Educational Materials

Field Definition

Basic Definition

The Field of Educational Materials refers to a subset of the book, internet, and software publishing industries that is focused on providing resources to a variety of educational markets. This generally includes textbooks and course materials like course packs, supplementary reading, and games and activities.

"A significant feature of most educational resources is that they are restricted to many and can cost a lot to gain access to. This is largely because of a market economy around educational resources. They are copyrighted and packaged up as objects—books, journals, videos—that have to be bought from a store or accessed through course fees or university repositories (libraries in most cases). Even if this copyrighted material is available in public libraries, it is then effectively rationed by the numbers of copies available and the costs and opportunity costs involved in people traveling to the library to use them (with that use being further restricted by the all rights reserved copyright applied to them)." (Opening Up Education, pg 149)

Taxonomy of Educational Materials Industries

Focus Market Segments

• K-12 Textbooks and Course Materials (Elhi)
• College Textbooks and Course Materials
• University Press
  • i.e. Non-textbook academic and professional works used in college courses

Deprioritized Market Segments

• Educational Software
  • Internet-based activities (in Flash, Java, etc.)
  • Educational Games

Excluded from Field Definition

• Encyclopedias
• Periodicals
• Non-digital Educational Games
• Any resource not overtly produced for educational purposes
  • i.e. Flickr photos and YouTube videos used in media education
• YouTube EDU

Study of the field

Analysis of the EM field based on Field Research Methodology:

1. Overview of Economics of Intellectual Property in EM
2. Overall Picture of the EM field
3. Outputs and Products of the field: Data, narratives and tools produced by the EM field
4. Legal tools available for and in use by the actors of EM field: IP in EM
5. Competitive advantages in EM
6. IP Profile of Biggest for-profit companies in EM
7. IP Profile of non-profit companies in EM
8. IP Profile of Universities working in EM
9. IP Profile of Associations in EM
10. Commons-based Cases in EM
11. Alternative Business Models in EM

Resources

Bibliographies Addressing Research Outline

Bibliography for Item 1 in EM
Bibliography for Item 2 in EM
Bibliography for Item 3 in EM
Bibliography for Item 4 in EM
Bibliography for Item 5 in EM
Bibliography for Item 6 in EM
Bibliography for Item 7 in EM
Bibliography for Item 8 in EM
Bibliography for Item 9 in EM
Bibliography for Item 10 in EM
Bibliography for Item 11 in EM

Links

Links on EM

Blogs and news from the field

Blogs to watch on EM

Interviews

See the full list of potential interviews on the Contacts for EM page.

Already Conducted:

1. Nicole Allen
   • Textbooks Advocate for The Student PIRGs and Campaign Director for Make Textbooks Affordable
   • Phone: (617) 747 - 4409
   • Email: nicole [at] studentpirgs [dot] org
2. Jonathan Emmons
   • Community Development Specialist, Connexions
   • Phone: (713) 348 - 2392
   • Email: jonathan [dot] emmons [at] cnx [dot] org
   • Conference Call Scheduled for 10am EDT on Monday, 03/25/09
     • Jonathan Emmons Interview Notes

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