FEATURE E-books


contains interactive content such as videos, a quiz and the ability to make notes. Brill has also investigated interactive content, but according to Sam Bruinsma, book authors are not driving this feature. He said: ‘We do facilitate authors to add complementary materials to their writing, but the uptake is low. We did interesting experiments with interactive content, which were satisfactory but, as yet, there is no author demand.’


Open access Bruinsma has, however, seen demand from authors for open-access books. ‘After some experimentation in the past few years, in the summer of 2013 we launched Brill Open Books, offering open-access options to authors and their funders,’ he said. ‘We now have 80 book titles available as open access and we


‘Libraries are taking e-books more seriously and


starting to put in place strategies for e-book


purchasing’ Hazel Newton, Palgrave


While e-books have opened up new revenue streams for some publishers, others are going one step further and have developed entirely new business models based on e-books. Cengage broke new ground in 2011 when the company signed a deal with Plymouth University to offer undergraduate students free access to course material. Traditionally, students have to pay for their own textbooks, but psychology students in Plymouth today get free access to a set of 12 e-book texts. This not only saves each student money, it also makes sure that all students are able to access the same texts. The cost, which runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds, is being met by the university because it says that it sees real benefits in making this investment. According to Philip Gee, programme lead for psychology at Plymouth University: ‘Our departmental purchase means that our library, which previously spent funds purchasing 30


18 Research Information APRIL/MAY 2014


expect a growing demand for this service as a


consequence of developing open-access


policies in the UK and continental Europe.’ For example, he pointed out that the Dutch State Secretary for Education has recently announced that a gold open-access policy will be introduced in the country in coming years. ‘We certainly believe open access is a viable


model, although it will take some time for authors and funders to get used to the level of funding needed to publish a book with a CC- BY licence only,’ he said.


Brill currently publishes under a CC-BY- NC licence, which Bruinsma said enables the publisher to reach out to the print market as well as other additional revenue opportunitiess. All of Brill’s open-access e-books are currently also available in print but Bruinsma believes that once it publishes under a CC-BY licence, Brill will no longer sell print.


Last year Palgrave became the first mainstream publisher to offer an open-access option for books under a CC-BY licence in response to demand from academics. ‘We published the first open-access monograph funded by the Wellcome Trust in November 2013,’ explained Newton. ‘Under our model, both the PDF and EPUB [versions] are available open access. Hardback and paperback versions are also available on demand, at a lower price than for traditionally published titles. We expect to publish more open-access books this


‘Enabling interactivity is becoming easier as


major platforms release authoring tools that enable publishers to add


interactivity’ Ziyad Marar, SAGE


year. Open-access books are still in their infancy so it is not clear which model, or models, will prove truly viable, scalable and sustainable, but we are experimenting.’


So it seems that experimentation is still the


order of the day. Publishers are experimenting with open access, formats, interactive content, purchasing models and even with the basic idea behind the e-book. They are still trying to figure out what this format means for their business. But one thing is clear – the market is growing and the potential is enormous.


‘At a recent focus group meeting with several UK librarians, I asked whether they thought 90 per cent of their book budget would be spent on e-books within the next 10 years,’ said Newton. ‘They all thought that this [timescale] was very achievable – possibly even before then.’


Institutional purchasing – a new business model for e-textbooks


or more copies of first-year texts, now has additional budget to buy essential specialist texts that will benefit second- and third- year students – it’s a “win-win” situation for both the students and the university. Now our staff can email students ahead of lectures identifying specific chapters they can read in advance to help them understand the topics that are taught. The ability to annotate our e-books enables lecturers to highlight texts that may be controversial or require further attention, and to inspire dialogue and debate pre and post lecture.’


Richard Stagg, publishing director for higher education at Pearson agrees that this business model benefits everyone. He told Research Information: ‘An institutional purchase means that a university can be certain that every student has access to the required texts. This model will also attract students to the university because of the cost


savings and other advantages that e-books can offer. The students save money and get access to the latest edition of any text while the lecturers save time and effort because they do not need to design their own course material.’


Pearson has been developing interactive texts linked to courses for many years through its MyLab products. But this year it plans to expand this and start offering sets of texts for undergraduates suitable for institutional purchases. ‘We are working with Plymouth University so that the next wave of texts it provides for its students will include texts from Pearson,’ explained Stagg. ‘We are currently working on some joint research into the efficacy of these texts with the faculty at Plymouth.’


Pearson is prototyping its next-generation course-aware texts this year and is looking to work with development customers.


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