Three streams that will form a river; E-reading devices will find acceptance in the academic community-eventually!

It’s been a while since my last blog post but I am very excited about some of the new developments on the e-reader front. First, I am happy to be working with an interdisciplinary team at ETSU that is trying to get grant funding in order to pilot test a batch of the next generation e-readers (e.g. the new Sony Reader, the new Amazon Kindle) at ETSU in 2009. As we are discussing strategies for moving forward, it has become evident to me and my team that there are really three “streams” that are converging into a “river” that increase the likelihood of a large-scale conversion to e-readers in the academic community within the next few years.

The first “stream” is simply e-ink technology and the improvement with the associated hardware devices. As I have stated before in this blog, the emergence of e-ink represents a seismic shift forward in the movement towards reading more documents digitally. The physiological effectiveness of reading on an e-ink screen relative to reading on a backlit computer screen (e.g. less eye-fatigue) will make the conversion to e-readers on a large scale possible when the associated hardware devices reach a certain level in their evolution. Once the devices can comfortably download and display graphics intensive textbooks as well as exhibit more of the functionality of laptop computers (e.g. functional web browsers, stylus and keyboard inputs, high processing speeds) at a reasonable price-point, the transformation will take place. The next generation of e-reading devices will take us closer, particularly the forthcoming Plastic Logic reader, but it may in fact be version 3.0 before these devices have the necessary functionality to be broadly accepted in the academic community.

The second “stream” is the reduced state funding that is being experienced by most state colleges and universities. Here at ETSU, for instance, state budget shortfalls have resulted in massive cost-cutting and administrators are much more open to paradigm shifts which have the potential to reduce the University’s long-term costs. One long-term cost that has been specifically targeted for reductions at ETSU has been printing costs. Once a functional e-ink device is ready, assuming that they could be obtained at a reasonable price-point, universities could facilitate the large-scale adoption of these devices for the purpose of reducing printing costs. Why would these devices reduce printing costs where current digital document initiatives have failed (e.g. D2L, Blackboard)? People would actually read the documents on these devices instead of simply receiving them electronically (e.g. via e-mail) then printing them off!

The third “stream” is student textbook costs. Students, parents, and universities have been alarmed by the dramatic rise in the costs of new textbooks over the last 5 to 10 years. Numerous states have adopted legislation encouraging the use of digital and used copies of textbooks in order to reduce student textbook costs. Assuming that the costs of textbooks delivered via the e-ink devices will eventually be cheaper over a 4-year period (e.g. including the initial cost of the device) for students than used textbooks are currently, textbook publishers should be quite interested in facilitating the large scale adoption of these devices by all interested parties. Why? This textbook delivery model would give publishers a way to sell their products directly to the consumer (e.g. rather than through a “middle-man” like university bookstores) and to increase adoptions of the newer editions of their textbooks (e.g. because they would be cheaper for the students in digital form). The e-reader model would also facilitate the marketing of new textbooks to faculty members. Again, I realize that publishers are already offering digital textbooks to students and faculty members in the form of Course Smart software. This initiative has not been a success, however, because it requires reading the textbook on a computer! E-ink is really the game changer!

So, over the course of the next couple of years, these streams should “converge” into a river that will represent a major paradigm shift in the way students access textbooks and documents. Stay tuned…
jblake

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