TY - GEN
T1 - The shift from static college textbooks to customizable content
T2 - 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2021
AU - Gordon, Chelsea
AU - Lysecky, Roman
AU - Vahid, Frank
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 IEEE.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - College textbook publishing is transforming from a model of static textbooks to a modern model of customizable textbooks. Customization may involve reconfiguring content, combining textbooks, authoring one's own content, adding notes to content, and more. As such, publishing is moving away from a model of selling static textbooks, and toward a model of providing a library of content from which instructors can build a course. This Full Paper provides data for one digital-only publisher, zyBooks, on the prevalence and trends around reconfiguring and combining Computer Science and Engineering textbooks, instructor-authored sections, and instructor-added notes. The data show that for over 4,000 classes in 2020, over 85% of classes reconfigured their books, over 30% of classes combined two or more books with hundreds combining three or more, about 30% of books had instructor notes added, and about 65% of zyLabs-enabled zyBooks included instructor-created labs. The trend away from static textbooks and toward customizable content has substantial implications on how content is authored, requiring more modularity of content sections to support reconfiguration, and requiring more consistency across subjects to enable combining content. The trend also has substantial implications on book marketing, pricing, renewals, and more.
AB - College textbook publishing is transforming from a model of static textbooks to a modern model of customizable textbooks. Customization may involve reconfiguring content, combining textbooks, authoring one's own content, adding notes to content, and more. As such, publishing is moving away from a model of selling static textbooks, and toward a model of providing a library of content from which instructors can build a course. This Full Paper provides data for one digital-only publisher, zyBooks, on the prevalence and trends around reconfiguring and combining Computer Science and Engineering textbooks, instructor-authored sections, and instructor-added notes. The data show that for over 4,000 classes in 2020, over 85% of classes reconfigured their books, over 30% of classes combined two or more books with hundreds combining three or more, about 30% of books had instructor notes added, and about 65% of zyLabs-enabled zyBooks included instructor-created labs. The trend away from static textbooks and toward customizable content has substantial implications on how content is authored, requiring more modularity of content sections to support reconfiguration, and requiring more consistency across subjects to enable combining content. The trend also has substantial implications on book marketing, pricing, renewals, and more.
KW - computer science education
KW - computer science engineering publishing
KW - content customization
KW - web-native textbooks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123823189&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85123823189&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637289
DO - 10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637289
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85123823189
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - Proceedings - 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2021
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 13 October 2021 through 16 October 2021
ER -