ABSTRACT
The education market quickly recognised the potential in the advances in digital technology for presenting an exciting and interactive teaching and learning environment. However, this market is a much more price-sensitive market than some and so it is a challenge to build digital products that are comprehensive in their application of technology while cost effective. Schools cannot spend a large amount of their annual budget on digital resources, which also require significant investment in technology; students, who are the purchasers of texts in the higher education market, are often burdened with course fees and living expenses, which means that they have little left to spend on textbooks. Yet to make the texts visually enticing, truly interactive and significantly different from a print book is a costly business. One of the biggest problems for publishers is how far the print and digital products remain linked and reflect each other. Pedagogy would suggest that digital products could and should be significantly different from a textbook but this transition is a difficult one for publishers, and indeed teachers, to make. This chapter will consider these challenges and explore how far the industry has
moved towards transforming itself into a more digital-based business. It covers the characteristics of the markets and the development of technology within the classroom
in order to understand the environment for digital products. Looking first at the schools market it describes how the industry has developed products, exploring some of the key issues publishers face here. It then looks at the issues around developing e-textbooks in both the schools and HE sectors, including the opportunities and threats surrounding Apple’s focus on the education market. While some issues are similar across both schools and HE markets, a further section explores some of the distinctive products available to students and the changing approach publishers are taking to the sectors. Finally, it looks at some of the future directions for the education market as a whole.
