Value Chain Adjustments in Educational Publishing

This paper looks at at the impacts and implications of new technology for educational publishing in the context of major growth in e-Learning. Although it acknowledges the continuing influence of textbooks both on how emerging technologies will drive changes to courses and the pace at which courses evolve, the major focus is upon the impact of technological and organisational change upon the value chains for e-Learning and educational publishing. It reviews relevant developments in technology, e-Learning and educational publishing and the connections between them, using recent examples. Fundamental to the nexus between technology, e-Learning and publishing is the search for value and for new means of creating and leveraging value in a turbulent higher education marketplace. The subjective nature of value is recognised in the context of different stakeholders. The paper then links changing perceptions of value to a perceived shift within educational publishing, which entails moving from the more or less homogeneous delivery of packaged content towards the provision of truly customised learning services combining use of the latest technologies with access to high quality content. The kinds of value, old and new, provided by educational publishers are compared in a table. This shift in value is then explained in the context of value chains for e-Learning and for educational publishing. So far as educational publishing is concern there are signs of both disintermediation and reintermediation in the value chain. Amidst these changes, the position of educational publishing appears set to improve through its potential to provide a new range of integrated technology and content services.