Weekly Research Update | June 24, 2011

Welcome to our Weekly Research Index, where we list links and summaries of the salient articles we have bookmarked this week. This list is culled and edited from our ongoing Delicious feed, which is also available via this blog. This Index is divided into broad categories based on our Education and Technology Trends for 2011.

Delivery –> Discovery

CIO Corner: Consumption v. Creation — “Quite the topic for debate right now in the education community, what type of device do my students need to perform the tasks, assignments and work that is required of them? Do they need a single device that they can transport with them at all times and if the answer is yes, what does that device look like? Or do students simply need access to devices based on their requirements?”

Google Beefs Up Online Storage for Apps for Education | Campus Technology — “According to a blog post today, e-mail storage space for Apps for Education users is being increased from 7 GB to 25 GB for each mailbox. Mailboxes for current users will be expanded automatically “over the course of the next few weeks.”

Google also highlighted 25 recent institutional additions to its hosted service, including eight school districts and 17 colleges, universities, and business schools.”

Prof-desk Offers Free Online Course Management System | THE Journal — “Social networking and online chatting might be a distraction for some, but the makers of the online course management system Prof-desk are using Web-based collaborative tools to connect teachers and students to assignments and to each other–for free.

Though in development for the last two years, the Prof-desk online course management system only formally launched this month. It currently offers more than 400 multimedia instructional and learning resources”

Hats Off to California! (Part 1) OER Commons: An Education Ecosystem Using Knowledge Sharing | College Open Textbooks Blog — “ISKME’s work in OER since 2005 has focused on identifying key opportunities for deepening the impact of OER adoption and use through research and practice that support enhanced teaching and learning. For example, our research has shown that access to high quality, adaptable resources provides the flexibility needed for educators to develop innovative, localized content as well as pedagogical practices that are more collaborative and peer-based. Our OER Commons network is a curated collection of over 30,000 educational resources—including open textbooks—that can be shared, adapted, and remixed to fit individual teaching and learning needs.”

Reinventing the College Textbook | Campus Technology — Jed Macosko, an associated professor of physics, and A. Daniel Johnson, a senior biology lecturer, are using a $249,348 grant from Next Generation Learning Challenges to develop BioBook–which they said they believe will be the precursor for the next generation of digital textbooks.

Campus Technology spoke with Macosko to find out what progress has been made so far on BioBook, the challenges they’ve faced in developing it, and how students are reacting to it.

Blended Learning: A Disruptive Innovation [INFOGRAPHIC] — Blended learning is a disruptive innovation in education that can take many forms. Here, we look at what blended learning is, why it’s spreading, and how it works in real and virtual classrooms. Join the conversation on blended learning below.

OLDaily Chrome App | Stephen’s Web — If you use Google Chrome (or have Windows and can install Google Chrome) then we have a treat for you: the brand new OLDaily Google Chrome application. It’s available for free on the Google App Store; try installing it and taking it for a test drive. The app supports three features:
- full access to all OLDaily posts and commenting
- easy listening to the Ed Radio webcast stream
- access to the #oldaily IRC chat channel (note IRC may be blocked in your networks)

eText: Is It Ready? Are We Ready? | Campus Technology — “After spending a significant portion of the past two years researching and “test driving” eText in the many formats and sources that currently exist, I have come to a number of initial conclusions about the nature and application of eText in higher education (the educational level to which I limited my studies and investigation). I’ve seen that most of the possible implementation strategies for eText seem quite logical and are based on existing technologies that have been available to the higher education community for some time. But there is still a problem holding us back–a problem that lies in the fact that defining, combining, and implementing eText components has as yet been accomplished only on a very limited basis and by only a few “technologically entrepreneurial” institutions. Large-scale eText implementation is a task that has been identified as too daunting, too difficult, and it is the perhaps the most significant replacement ever, of an educational tradition that has served higher education well for centuries. ”

Knewton’s “Adaptive Learning” Technology Spreads To Tens Of Thousands Of Students At ASU, Penn State, SUNY, More | Fast Company — “At the Venture Capital in Education Summit yesterday, Jose Ferreira, CEO of Knewton, announced the first big partnerships that will have tens of thousands of students trying the adaptive learning platform he’s been building for the past five years.

What he calls a “data interoperability engine” promises to take any kind of educational content, break it down and present it to students at exactly the sequence and pace they need, while giving detailed feedback on performance to both students and professors. “We can classify students by ability level down to the concept,” Ferreira tells Fast Company. “Professors get a profile and they know exactly what people know coming in.”"

Yale Digital Commons: Free and Open Access Digital Resources | College Open Textbooks Blog — “Last month, Yale University announced its adoption of a new “Open Access” policy that has made various collections of work in the University’s repertoire available online. Operating under a collaborative framework, the Yale Digital Commons (YDC) provides a forum for the general public to access Yale’s digital assets such as the University’s archives, libraries and museums.

Yale University is the first Ivy League institution to make these types of resources available online. According to an article in the Yale Daily Bulletin, the commons currently hold over 250,000 high-resolution digital images that are available in the public domain.”

Narrowcasting –> Nanocasting

Skype for iPad hands-on: New competition for Apple’s FaceTime | CNET Reviews — “You won’t find Skype for iPad available in the App Store until Tuesday, but we got a hands-on look, with plenty of pictures and testing, with the forthcoming app. The new iPad-optimized Skype client will take advantage of the tablet’s larger screen real estate, making for crisp and clear video chat over Wi-Fi, and often less crisp chat over 3G.”

Nook Simple Touch Review — “f you want an e-reader to read and only read, definitely. I don’t have enough experience to judge whether or not the Nook is better than the Kindle, but many, including Consumer Reports, think it is.

E-readers still haven’t hit that $99 sweet spot, but $139 seems more than fair to me for such a great reading experience.”

CHART OF THE DAY: The iPad Is Still The Only Tablet That Matters — “ComScore just released a bunch of stats about traffic consumption on non-PC devices in 13 countries, including tablets, smartphones, and other devices, such as the iPod touch.

We analyzed comScore’s data to focus just on tablet usage, and charted the iPad’s traffic share in each country. It was 95% or higher in 12 of the 13 countries, with Android the second-place finisher in most countries (and “other” in Canada, home of RIM).”

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4e03a9a049e2aedb50160000/ipad-traffic-by-country-comscore.gif

PayPal Says Mobile Payments To Hit $3 Billion | AllThingsD — “PayPal says it will process $3 billion in mobile-device payments this year, up from the company’s previous projection of $2 billion.

The online payments service, which is owned by eBay, had projected last fall that it would process $1.5 billion in 2011. It raised that projection by half a billion earlier this year before releasing the latest figure Thursday.”

Samsung Series 5 Google Chromebook Review | AllThingsD — Would you buy a laptop that comes with only one major program—a Web browser—and doesn’t allow you to install widely used software such as Microsoft Office, Apple’s iTunes, Adobe Reader, or, in fact, any other locally installed program?
Are you ready for a laptop that has almost no storage space to hold your personal files, photos and videos, and is designed around the idea that you’ll keep all that precious personal stuff on remote servers?

After Apple, Samsung, Acer vie for No. 2 tablet spot | CNET News — “After undisputed tablet market leader Apple, Samsung and Acer are vying for the No. 2 tablet slot worldwide, according to market researcher DisplaySearch.
Samsung’s Android 3.1-based Galaxy Tab 10.1

While Apple shipped about 4.7 million 10-inch class tablets last quarter, Samsung is shaping up to be the closest competitor at about 850,000 units shipped worldwide in the same quarter, according to Richard Shim of DisplaySearch, which pegs its numbers to vendors’ public statements. ”

Amazon’s tablet to launch in August? | CNET News — “It appears Amazon will have its much-anticipated tablet on the market to challenge Apple before the end of the year.

Taiwan-based component makers say the online retailer will launch a tablet PC as early as August, with global sales for 2011 pegged at 4 million units, according to a report from tech site DigiTimes. With monthly orders expected to hit 700,000 to 800,000 units a month, the tablet’s launch is timed to take advantage of the pre-Thanksgiving shopping rush, DigiTimes’ sources pointed out. ”

The page turns: Tablets to outsell e-readers by 2012 | Mobile Technology News – “Tablets are on pace to outsell standalone e-readers, although there’s still money to be made from e-reader hardware. Research firm In-Stat today said that the broader market will be drawn to multi-purpose devices instead of single-function units, such as traditional e-readers like the Kindle. Even with an estimated 40 million e-readers sold by 2015, far more consumers will turn to tablets because they can be used to read e-books as well as browse the web, manage email, game and communicate.”

Content –> Services (business models)

Digital Jumps, Print Plunges in AAP Monthly Sales Report — “Sales of the three adult trade segments had a steep decline in April, hurt no doubt by Borders and its going out of business sales. The major houses, who are among the publishers that report to AAP’s monthly sales report, were shipping selectively to Borders on a cash basis during the month and received no money generated by the GOB sales of existing inventory. As a result, sales of adult hardcover fell by 22.7% in April from the 19 companies that report to AAP, while trade paperback sales at 21 houses fell 25.4%. Sales of mass market paperback, for which Borders is an important outlet, plunged 41.6% for the 11 reporting houses. Sales in the children’s/YA segment rose 1.5% in April from 18 houses, but children’s/YA paperback sales declined 7.2%.

E-book sales had another strong month, with sales up 157.5%, to $72.8 million from 22 reporting companies. The increase, however, was not enough to offset declines in the print sector and as a result combined print and digital sales of trade books fell 10% at the reporting companies in the month.”

“Lower-Than-Print” Pricing in Developing E-book Markets? | Publishing Perspectives — “Assuming production costs for e-books are on par with those of print books (something that continues to be debated in developed e-book markets), can countries like India — which are still investing in developing digital marketplaces and where prices are already very low — hope to offer discounts on e-books? And should they? When you’re talking about a $1 to $1.50 textbooks, going any lower seems all but impossible. Pricing — and the price of devices — is likely to remain the greatest obstacle to mass digital adoption in these growth markets.”

Amid Reports Of IPO Plans, Chegg Acquires Lecture Note Marketplace Notehall — We’re hearing that online textbook rental service Chegg has completed its third acquisition today, snapping up lecture notes and study guides service Notehall for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock.

Chegg, which has received over $219 million in financing and hit revenues in the ballpark of $130 million in 2010, is also reportedly “deep in talks” with bankers regarding its plans to go public.

J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore Details Revealed: Harry Potter E-Books and More | Underwire | Wired.com — “Harry Potter fans, hold on to your broomsticks: After a week of frenzied speculation, J.K. Rowling has revealed that she will release the long-awaited e-books of her mind-bogglingly popular fantasy series through her own e-commerce store and interactive online experience, Pottermore.
See also:

With Harry Potter, Publishing Finally Has Its ‘Radiohead Moment’

Crucially, Rowling will sell the e-books through a proprietary platform, she revealed at a press conference this morning in the Victoria & Albert museum in London. Because of a shrewd arrangement with her publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic (or possibly just a short-sighted one on the publishers’ side), Rowling retains the digital rights to the seven Harry Potter novels. Bloomsbury and Scholastic still have control of print publishing rights. ”

The Association of American Publishers — “Trade net revenue and rankings for April 2011:

Adult Hardcover – $111.4 million

Adult Paperback – $95.9M

E-Books – $72.8M

Religious Books (all formats) – $48.5M

Children’s/Young Adult Hardcover – $41.2M

Children’s/Young Adult Paperback – $36.8M

Adult Mass Market Paperback – $28.5M”

US ebook sales continue to plateau in April while print sales drop | The Digital Reader — The AAP released their sales figures for April 2011 and the is quite fascinating. The AAP’s member publishers reported that ebook sales for April totaled $72.8 million, and hat’s up a smidgen from March 2011 ($69.9 million) but still down from February ($90.3 million). Print was down in most categories but 20% or more, which makes the ebook figures impressive.

Sixty-seven Percent Of Libraries Offer eBooks | eBookNewser — The number of public libraries offering eBooks has been steadily growing over the past three years.

According to a new report from the American Library Association, 67.2 percent of public libraries offer eBooks in 2011, up from 65.9 percent in 2010, 55.4 percent in 2009 and 51.8 percent in 2008. This number is not a surprise, as companies like OverDrive (one of the leading digital book distributors) and device makers like Sony have been expanding their library partnerships.

Barnes & Noble Loss Widens on Higher Expenses | AllThingsD — “Barnes & Noble Inc.’s fiscal fourth-quarter loss widened on higher expenses, though the bookseller posted higher revenue, thanks to surging online sales.

The nation’s largest book-store chain offered no guidance for the current fiscal year as its board of directors continues to evaluate a takeover offer made last month by billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media Holding Corp. Liberty’s closely watched offer values the chain at $17 a share, or about $1.02 billion, a valuation that some said is too low, given the possibilities for Barnes & Noble’s increasingly popular Nook e-book device in the rapidly growing e-reader market.”

Barnes & Noble: E-books Now Outsell Print Books 3 To 1 On BN.com | paidContent — “In a conference call following the earnings report released this morning, B&N CEO William Lynch said that the Nook’s market share has increased to 26 or 27 percent, up a bit from the 25 percent that the company reported in February. (Amazon’s Kindle is believed to hold 60 to 65 percent of the market.) Overall, Lynch said, Nook-related business grew to over $250 million in the fiscal year ending April 30—close to 300 percent growth over the same period last year.

“We now sell three times as many digital books as all formats of physical books combined on BN.com,” Lynch reported. (Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is also selling more e-books than print books, but neither company has released actual sales numbers.) He also said that “PubIt!, our self-publishing digital platform, is the fastest growing part of our digital catalog in units and volume sales. We had our first PubIt! title reach #1 sales rank on our Nook Bookstore recently.””

Why Apple’s Subscription Terms Are A Lose-Lose-Lose | paidContent — “It was an adjustment, designed to soothe an impasse that remains in place between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and the many, if not all, proprietors irate at what they see as a landgrab.

Despite the concessions, the situation is still a veritabel no-win for all three groups concerned, an unsatisfactory “lose-lose-lose” stalemate that must be resolved fully at a later date”

Consumers Now Spending More Time on Mobile Apps Than the Web [STUDY] — “Consumers are spending more time on mobile apps than on the web for the first time, a new report claims.

Flurry compared its mobile data to stats from comScore and Alexa, and found that in June, consumers spent 81 minutes per day using mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes of web surfing. (See chart below.) The shift comes as combined tablet and smartphone shipments eclipsed those of desktops and notebooks for the first time, according to a recent report by Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.”

Future of media: The rise of the million-selling Kindle author — “Amazon’s Kindle platform doesn’t just allow people to read millions of e-books, it also allows them to publish millions of them: the company announced on Monday that John Locke, who self-publishes his work through Kindle’s direct publishing program, has joined the elite group of authors who have sold a million or more books, a list that includes Stieg Larsson and James Patterson. Along with fellow author Amanda Hocking, Locke has become the poster boy for a growing movement of writers who are bypassing the traditional publishing industry.”

Message –> User

News: Calling the Clicker Vote | Inside Higher Ed — At California State University, the systemwide student government has picked the third option. Last fall, it passed a resolution calling for each California State campus to choose a single brand of classroom clicker, thus becoming one of a growing number of institutions to pursue clicker standardization as a way of curbing redundant costs for students. The system has responded by instructing those campuses that have not standardized clickers to do so. This spring, the Pennsylvania State University System went one step further, announcing that it would deploy a single brand of clicker across its 20 campuses.

These moves mark the first state-level acknowledgments of the pervasiveness of clickers, a technology that is hardly new but now appears to have bled well into the mainstream. And with the major clicker manufacturers now offering applications for smart phones, observers see a future beyond clicker standardization that could portend greater savings for students — and complications for professors.

New Digital Publishing App Available for OSX -| eBookNewser – “Wondershare , a specialist in digital conversion apps, has just released MePub. This app is designed to take any number of source formats and create Epub eBooks that will work “with poplar (sic) e-readers, including Apple iPad® (using iBook), Barnes & Noble NOOK™/NOOK Color, Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle®, BeBook, Hanlin reader, and many more.”

Supported input formats MS Word, PDF, HTML, and CHM. Conversion is a straightforward process, and Wondershare boasts that it will only take 3 steps. The app also supports batch processing. You can get the app from Wondershare, where it is retailing for $40.”

Cloud –> Universe

Report: Facebook has 750 million members | CNET News — “Last summer, Facebook announced that it had achieved 500 million users and counting. Now that figure is completely outdated.

Though Facebook hasn’t released an official statement yet, TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook retains approximately 750 million regular users who log in to the social-networking site at least once per month.

That number, which is larger than the population levels of at least a few countries on the planet, isn’t all that surprising. The rate at which 250 million more people joined is the staggering aspect. ”

CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook’s Unbelievable Effect On The Rest Of The Web — “Facebook is quietly eating up all the time we spend on the web at the expense of all other static non-Facebook sites, according to an analysis by Ben Elowitz CEO and founder of Wetpaint, a digital media startup.

If you exclude online video, and mobile web consumption, Elowitz says, “the web is shrinking.” He says the rest of the web is quickly becoming “irrelevant,” and argues that in the future companies will need to spend less time on SEO, and more time on optimizing for Facebook.”

http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4e04eef549e2ae812b0e0000/chart-of-the-day-facebook-growth-vs-the-rest-of-the-web-june-2011.jpg

dougjohnson | librarycloudcomp – Discover how libraries can benefit by moving to the cloud and what role librarians can play when staff and student applications become hosted.

The session discusses the implication of hosted computer applications and resources on school library programs and the role of the school librarian.

Analyst: Apple’s iCloud could see 150 million users | CNET News — “Apple could sign up as many as 150 million iPhone users to its new iCloud service, according to projections based on a survey from RBC Capital Markets.

In a report released today, RBC found that 76 percent of the 1,500 iPhone users polled from June 7 to 14 intend to use the iCloud service. Unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month, iCloud will allow iOS device users to store, access, and sync their iTunes content online.”

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