Dramatic Shift to Digital

Tech Crunch TV has posted a very interesting interview with McGraw Hill Higher Education President Brian Kibby. Kibby shares McGraw's timeline regarding the adoption of digital. Equally important he explains the distinction between ebooks, econtent and the integrated learning experience delivered by "digital". In presentations at ICBA Conferences and at ICBA presentations at various state and regional meetings we have shared what we call monetizing acess to a website (MAW). The financial transaction for a student to engage with the type of econtent Kibby describes is the purchase of an access code. There are a variety of names various organizations use; resource codes, registration codes, PINs, etc. At ICBA we choose to use the term access code. This code allows the student to engage with learning materials online through a digital device. The move to digital means that the most significant "course material" product to be sold in the future will be access codes. At a running time of 8 minutes this video is worth viewing, especially the first three minutes.But to help make it easier here is a rough transcript of Kibby's dramatic opening remarks:

"The adoption of ebooks is accelerating, or econtent as I like to call it because it's more than just ebooks. It's content that is simulations, and it's an integrated learning experience...So that uptick is accelerating. I think over the next 18 months we'll see a sea change across the board...Right now the uptick might be 3% some places, sometimes 5%. You will have schools in the not not too distant future with nothing but ebooks, econtent. And that could be 12 to 18 months away in some cases. I think within a 12 month period we'll see a rapid acceleration of it. And I think within 36 months we'll see a sort of national uptick of digital...Within 36 months we'll see a dramatic shift in the use of digital across the board at the higher education level. It will be dramatic. It could be 18 months, but certainly within 36 months we will see an incredible change there."

An Interview With McGraw-Hill Higher Education President, Brian Kibby, About The Future of Ebooks
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/09/an-interview-with-mcgraw-hill-higher-education-president-brian-kibby-about-the-future-of-ebooks-tctv/