and selling the books.

For authors considering self-publishing, printing and selling books are a challenge. But the rise of the digital market seems to have made it easier. The rapid growth of e-book sales has demonstrated the potency of the digital market and printing to distribute content is no longer a necessity.  Are authors and writers confident of selling books by themselves? And it they are, have they outgrown the need to have a publisher?

We have decided to run a survey on what authors and writers think about self-publishing. This survey will answer questions such as:

• By what means do authors and writers currently publish their content?
• Are authors and writers moving to self-publishing?
• What are the driving reasons to do so?
• Has the digital market made it easier to self-publish?
• What are the inhibitors for self-publishing?
• Do authors and writers rely on other parts of the industry value chain to self-publish?

If you are an author or a writer, your inputs will be valued very much. Please follow this link to answer the survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/self-publishing

Once we have collected enough responses for the survey, we would be happy to share a copy of the findings.

We would also like to know your thoughts or opinions. Do leave us us a comment!

]]> http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/survey-is-self-publishing-increasing/feed 3 http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/google-this-number-of-books-in-the-world http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/google-this-number-of-books-in-the-world#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:32:54 +0000 Vivek http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/?p=521 Google has the answer to a lot of questions we ask. And looks like it has the answer to this one too.

The company has been trying to digitize books through its Google Books initiative for a few years now, so it is surprising that they didn’t answer this question at the outset.

How did they do it?

There were four classification systems that Google looked at. Each had their own set of shortcomings.

(The following infographics are based on this post by Google)

Identifying various limitations with other classification systems, Google Books decided to use metadata and compile a list of only unique books. The metadata that Google used was provided by more than 150 providers.

The weeding out of duplicates and exclusion of non-books left Google with a list of approximately 130 million books – a number I feel is definitely going to rise.

Google’s vision with its Google Books project is highly ambitious, to say the least. And considering it plans to digitize all possible books, it is a mammoth task! On the other hand, if there is one company that can do it, it is Google…

An interesting side note:

Last week I wrote a post on reCAPTCHA, a tool that prevents spam and digitizes books. While I am still in the process of getting someone to from the reCAPTCHA team to talk to me, I found that Google has bought reCAPTCHA and is using it to enhance its digitizing process.

So, how has reCAPTCHA worked for Google?

Estimates by the reCAPTCHA team suggest there are 200 million CAPTCHAs solved around the world every day and it takes 150,000 man hours to solve them.  If a book has 100,000 words in it (average size of a novel), it would take  little more than a minute to digitize.

If each page in a book had 250 words, Google would need to scan 400 pages of said average sized novel. Considering the company is capable of scanning 15 pages per minute (~1000 pages/hour), it would take a little more than 25 minutes to scan the book. Add to it the minute or so required to digitize the content using reCAPTCHA, and Google can create a digital copy in a little less than half an hour.  This does not factor in time for loading the book, manual intervention or that the 100,000 words inputed using reCAPTCHA would not be happening simultaneously. However, these are impressive numbers nonetheless.

So, if Google does manage to digitize a book in half an hour, how long would 130 million take? A little more than 7400 years…

I don’t expect Google to wait that long

]]> http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/google-this-number-of-books-in-the-world/feed 2 http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/recaptcha-ing-old-books http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/recaptcha-ing-old-books#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:28:02 +0000 Vivek http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/?p=421 Digital is a place everyone seems to be going. Since Gutenberg’s modern press, printing presses across the world have churned out copious  amounts of content (estimates suggest printing revenues to be in excess of $ 1 trillion). To digitize all of it is a Herculean effort.

Publishers have pro-actively included digital forms while publishing their content and are active in digitizing their archives or back lists. However, this is a small sub-set of content that exists. Companies have already started addressing content that exists in library archives or as manuscripts, research papers, etc. Google, for example, has partnered with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) to digitize collections. These collections will then be available on Google Books.

Another organization, the Internet Archive, recently digitized 23,000 books for the University of Illinois. There exist many such organizations that are offering digitization and conversion services. Printers, for example, offer their clients options to convert existing content to digital ready forms. But of all these, I would like to highlight the contribution made by ‘reCAPTCHA’, an anti-spam tool. Developed by The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, reCAPTCHA uses scanned words from old books, newspapers and radio shows instead of random words.

Wait, what is CAPTCHA?

CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a tool that protects websites and web pages from spam generated by bots. The tool creates a test that only humans can pass but computer programs can’t.

So, how is reCAPTCHA different?

reCAPTCHA helps digitize old books, newspapers, and radio shows.  These pages are photographed and subjected to Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This process yields low accuracy and requires human intervention to be successful, and this is where reCAPTCHA is so innovative. It uses the scanned text for CAPTCHA  and creates a unique system that validates how the text has been converted. So basically, you’re just typing a few words to prove your humanity to the internet, and a wonderful by-product is that you’re helping convert old texts to digital format in the process!

Estimates by the team suggest there are 200 million CAPTCHAs solved around the world every day and it takes 150,000 man hours to solve them.  If a book has 100,000 words in it (average size of a novel), it would take  little more than a minute to digitize… I wonder how many publishers can claim the same?!

Do leave a comment if you know of any other such unique tool to digitize books.

]]> http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/recaptcha-ing-old-books/feed 5 http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/education-at-35%e2%80%a6-dreaming-big http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/education-at-35%e2%80%a6-dreaming-big#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:12:39 +0000 Deepali http://www.sourcingnotes.com/blog/?p=389 The comparisons between Apple iPad and this $35 ‘still unnamed’ mobile device are so unfair. The online buzz about this new product is almost deafening. Ever since the Indian government announced the launch of the ‘$35 m -device’ (lets call it that, since it does not have a name yet, and this anyway seems to be the most exciting ‘fact’ about it), discussions abound on its viability, price, wasted funds, its not-so-successful predecessors, apps that it can offer and its future. While debate on all of these is justified, some more thoughts:

Why is cost such a big issue?

• Even before establishing the viability of $35 tag, talks about taking it to $20 and $10 are underway. So will that cheaper version be sans the solar recharging facility?
• Isn’t inclusive education reason enough to pray that this product survives launch phase and moves on to the next level… Even if it means a few bucks more?
• Considering the Indian government that has millions of rupees allocated to ICT in education, to repeat my earlier question, why is cost really an issue? Funds exist, where they go is another matter altogether.
• If we believe $35 is cheap and that the poor students will buy it, then the euphoria is misplaced, because they will not.

What is the purpose of this m-device?

Inclusive education… said the Indian HRD minister Kapil Sibal… his pet project is aimed at making sure that all Indian children gain access to education. So will this m-device -

• Fill in for the non-existent teachers?
• Replace the non-competent teachers?
• Add to the information available in books?
• Reach where books are not available?
• Not need any repairs, ever?

Logistical challenges mostly, but unfortunately very real. What is this little m-device aiming at? And do we have back up plan ready to make sure that it does achieve, what it has set out to do. This is of course assuming that by 2012 mass production will be well underway, and all those looking to benefit from it are queuing up to own it.

This brings me to some other concerns…

• The first thing that the government did was launch it. Was it a product launch, or an idea launch?
• How many education experts were consulted about how would it be used, where and by whom?
• How many manufacturers were consulted about commercial viability?
• Why did not he government first identify or at least shortlist partners in this noble cause who are willing to manufacture it?

Information on at least some of these questions would have assuaged a number of skeptics. Optimism pays but being real pays even more…

Going back to why comparison is unfair, one was an Apple product, the other is a government initiative, do I really need to say more?

A market-ready foolproof device the iPad still is not, but there are plenty of interesting ways it may be leveraged for learning at the workplace / university (or actually, outside of those places). In this post, I want to the cover the actual implementations being made by educators (I’ll cover corporate initiatives in my next post).  A great example is Rutgers University’s iPad marketing course that I blogged about earlier. There’s a lot of talk of how the iPad is a game changer, but how many universities are putting their money where their mouths are, and investing right away?

Here’s 5 university initiatives worth mentioning.

1. We all heard about Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University shelling out big bucks to give out free iPads to all new students. While this illustrates their incredible confidence in Apple, it doesn’t tell us how their students plan to use it, or what the universities have up their sleeves. What will work in their favour is the uniformity in terms of device make, if/when they push out any mobile learning initiatives.
2. In contrast, Oklahoma State University is taking a more calculated (and sensible, IMHO) approach to tackling this unknown mobile monster… they’ve launched a pilot that’s going to track any reduced textbook costs (if at all) and learning activity of its 125 pilot students. They’re also looking for ways to incorporate the iPad’s web/app based tools into classroom learning.
3. Loyola University’s English Dept. has designed a new course for the iPad, in alignment with its Film and Digital Media focus. The success of this ‘practice run’ class will decide its future in the next academic year. What’s interesting here is that while the iPads were acquired through grants and donations, the students are allowed to keep them, since they need to purchase the ebooks themselves.
4. Binghamton University has introduced a new iPhone/iPad app that helps its community stay updated with all kinds of campus news, notifications, and events. Although, this isn’t exactly a learning initiative, more to do with campus communications.
5. Duke University is also joining in on the iPad pilots, through Duke Global Health Institute’s ‘Research Methods in Global Health Sciences II’ course. This would form a part of the institute’s Master of Science in Global Health degree program. The iPads will enable students to explore various research techniques by exploiting its small form factor, Wifi and 3G capabilities, long battery life and lightweight design.

Lastly, I’d like to bring to your attention the foray made by CourseSmart, into the iPad textbook game. The provider is now offering over 10,000 textbooks (including those from the 5 biggest textbook publishers) through an iPad app that allows it to bypass the dreaded iBooks mire. I’d watch out for this one.

So the overlying theme I see here, is that there are only a handful of universities across the world that are giving  the iPad the attention it demands. And it looks like even these institutions are starting small, treading cautiously into the mobile computing-led learning future…

Do you know of other universities that have followed iSuit with Apple’s latest gift to mankind? Or know of innovative ways in which universities could? Please do share…

All charts are based on aforementioned list.

Top 50 publishers: Which region are they from?

Europe dominates the list with more than half of the publishers from the region.

Asia is an emerging publishing market. However, the possibility of more publishers from the region featuring in the list seems unlikely.

Top 50 publishers: Where are they from?

In terms of countries, most of the publishers are from the US, Germany and Japan.

Publishers from the US have witnessed a change in position on the list. This has been attributed to the weak economy and the overall recessive mood of the industry. This environment has impacted revenues (below).

Top 50 publishers: What of their revenues?

Considering what the publishing industry has been through over the last two years, some publishers have experienced a negative revenue growth. However, majority (57%) of the publishers in the top 50 have experienced revenue growth.

Publishers that have experienced negative revenue growth are mostly from (and not surprisingly) the US.

Publishers that have experienced decreased revenues in 2009 are all from developed markets. (There is only one company from China in the top 50 list).

No one publishing segment has been featured in this list – all companies featured in this list have been operating across multiple segments. The year ahead will feature recovery more than growth as the current economic climate is not expected to improve anytime soon. Will there be a major shift in where each company lies? Unlikely…

This week, I came across an article that mentioned a few numbers about the publishing industry – which I think is indicative at best. While the numbers might be debated upon (and that would be welcome), it does not discount the fact that China is a strong contender – as a destination to outsource printing and as a potential market to sell in.

China as a publishing market

China is the world’s most populous country. With around 1.5 billion people, China contributes close to 20% of the world’s population. This in itself provides tremendous opportunities for consumption of educational books, reference books, newspapers, magazines, trade books, etc. The total publishing revenues is estimated to be around RMB 1 trillion Yuan (USD 148 billion) as of 2009 – an increase of 20% compared to 2008.

There has been growth across various segments of the industry:

• The book sales have increased by 20% in 2009 culminating to 7 billion copies printed
• China continues to have the world’s largest consumption of daily newspaper – with 43.7 billion copies being published last year
• In 2009, China also published 3.1 billion periodical copies
• 9000 electronic periodicals and 500,000 e-books resulted in a circulation of more than 30 million
• While print has been going strong, digital publishing in China has experience a 50% growth compared to 2008. The digital publishing market is estimated at RMB 80 billion Yuan (USD 12 billion)
• Printing remains a forte of the Chinese publishing industry. Printing in China has experienced an increase of 25% from the previous year, and is now valued at RMB 575 billion Yuan (USD 85 billion). This includes the vast number of orders Chinese printers fulfill for publishers abroad

Source: China Institute of Publishing Science (CIPS)

Revenues generated by the industry are tremendous. China’s revenues from print alone are greater than the GDP (PPP) of countries such as Serbia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan.

What does this mean? – Opportunity of course!

One thing that these numbers do not indicate is revenue contribution by languages. I suspect, English is not a major contributor to China’s publishing revenues. And this is an opportunity – a significant one at that. Walt Disney (not exactly a publisher) has already assessed the market and created a strong footprint. After a successful trail phase in 2008, the company is looking to educate 150,000 children by 2015 through its language schools. For the population willing to learn English, there will be demand for reference material, language books, etc. As English becomes prevalent, the opportunity will grow to include magazines, trade books and newspapers.

In our nationwide survey of ~400 Indian higher education students (for the EDGE report on online assessments), we had some interesting insights w.r.t attitudes about online exams.

While most students are aware and ready to take their exams online, there is in fact a clause attached! Most students have some preferences and ideas about the type of exams involved. The graph below illustrates…

Students have preferences in type of exam to take online

Preference in type of exam to give online

Source: ValueNotes Research

The consensus from the survey was on the following kinds of exams.
● Objective tests of any kind
● Class tests and mid-terms (in-course exams)
● Entrance exams, especially for MBA, engineering, UPSC and IAS
● Exams in different locations, such as foreign university exams
● Exams for professional certificate courses (such as Java)
● Non-academic exams (driver’s license, passport, etc.)

Two themes emerge from these responses:

1. Objective assessments are easier to envision in an online format (for Indian students).
2. Convenience is another factor considered. Exams for foreign universities, nationwide entrance tests and other non-academic tests that are not a part of official university curriculum are easily deemed fit to give online.

Why these particular exams, but not the rest? I believe that while 95% of students are aware of the concept of online assessments, their perceptions are currently influenced by a select set of experiences with online exams, mostly objective assessments. Thus, they are like to believe that this is the entire range, reach and capability of assessment technology. And their thoughts are pretty much mirrored by university officials and decision makers in our study, perhaps a source of all the confusion. The lack of suitability of exam format was one of the biggest challenges stated by university officials, and the majority of them echoed the same sentence, “You cannot hold subjective (essay based) exams online, it’s not for our university. But we can think about small, objective tests online”.

Where did this belief start, and where does it end for India? Educational institutions and innovation labs across the world, especially in developed countries, are experimenting with and successfully implementing subjective assessments online (will address this in a later post). So are stakeholders in the education industry unaware, or unconvinced of the possibilities?

All comments sought and welcome!