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)

History

"The development of modern practices in textbook publishing in the USA was concomitant with the rise of mass education, characterised by graded organisation of formal schooling into classes." (Michael G. Watt, Research on the Textbook Publishing Industry in the United States of America)

"Several surveys conducted in association with a report on textbooks issued in 1931 indicated that procedures for selecting authors, their role, and the methods they applied were well defined at this time. Commentators reporting on textbook publishing in the 1950s and 1960s depicted an industry in which the publishing process and the roles of authors, editors and sales people had been institutionalised for many years. However, the textbook publishing industry of that time was faced by the challenges of integrating new technologies in printing and new media for presenting materials. Commentators writing in the 1990s were more concerned to analyse changes in the textbook publishing industry occurring in response to globalisation. Mergers and takeovers, resulting from reductions in profit margins faced by many textbook publishing companies, led to the incorporation of textbook publishing activities within multinational media, communications and entertainment conglomerates, whilst small emerging textbook publishing companies filled a vacuum in the marketplace as niche publishers." (Michael G. Watt, Research on the Textbook Publishing Industry in the United States of America)

30s

40-50s

"The textbook publishing industry was characterised by being almost entirely controlled by private enterprise, small-scale in its operations, modest in its growth, limited to approximately 75 companies, general rather than specialised, and subject to constant changes resulting from interactions between authors, publishers and teachers. An analysis of data published by the American Textbook Publishers Institute for the years 1939, and 1946 to 1952 indicated that approximately half of the income from sales was expended on production costs, and the prevailing low margins were decreasing. The economics during this period shifted with a decline in the market for college textbooks and an increase in the market for elementary school books. This shift increased the costs involved in marketing, because a greater number of sales people needed to be employed, and depositories had to be maintained in some states." (Michael G. Watt, Research on the Textbook Publishing Industry in the United States of America) (pg 7)

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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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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