Internet2 and EDUCAUSE Offer Spring 2013 Electronic Content Pilot

Colleges and Universities, Courseload, CourseSmart, Elsevier, and McGraw-Hill Education Participating in Expanded eContent Pilot

Pilot Session Nov. 8 at EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2012

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Internet2 and EDUCAUSE today announced a new pilot in their continuing eContent series. More than 20 colleges and universities, Courseload, CourseSmart, Elsevier Science and Technology, McGraw-Hill Education are expected to participate in Spring 2013. The pilots involve platforms, electronic textbooks (eTexts) and other online materials (eContent) to provide campuses an opportunity to explore, evaluate, and advance the transition from traditional media models, including text books, to electronic platforms.

“The Spring 2013 pilot involves a diverse group of higher education institutions and providers working together to identify issues that campuses and content providers need to address,” said Shelton Waggener, Internet2 Senior Vice President. “What we learn can help to make eTexts and eContent common, affordable, available, and accessible to students and faculty across the nation.”

The pilot has two principal goals:

• Advance the higher education community’s understanding of online materials, and what is necessary for them to attain and surpass the effectiveness, accessibility, economy, and other relevant outcomes associated with traditional textbooks; and
• Explore innovative business models, terms, and conditions that make access to digital educational materials more flexible, economical, efficient, and simple for institutions and publishers alike.

“With its increasingly diverse group of participants and content packages, this pilot enables us to explore a broader range of issues related to eContent implementation and adoption,” said Greg Jackson, EDUCAUSE Vice President. “As findings from the pilots become available, we expect that they will enable electronic textbooks to make higher education more effective and affordable.”

Institutions intending to participate range from community and technical colleges to public and private universities. The pilot delivers electronic materials to students and faculty through an institutional license for all content, covered by a standard evaluation pilot participation agreement, rather than through individual purchases by students. The pilot also involves a collaborative research effort to document lessons learned, which in turn will be shared with the higher education community. Each package offered has two or three tiers with a progressively larger scope. Here are brief descriptions of each package:

Package A: McGraw-Hill Education and Courseload (3 tiers)

This package offers a newer version of Courseload’s e-reader and McGraw-Hill Education, a global leader of educational materials, information and solutions, provides access to their Courseload eText portfolio. To discover more about McGraw-Hill Education, go to http://www.mheducation.com/home/index.shtml. Courseload is the leading device- and content source-neutral aggregator and distributor of digital textbooks and course materials. To learn more, click on www.courseload.com.

Package B: Elsevier and Courseload (2 tiers)

This is similar to Package A, except it provides Elsevier’s Science and Technology texts, and has no optional extras. The list of available texts is available at http://textbooks.elsevier.com and clicking the + symbol next to the words Science & Technology. To learn more about Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, visit www.elsevier.com.

Package C: Multiple publishers and CourseSmart (2 tiers)

CourseSmart®, a leading Educational Services Platform and the world’s largest provider of digital course materials, will allow up to 20 institutions to participate in a trial of the CourseSmart Subscription Pack, a one-stop shopping experience where students can buy all of their eTextbooks from one website for one subscription price over a fixed access period. Institutions participating will allow a select number of students at the institution immediate access to any eTextbook in CourseSmart’s catalog of more than 30,000 titles from 40 publishers. CourseSmart’s Subscription Pack offers students the ability to place up to 12 titles on their bookshelf at any point during the semester.

All of the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 pilots will be discussed during the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2012 at the following session: EDUCAUSE and Internet2 E-Text Initiative: Lessons Learned and Looking Forward, November 8 in Denver, Colorado.

For more information about the Spring 2013 pilot, read the pilot’s prospectus and additional materials at http://www.internet2.edu/netplus/econtent/index.html.

Media contacts:
Internet2
Todd Sedmak, 804-497-0282
[e-mail]
or
EDUCAUSE
Greg Jackson, 202-331-5351
[e-mail]

Source: Internet2 and EDUCAUSE