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 Level

The Educational Materials Sector for K-12 in the USA can be divided into non-digital and digital solutions. Digital Solutions is a general term that describes a range of technologies used to enhance the delivery and the administration of K-12 education, including data management systems, web-based course and assessment materials, and online tutoring and professional development. While under the non-digital solutions for K-12 education we find textbooks, course-materials and other products, such as educative toys and games.

• Higher Education Level
  • 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

Resources

Bibliographies Addressing Research Outline

Bibliography for Item 1 in EM
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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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