The Electronic Schoolbook

Master Thesis

Nachdiplomstudium FH Integrated Management

Executive MBA

Submitted to the
Berner Fachhochschule, Fachbereich Wirtschaft und Verwaltung
and the
Haute École de Gestion HEG Fribourg

Presented by
Jean-Luc Barras

Expert Co-expert
Dipl. Ing. Albert Rijkeboer Dr. rer. pol. Clea Bauch

August 2, 2010
Contents

Contents 3

Management Summary 5

1 Introduction 7
1.1 Project rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.1 A changing environment for schools and teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.2 Efficient use of public financial resources in education . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1.3 New learning practices and resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1.4 Technological trends and opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2 Project goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Approach and methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2 Context Analysis: The global Environment 13

2.1 Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.1 The 2007 financial crisis and its effects on economy and policy . . . . . . . 13
2.1.2 Public expenditures on education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.3 Economic forecast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Society and culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.1 The information and knowledge society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.2 Teaching and learning in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.3 Teaching and learning with ICTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2.4 Digital learning resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2.5 Case study - The One Laptop Per child Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3 Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.1 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.2 Internet, the web and electronic content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.3 Learning environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 Politics and rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4.1 The Swiss education system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4.2 Privacy and identity management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4.3 Copyright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.5 Synthesis and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3 Business Analysis: Electronic books and learning resources 34

3.1 Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2 Electronic Books Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3
 3.2.2 Distributing and selling e-books – Case studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.2.3 Reading e-books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3 Production and distribution of educational resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3.1 Generalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3.2 Conception and design of electronic learning resources . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.4 Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.4.1 Products and services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.4.2 Potential customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.4.3 Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.4.4 Market system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.4.5 Concurrence intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.5 Discussion and analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.5.1 Concurrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.5.2 Challenges and trends for the publishing industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.5.3 Sucess factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4 Vision 56
4.1 Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2 Teaching and learning resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.3 Teachers’ environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4 Learners’ environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5 General comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5 Implementation 60
5.1 Framework for Switzerland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.1.1 Constraints to the implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.1.2 National coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.1.3 Usability issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.1.4 Technical developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.2 Recommendations for Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.1 Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.2 Opportunities and threads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.3 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

6 Conclusion and Outlook 66

Bibliography 68

List of Figures 72

List of Tables 73

A Swiss Education System 74

B E-books: Technical formats and E-readers 76

4
Management Summary

Rationale
The omnipresence of computers and the internet has lead the information and knowledge society
to become a reality, mainly in the industrial countries. The world is now connected and the global-
ization is slowly, but strongly changing the rules of the economic game, giving more importance to
social competences such as teamwork and collaboration, intercultural communication, or lifelong
learning.
Governments and local authorities have invested a lot of resources in the integration of ICT
in education and revised curricula integrate now high-level competences such as learning to learn,
social and inter-cultural competencies, and entrepreneurship. But studies still show a gap between
home and school use of computer and internet, especially for 15 years old students.
The whole publishing industry confronted to the digital content and is facing the similar
challenge as the music and video industry faced in the years 2000. New mobile, interactive devices
are opening new possibilities to present information and interact with multimedia contents. The
traditional business models are fundamentally challenged, not only because of piracy and free
content (alternative solutions may exist), but also due to changes in the customers’ behaviors.
A tipping point has now been reached, where mobile technology, social web and new forms of
online collaboration have the potential to develop new forms of teaching and learning in schools.

Goals
The goals of this work are:

1. To develop a vision for the integration of electronic learning materials through teachers and
pupils in compulsory and upper secondary education (K-12).
2. To develop a framework for the national coordination and organization; it will be focused
on copyrights, technical implementation and financial aspects.
3. To develop recommendations for Swiss publishers of teaching and learning materials in order
to support the technological transition toward production, marketing and distribution of
digital learning and teaching material.

Approach and methodology

This work is based on the assumption that the change imposed to the publishers is imposed by a
strong and rapid technological evolution which impacts school practices and their own organiza-
tion. The chosen approach is a standard strategy process and is composed of a context analysis
that aims at understand the global challenges the education and publishers are facing due to the
current global environment (Chapter 2), and an industry analysis that aims at specify the main

5
features and cause-effect relations between the different (technological) changes (Chapter 3). In
this part, the publication of electronic books and the production of digital learning resources are
carefully analyzed. A vision for digital learning resources and tools is derived from the analysis
(Chapter 4). It provides a framework for national coordination (Section 5.1), and recommendations
for publishers (Section 5.2).

Results
The global environment analysis shows that the emergence of the knowledge society imposes to
future citizens high level scientific and social competencies (challenges for education systems), and
to publishers the development of new business models to respond to technological innovations and
new customers behaviors (challenges for the publishing industry). Although the global economy is
recovering from the financial crisis, the current pressure on public resources devoted to education
is present, and identified not only as potential barriers to innovation, but also as incentives to find
consistent and coordinated solutions, made possible by recent developments in web technologies.
For the publishing industry, new technologies and devices open new business opportunities and
broaden the limits for presenting multimedia contents and informations. The concurrence intensity
on the market is analyzed as strong, especially due to the threat of substitutes, the power of buyers
and the internal rivalry. Four recommendations are proposed to publishers:

1. Develop products and competencies in the digital world in order to be in phase with the
evolution of the technology, and to bring an active contribution to the development instead
following rapidly evolving trends.
2. Do not fight piracy with technical solutions. These solution are limiting, usually integrated
to the cost of user friendliness and usability, and not usual in education. With the pub-
licly supported Swiss Education Server playing the role of neutral gatekeeper, an evolutive
distribution model for commercial teaching and learning resources can be developed.
3. Intensify the collaboration with teachers, network of teachers and regional authorities as they
are the main stakeholders who define the demand.
4. Propose a rich and rapidly evolving offer to respond to the customers’ expectations

For Switzerland the implementation of the vision developed in this work would imply a fun-
damental redesign of the tools currently proposed by the Swiss Education Server and an intensive
collaboration with publishers to develop a framework suitable for the distribution of commercial
content. The main challenges are the coordination of activities in very complex topics such as
interoperability for learning resources en curriculum elements, identity management of teachers
and pupils, or copyright issues, and to ensure technological developments.
For both education and the publishing industry, the real challenge is not to transfer conven-
tional models in the digital world, but to identify the basic trends, the foundations on which new
models can be developed.

6
Chapter 1

Introduction

During the last fifteen years, an important and fast evolution in different fields happened.
For example in technology, the middle of the years 1990s started with off-line desktop com-
puters to arrive now with portable mobile devices permanently connected to the internet,
granting instant access to the whole world wide web, and allowing immediate publication
of opinions, pictures and videos. In 2001, the whole music industry was just recovering
from to CD transition, that Apple launched1 the first iPod offering the first MP3 player
able to store more than 1000 songs, so that whole music libraries could fit in a pocket.
The omnipresence of computers and the internet has lead the information and knowl-
edge society to become a reality, mainly in the industrial countries. The world is now
connected and the globalization is slowly, but strongly changing the rules of the economic
game, giving more importance to social competences such as teamwork and collaboration,
intercultural communication, or lifelong learning. The whole publishing industry is facing
a similar challenge as the music and video industry faced in the years 2000. The tradi-
tional business models are fundamentally challenged, not only because of piracy and free
content (it can be observed that in this case alternative solutions may exist), but also due
to the changing habits of customers. [Biglione (2010)]
During nearly the same period, education faced big challenges as well. Based on sci-
entific international studies such as TIMMS2 and PISA3 , the performance of education
systems in industrial countries are now periodically assessed and ranked, confronting edu-
cation systems to the expectations from the society. The current situation is that schools
have not only to provide knowledge and competencies, but have to take part actively to
the pupils education, a traditional mission of family.
This work is about electronic books in schools. A tipping point has now been reached,
where mobile technology, social web and new forms of online collaboration have the po-
tential to develop new forms of teaching and learning in schools. The main environmental
changes which affect the production, the access and the use of digital learning and teaching
material at school, and by pupils in their learning process will be analyzed.
1
Apple music event 2001 http://www.youtube.com/v/kN0SVBCJqLs
2
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study TIMSS http://nces.ed.gov/timss
3
OECD Programme for International Student Assessment PISA http://www.pisa.oecd.org

7
1.1 Project rationale
This section describes the main causes which currently affect the education environment in
terms of new competencies, skills models and digital literacy, allocation of public resources
to education and monitoring of education systems, new learning practices and resources,
and finally technological trends and opportunities. This provided the background to the
definition of the goals of the present work. Figure 1.1 shows the dependencies relations
between the different aspects and illustrates the whole rationale of this work (Dashed lines
indicate indirect causal links, double arrows show mutually influencing concepts).

Technological developments Education policies

Teaching and learning with ICTs Monitoring of education systems Financial crisis

Internet and the Web Shortage of public financial resources

Knowledge Society Education authorities

Publishers 21st Century competences

Curriculum

Digital learning resources

Schools

Figure 1.1: Dependencies between the different concepts which are considered in this work
as important influence factors to the environments of schools.

1.1.1 A changing environment for schools and teachers

In this work, the reflexion be will concentrated to primary and secondary schools, and
especially to public schools. These schools receive their mission statement and financial
resources through local authorities and have to respect official guidelines. They normally
have only limited ability to design their working and organization strategy.4
The so-called 21st century competences are the skills necessary for young adults to join
a society where technology-related competencies are becoming increasingly indispensable.
As it will be developed further in this work, different competencies framework exist or are
4
This situation explain the reason why private schools use differentiation strategies with regards to
public schools, and develop specific aspects such as high level of ICT integration, teaching of local languages,
or fostering of different pedagogical approaches.

8
in development. But they all share skills such as the encouragement of personal fulfillment,
active citizenship, social inclusion and employability in a knowledge society. At the level
of ministries or regional school authorities these framework slowly, but surely, influence
the design and organization of teaching. From discipline-based teaching, education slowly
evolves towards a competency-based learning, where the importance of collaboration and
active participation gain in importance.
One of the key competence integrated in new the frameworks is digital competence,
or digital literacy. Although young people do use new technologies and media intensively
outside school, there is a need for education systems to focus on high level aspects such
as critical thinking when viewing online content, protecting one’s privacy in social net-
works such as Facebook or Myspace, or respecting legal conditions and copyrights. The
competence-based approach involves skills and attitudes to apply knowledge appropriately,
and the development of positive attitudes towards learning, critical thinking and creativity.
Changes the teachers are facing, namely the way they should design learning and teaching
on one side, and their working organization on the other side, represent a real challenge.
But it could be seen as a real opportunity for schools and education actors to develop new
types of activities and innovative learning environments, closer to the expectations of the
society and the future needs of pupils.

1.1.2 Efficient use of public financial resources in education

In industrial countries, the education sector represent a very important part of public
expenditures (another sector sector being health).
In Switzerland, based on the Federal Constitution, both the Confederation and the
cantons are responsible for the efficient use of resources in education. Due to the federalist
structure of the Swiss education system, there is a high need of coordination at the different
levels.
Since 2006, the Swiss Confederation and the cantons have received the common con-
stitutional duty to ensure the quality of the education system. On a four years basis, they
publish together a monitoring report showing the actual state of education in the country.
In a near future, the report will present in particular the impact of resources on the results
of pupils, compare them between cantons and with other, comparable, countries. [CDIP
(2007), article 10]
Due to the consequences of the financial crisis, there will be a shortage of financial
resources which will affect the development of schools and reach other stakeholders, and
particularly the publishers.

1.1.3 New learning practices and resources

The pervasiveness of technology in society has also reached the schools. Starting in the
middle of the years 1990, important resources have been concentrated on the integration
of ICT not only in the equipment, but (later) in teachers training as well. Although
the schools are quite well equipped (in Switzerland, a national and representative study
has shown in 2007 that in nearly all schools, computers with internet connection where

9
installed, with an average ratio of 7.6 pupils per computer [Barras and Petko (2007)]),
the level of ICT integration in teaching and learning is still rather low compared to other
OECD countries. This situation at school contrasts with to reality of young people at
home. Using the data from PISA 2003 and PISA 2006, the OECD showed [OECD (2005,
2010)] how important is the gap for teenagers between home use and use of computer at
school (see Figure 1.2 which shows the evolution
!
between 2003 and 2006).
Figure 3.2"•"#$%&'($)"*+',%'($-."%)/(0"1"2345%$'+"1$"634'7")2633-"3+""3$6'+"5-12')"

Students’ Use of and Attitudes towards ICT

;,/%,."0H,#'T#$"2A,."$#T/,U2,."(6#2$5.H#0#%'3-2",/V Percentage of students using a computer:

!"#$%&''( !"#&'3, <.#'"&,/#-(0%,$

School Home
Netherlands
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9K,%&#+,-24(5% <"0(6 Portugal
!"#$%&'()"(*+$,-.'("/%01$-,'21-'12%*-3'$%'3-,(-%3$%&'"13-1'"4'5-1(-%02&-'"4',0/3-%0,'41-6/-%0)7'/,$%&'("85/0-1,'20'9"8-:
)*#+,$-'.$,#/0",#"''#('1#"'#,.$2/,#%'3-0/045(5"6* Source: OECD PISA 2006 database, Figure 1.2
;"/1(-<'789:#;<=!#>??@#A0"040$,B#C04(,#@*)* Stat Link http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/811636413673

FREQUENCY OF USE BY TYPE OF USE

Figure 1.2: Students (15 years old) frequently using a computer at home, school or other
O0P5.H#0$F,A#$"2A,."$#&'1#32%&#"&,6#2$,A#%'3-2",/$#'P,/0((#0"#&'3,#0.A#0"#$%&''(B#"&,#$2/P,6#
place in PISA 2003 (left-hand side) and PISA 2006 (right-hand side).
1,."#'.#"'#-'$,#)>#U2,$"5'.$#04'2"#&'1#T/,U2,."(6#"&,6#2$,A#%'3-2",/$#"'#-,/T'/3#P0/5'2$#"6-,$#
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'T#"1'#H/'2-$#'T#2$0H,B#,0%&#/,-/,$,."5.H#$5R#"6-,$#'T#<9C#T2.%"5'.$*#C&,#T5/$"#5.A,R#5$#T'/#<.",/.,"#
0.A#,.",/"05.3,."#"0$F$B#1&5%&#5.%'/-'/0",$#4'"&#,A2%0"5'.0(#2$,$#$2%&#0$#(''F5.H#2-#5.T'/30"5'.#
The increasing use of computers and internet in schools does not only influence the
design of teaching, but also the design of learning
37
resources. The term learning resources
© OECD 2005 Are Students Ready for a Technology-Rich World? What PISA Studies Tell Us

includes all kinds of content which can support the teaching or learning process, should
it be a book, an illustrated notebook, a lab equipment or a software, to name a few.
Digital learning resources are learning resources which can be used with a computer or
any other electronic device. Generally, these digital learning resources are stored in on-line
repositories, or on local filesystems. They are accessible directly or within virtual learning
environment (VLE).
Using a computer to help teachers is not a new idea. In the 1960s, there were a lot
of attempts to use computer for training repeating tasks, or with the support of pre-
programmed learning modules. This practice has shown its limits and was basically
not suitable for compulsory education. With the connection of school computers dur-
ing the last decade, the development of new devices like beamers, electronic whiteboards,
or tablets, and an active usage of the internet in social networks, new creative and in-
novative forms of teaching and learning have been developed. This change in practice
influences the demand towards the publishers for new types of learning materials. As an

10
illustrative example, the french speaking cantons of Switzerland requires additional digital
complements to any newly developed or purchased material that they integrate as official
learning material.
The publishers have to take these developments into account if they want to be able
to respond to these new demand with a credible response to all the offer freely published
on the world wide web. New forms of products with new possibilities will have to be
developed, for different devices and different learning environments. New production pro-
cesses will be organized, and new actors are appearing, especially for the distribution of
the digital products.

1.1.4 Technological trends and opportunities

Information and communication technologies are rapidly evolving technologies. Recently,
the following progresses were made:

- 3G and 4G networks are used to transfer not only voice conversations, but also
for any digital content such as web pages, video, or sound through TCP/IP-based
technology. Wireless WiFi access points are now commodity in hotels and public
locations in big cities.

- Polymer-based rechargeable batteries, which are now standard for multimedia mobile
devices such as laptop computers, smart-phones and tablet PCs.

- Touch-screen technology (with stylus or fingers) is strongly changing the way of

interacting with content on multimedia devices.

- Electronic paper based reading devices allow until 8000 page turns on one single
battery charge cycle, but with very low user interactivity.

- Free cloud computing services are provided for nearly every type of application (docu-
ment writing, file sharing, chat communication, calendars and contacts management,
electronic mail, personal library management, etc.)

All these technological evolution, linked with lowering costs and miniaturization, will
influence the content publishers and the users. The vision of a dynamic, interactive book,
were readers can directly and immediately get content updates everywhere, interact with
the content and share opinions within social networks is approaching to become a daily
reality. The publication processes are simplified as well.

1.2 Project goals

The goals of this work are the following:

1. To develop a vision for the integration of electronic learning materials through teach-
ers and pupils in compulsory and upper secondary education (K-12).

11
 2. To develop a framework for the national coordination and organization; it will be
focused on copyrights, technical implementation and financial aspects.

3. To develop recommendations for Swiss publishers of teaching and learning materials

in order to support the technological transition toward production, marketing and
distribution of digital learning and teaching material.

1.3 Approach and methodology

The kernel of this work is based on the assumption that the change imposed to the pub-
lishers is imposed by a strong and rapid technological evolution which impacts school
practices and their own organization.
The chosen approach is based on a standard strategy process, which is organized as
follows:

1. Understand the business current state: Chapter 2 will provide the necessary back-
ground to understand the global challenges the education and publishers are facing
due to the current global environment.

2. Identify the focus area and understand the business drivers: Chapter 3 is designed
to specify, through an industry analysis, the main features and cause-effect relations
between the different (technological) changes. The main result is a list of success
factors which provides a basis for the formulation of recommendations towards the
definition of corporate and business strategies.

3. The goal of this approach is to deeply and clearly understand the context and in-
dustry environments in order to develop a vision (Chapter 4).

4. On the basis of the analysis and the vision, a framework for national coordination
(Section 5.1) will be defined, and recommendations for publishers will be formu-
lated for the production of electronic teaching and learning material, and build
successful tools to support the distribution process of electronic content for schools
(Section 5.2).

The structure of the strategic analysis in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 is based on the
methodology of strategic planning process as described in Grünig and Kühn (2000).

12
Chapter 2

Context Analysis: The global

Environment

2.1 Economy
This section focuses on a description of the general economic environment of IT and pub-
lishing industries. The first part describes the general situation caused by the 2007 finan-
cial crisis, followed by the identification of trends for Europe and Switzerland. This section
is closed by elements concerning countries’ contributions to their education systems.

2.1.1 The 2007 financial crisis and its effects on economy and policy
2009 will remain in memories as the first year in the post-World War II era that the global
income declined [IMF (2010)]. During the last three to four years, industrial countries have
faced a strong and violent financial crisis which started in 2006 with the bursting of the
market housing bubble in the United States, triggered by a liquidity shortfall in banking
system caused by the overvaluation of assets. As a domino effect, this localized crisis in
the U.S. has extended between September 2007 and September 2008 to the global financial
system as a whole, forcing countries to intervene massively and launch programs to boost
their economies. Some of the largest financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers have
either declared bankruptcy or have had to be rescued by governments.

2.1.2 Public expenditures on education

The financial crisis and its economic and social effects are a central concern. As reported
by the OECD [OECD (2009)], it is still difficult to evaluate the consequences of the effects
of the mobilization of financial resources by the states in 2008 to support the problems
of banks. The main question is how investments in human capital can support economic
recovery.
The OECD regularly reviews for each member country the proportion of GDP allocated
to education, which can be interpreted as in indicator of the priority level of education in

13
the resource allocation. In 2006, OECD countries as a whole spend 6.1 % of their collective
GDP on education, all levels combined.
For the same year, expenditures for education in Switzerland represents 5.6 % of the
GDP, which is lower than the level of the OECD average; this represents 18.9 % of total
public expenditures (this represents 26.2 % of total public expenditures at the cantonal
and communal level). Another way to represent these expenditures is to compare it
to one inhabitant (per capita). In 2006, the GDP per capita in Switzerland is about
CHF 64’000. Total public expenditures represent CHF 18’800, where CHF 3’500 are
allocated to education. The evolution of these expenditures do not follow the growth of
the GDP over the last years. [OFS (2009)]

2.1.3 Economic forecast

The main words which can be used to describe the actual climate among forecast institutes
are uncertainty and fragile recovery. According to the IMF [IMF (2010)], the recovery
in April 2010 is stronger than expected, but it happens at variable speeds, especially
in Europe where the importance of sovereign debt will force governments to implement
budget restriction policies.

European Union
Economic forecast for the European Union is provided by the European Commission (DG
Economic and Financial Affairs) for member states.
In the last Spring 2010 forecast [EU/DG ECFIN (2010)], the European Commission
expects the European economy to benefit from a stronger-than-expected turnaround of
the global economy, mostly from emerging Asia. The financial conditions have improved,
but incomplete adjustments in several sectors and countries make the recovery remains
fragile. The key question is to know wether the bank’s balance-sheet repair is sufficiently
advanced. Their will be factors which will restrain the domestic demand as well, just
to mention the weakness of the labour market. This imply a GDP growth between 1
and 1.5 % for year 2010 and 2011, with a small acceleration at the end of 2011. Some
countries with large economies like Germany and France will get an upturn little stronger
than average, but other countries like Spain will remain in recession. It is expected that
by 2011, all EU countries, with the exception of Greece, will have returned to positive
economic growth.

Switzerland
Each quarter, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO estimates the Swiss GDP
and its components. The main purpose of these estimations is to provide data that allow
for an assessment of the cyclical development of the main macroeconomic aggregates:

Compared to the 4th quarter 2009, the real GDP in Switzerland expanded by
0.4 % in the 1st quarter 2010, representing a slower growth than in the two
preceding strong quarters. Positive growth stimulus continued to emerge mainly

14
KOF Economic Barometer – Upswing since May 2009
In June, the KOF Economic Barometer pointed at 2.25. It has now been continuously on the
rise since May 2009. Accordingly, the recovery of the Swiss economy should continue.

The KOF Economic Barometer has further risen 0.09 points relative to May (2.16) and now
shows a reading of 2.25. Accordingly, in the next few months, the year-on-year growth rate of
Swiss Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should be clearly positive.

The KOF Economic

fromBarometer is based
trade balance on a consumption.
and private multi-sectoral Indesign with
contrast, threeinmodules.
declines equipmentTheir
contribution to the development of the barometer is as follows: The «Core GDP»
and software investments as well as in building investments had a module
negative
(GDP excludingimpact
construction and banking)
on the GDP. Government indicates
spendingcontinuously highCompared
was also reduced. growth to rates.
the The
«Construction» module trends slightly upwards. The «Banking» module is in positive terri-
same quarter of the previous year, the real GDP went up by 2.2 %. In principle,
tory moving almost horizontally.
the Federal Government’s Expert Group on Economic Forecasts adheres to the
present forecast scenario of a slowly advancing recovery of the Swiss economy.
While the growth prospects for 2010 are even slightly better than anticipated
The Core GDP module
until nowaccounts
(1.8 % for moreofthan
instead 1.4 90% of Swiss
%), the GDP andforhence
GDP forecast 2011 dominates
in light of our
barometer. The measurement model
increased external trade«Swiss
risks inIndustry» is with
connection still at
theaeuro
highcrisis
level,will
butbeitlowered
appears to
signal an upper slightly
turning(1.6
point. The measurement
% instead of 2.0 %). Themodel
outlook«Swiss
for theExports Destination
job market EU» dis-
has brightened
plays no changeeven
compared
though to
theprevious
decrease month. On the other
in unemployment hand,
is likely the «Swiss
to continue Consumption»
slowly.
measurement model continues to rise slightly.
Figure 2.1 shows the main GDP and other macro-economic indexes (SECO) and the
evolution of the KOF Economic and GDP Barometer (KOF Institute).
Forecasts from 08.06.2010 1/2

Values for the past months KOF Economic Barometer and GDP
Current level /Selected
Levelforecasts,
a month ago
Overview
swiss economy
3.2 5
Comparison of forecasts: June 10 and March 10
Year-to-year variation in %, quotas
2.4 4

February 2010 1.91 1.912010

June 10 March 10 June 10
2011
March 10
1.6 3
0.8 2
March 2010Consumption expenditure: 1.95 1.95
GDP 1.8% 1.4% 1.6% 2.0%
-0.0 1
Personal Consumption 1.7% 1.3% 1.5% 1.5%

April 2010 Government Consumption

Construction Investment
2.05 2.05
0.5%
0.0%
0.8%
0.0%
1.0%
-0.5%
0.3%
-0.5%
-0.8 0

May 2010 2.16

Investment in Equipment and software 3.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.5% -1.6 -1
Exports 2.16
5.7% 4.5% 4.5% 5.7%
Imports 4.6% 3.2% 3.7% 4.2% -2.4 -2
June 2010 Rate of unemployment
2.25
Employment (full time equivalents) 0.4%
3.9%
0.1%
4.3%
0.6%
3.7%
0.6%
4.2%
-3.2 -3
Consumer price index 1.1% 0.8% 0.8% 0.7%
-4.0 -4
Source: Business Cycles Experts Group, Swiss Confederation 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

KOF Economic Barometer (multi-sectoral design), left scale

Exogenous assumptions Real GDP (year to year growth rate in %), right scale
2009 2010 2011 Preliminary GDP values: 2008 (BfS/Seco), 2009/10 (KOF)
GDP
USA -2.4% 3.2% 2.7%
Euro area -4.0% 1.0% 1.5%
Germany
Figure
Japan 2.1: Swiss GDP forecast-5.0%
for1.5%
-5.1% 2010
2.8%
1.8%
1.5%and 2011 (left-hand side, [SECO (2010)]), and

KOF Economic Barometer and GDP (right-hand

Price of crude oil ($/barrel Brent) 61.6 75.0 80.0 side, [KOF (2010)])
Construction andOECD;
Sources: interpretation, please
Eurostat; Business Cycles see:Swiss
Experts Group, http://www.kof.ethz.ch/konjunktur,
Confederation in English
Monetary assumptions
2009 2010 2011
2.2 Society and culture
Three month LIBOR interest rate 0.4% 0.3% 0.5%
Return on swiss federal bonds (10 years) 2.2% 1.9% 2.2%
Real exchange rate index, trade weighted 3.5% 2.4% 0.1%
2.2.1
Consumer price index The information and
-0.5% knowledge
1.1% 0.8% society
Sources: SNB; SFSO; Business Cycles Experts Group, Swiss Confederation
The simultaneous growth of the internet, mobile telephony and digital technologies has
Labor market forecasts
revolutionized the role of knowledge, 2009 2010
which
2011
is today recognized as the object of huge
economic,
Employment political
(without sector 1)
1
and cultural -0.1%
stakes.
0.4% These
0.6% technologies play an important role in both
Rate of unemployment 3.7% 3.9% 3.7%
1
economic and human development. Knowledge is closely related to information, research,
In full time equivalents
innovation,
Source: and
Business Cycles Experts (technological)
Group, Swiss Confederation progress in a kind of virtuous circle described as [Castells
(1996)]:

the application of [such] knowledge to knowledge generation and information

15
 processing and communication devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between
innovation and the uses of innovation.

The values and practices of creativity and innovation will play a major part in knowledge
societies, if only through their ability to challenge existing models in order to better
meet societies’ new needs. Creativity and innovation also lead to promoting new types of
collaborative processes that have already proven themselves to be particularly fruitful.

Information, Knowledge and Free access

The relationship of knowledge with technology is based on it’s close dependence on infor-
mation. Information and knowledge are linked together, but they cannot be considered as
the same.
Before being considered as knowledge, information has to be selected, treated and
valorized. It presupposes a work which has to be done by a human person. This work is
not only a verification of facts, but also implies understanding, synthesis and, if required,
personal appreciation. A part of the knowledge creation requires often collaboration with
others, discussions and confrontation of ideas and opinions. Information can be seen
as the raw material of knowledge and the influence of technologies on the creation and
development of knowledge is considerable.
According to UNESCO (2005), prerequisites to the development of a knowledge society
are closely related to the respect of the following of the basic Human Rights: the freedom
of opinion and expression; the right to education and its corollary, free basic education
and progress towards free access to other levels of education; and the right to freely to
participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific
advancement and its benefits.
An example where these values are lived was given at the origin by Tim Bernes-Lee by
the creation of the HTTP protocol and the World Wide Web, or by the open source wave
in software development which provides credible alternatives to commercial products.
The free access to high valuable knowledge is becoming more and more normal for a
whole class of young people who have always had access to technology since their birth.
These people are sometimes called digital natives, i.e. who were born with technology, in
opposition to digital migrants, i.e. persons who had to migrate from a world were technol-
ogy was just a professional tool to a new world with the omnipresence of interconnected
computers, mobiles phones and digital content.

Risks of the knowledge society

The access of a large number of players to knowledge resources is full of promise, but
it can also cause irreparable damage and create unpredictable dangers. The growth of
knowledge societies might precisely be one of the most effective means to address the new
complexity.
The first risk identified is the risk of disinformation. Several example shows the in-
strumentalization by dictatorial regimes for their own propaganda, not to mention all the
hoaxes propagated via e-mail or within social networks. On the internet, the quality of

16
information is never 100 % guaranteed. This is not new, but what changed with electronic
transfer of information is speed and immediate access, without or with very small time for
analysis.
The second risk is the lost of privacy. All the contributions on the web, in forums, or
in social networks are recorded and stored. This information is automatically harvested
by indexing robots from the major search engines, and presented in a very short time as
search result. It is not difficult anymore to develop software which are able to put all these
informations together (even with only the public ones) and automatically deduct some,
say, behavioral patterns on book preferences, travel interests, or political opinion.
The third risk identified within the knowledge society is a cultural homogenization by
the predominance of mainstream ideas and culture.

Challenges for schools

The challenge schools are facing is huge regarding these issues. Simply while schools will
have to deal with the most difficult aspects of the technology usage, while the entertain-
ment industry will favor the fun aspects.
Assessing the quality of an information, protecting ones privacy, and respecting cultural
differences are parts of the mainstream expectations to take part actively in a knowledge
and learning society. Another difficulty is that, except in certain special cases like media
education, the quality of information has to be proven before this information is used to
create knowledge, i.e. used for education purposes.
Learning societies show how those changes have kept pace, in terms of teaching and
education, with the shift in focus from the possessors of knowledge to those who are
seeking to acquire it in the framework of not only formal education systems, but also of
professional activity and informal education, where the press and electronic media play
an important role. At a time when increasingly rapid changes are rocking old models
to their very foundations, and learning by doing and the ability to innovate are becom-
ing more and more important, the cognitive dynamics have become a major issue. The
learning model has spread well beyond the world of educators, to all levels of economic
and social life. Any organization, whether for-profit or not, will have to strengthen its
learning dimension. Furthermore, the proliferation in different environments of virtual
objects, infinitely modifiable and accessible, facilitates cooperative work and the common
acquisition of knowledge: learning, which has been long confined to specific places such
as schools, is becoming a virtual space on a planetary scale, accessible from a distance,
within which an infinity of situations can be simulated.

2.2.2 Teaching and learning in the 21st Century

During the whole 20th Century and not only in industrial, but also in developing countries,
school has been considered as the main vector for providing equality of chance among social
layers. Many political initiatives1 were created to help schools in this mission in flattening
1
See for example the United Nations Millennium Development Goal #2 Achieve Universal Primary
Education, the United States No Child Left Behind Act, and the Zones d’éducation prioritaires in France.

17
social differences. It is now common sense to consider the promotion of equality of chance
as a key mission of schools. This leads to high expectations towards schools not only from
pupils themselves and their parents, but also other stakeholders such as the economy.2
Besides mathematics and language skills, the expectations are also related to non-
cognitive competences such as discipline, motivation and responsibility among others.
When consulted in revision procedures of curricula, different groups of interest propose
new topics to be integrated, such as sustainable development, inter-cultural and inter-
generational relations, human rights or promotion of peace. [D-EDK (2010)]
The pressure on education systems to integrate the evolutions, social and technological,
is high. Three systems of competencies are mentioned in this section: The 21st Century
Skills in the U.S. (supported by a multi-stakeholders organization), the key competences
of the European Parliament (linked to the Lisbon strategy), and the new regional curricula
for compulsory school in the French and German speaking regions of Switzerland.

21st Century Skills (United States)

In the United States, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills3 , a national organization
composed by educators, businesses and governments and that advocates for 21st century
readiness for every student, developed a framework to class the new competences needed
for the pupils.
This framework emphasizes the importance of new competences needed to face the
challenges of the information and knowledge society such as: learning and innovation skills;
information, media, and technology skills; and life and career skills. These main skills
surround the core subjects which contain seven skills (”7Cs”) such as critical thinking,
communications, creativity and innovation, collaboration, cross-cultural understanding,
computing and ICT literacy, and career and learning self-reliance. [Trilling and Fadel
(2009)]

Key competences for a changing world (Europe)

Recently, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on “Key competences for a

changing world: Implementation of the Education and Training 2010 Work Programme”
[EU/Education Committee (2010)].
The parliamentary report mirrors eight key competences identified in the recommen-
dations of the European Parliament and the Council in 2006, namely: communication in
the mother tongue; communication in a foreign language; mathematical competence and
basic competences in science and technology; digital competences; learning to learn; social
and civic competences; sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; cultural awareness and
expression.

2
See for example the recent position statement from economiesuisse, an umbrella organization repre-
senting the Swiss economy [economiesuisse (2010)]
3
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills http://www.p21.org

18
Switzerland: Plan d’études romand and Lehrplan 21
The two former examples show that the general framework of curriculum organization is
not anymore organized around disciplines, but as part of framework of competences.
Recently the Conférence intercantonale de l’instruction publique de la Suisse romande
et du Tessin (CIIP) announced [CIIP (2010)] the final agreement between the French-
speaking cantons in Switzerland who have accepted a new Plan d’études romand. This
new curriculum is the result of a strong inter-cantonal work and describes the knowledge
and competencies that pupils have to acquire during their time in compulsory education.
This new curriculum is structured in main disciplinary fields (languages, mathematics and
nature sciences, human sciences, arts, body and movement), one field general education,
and one field focused on transversal competencies. The competencies described in the last
field correspond to those presented in the two examples above. The Plan d’études romand
will induce in the mid term important changes in the education system of these cantons.
The content of the curriculum will not be available only in paper form, but will also be
available online.
The Swiss German pendant of the Plan d’études romand, the Lerhplan 21, is based on
a similar philosophy. It is foreseen to be introduced from 2014.
These new regional curricula, added to the definition of national standards can be
seen as the main effects of the harmonization of the Swiss education system HarmoS4
coordinated by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (CDIP).

2.2.3 Teaching and learning with ICTs

Fostering ICT integration: structure of governments policies
Governments and local authorities have invested a lot of resources ICT integration in
education policies. The main reasons are [Kozma (2008)]:

- To develop economic growth mainly through the development of human capital and
the increase productivity of the workforce.

- To promote social development by sharing knowledge, fostering cultural creativity

and increasing citizenship.

- To advance and support education reform, especially for major curriculum revisions,
shifts in pedagogical and didactical practices, and assessment changes.

- To support educational management and accountability, especially on computer-

based testing and digital data management.

The operational components of these policies consist of the following lines of action:

- Infrastructure development: These programs include the necessary budget and

technical resources to ensure the infrastructure and connection of schools. These are
4
HarmoS http://www.cdip.ch/dyn/11659.php

19
 typical of the early stages of ICT integration in schools. In the reality of schools
many different constellations may exist, sometimes mixed, depending on the school
organization, pedagogical concept and financial resources:

1. Computer rooms –In the logic of specialized classrooms like chemistry, physics
or biological labs, computer labs have been created with computers and servers
installed. To use these computers for teaching, the teacher has normally to
book to room in advance, and pupils will be present in the room for the whole
lesson. This organization excludes an form of spontaneous access to computer
and internet within a lesson.
2. Mobile laptops rack – To overcome the disadvantage of moving from one room
to another, the generalization of affordable laptop computers and the devel-
opment of mobile racks brought the possibility to bring the computer lab into
the classroom. The teacher normally book the rack for his or her lesson, with
the advantage of teaching in the habitual classroom (i.e. in presence of other
learnings resources such as maps, books, or other resources for natural science
teaching, just to name a few).
3. Desktop or laptop computers in classrooms – This configuration is more com-
mon in primary schools where a generalized, and trans-disciplinary, teaching
is provided. Normally, the number of computers is between two and five, and
these are shared between groups of students, for specific activities.
4. Teachers’ laptop coupled with fix beamers – The teachers are more and more
equipped with personal computers, either private or by their school. In schools
where this model has been chosen, beamers are installed in classrooms, allowing
teachers to show presentations or present documents, websites. nI Switzerland,
it is recommended to schools to provide their teachers with personal laptop
computers. [Tscherter and Döbeli Honegger (2006)]
5. Individual laptop computers for pupils or students – In this model, students are
provided with a personal computer, loaned by the school or purchased for a
few years (normally three to five) at a lower price negotiated with manufactur-
ers. This model comes from tertiary education and propagates slowly to upper
secondary level.5
6. Interactive whiteboards – For three or four years, interactive whiteboards (IWB)
have become nearly a standard in the equipment of new schools at a point that
they sometimes simply replace traditional blackboards. Interactive whiteboards
bring technical (content interoperability, ) and pedagogical issues. European
Schoolnet has created in 2008 an international expert group which identified
current good practice related to the use of IWB in countries (case studies are
available), analyzed and provided feedback to Becta on its common file for-
mat6 for IWB content interoperability, and had one-to-one meetings with six
5
See for example the Project Neptun of the ETH Zurich https://www1.ethz.ch/neptun
6
http://industry.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=39694

20
 IWB vendors to explore issues related to marketing, support and continuing
professional development. Guidelines for procurement and for the effective use
of IWB in class are under development.

- Teacher’s training: Teacher’s training is a key component of an ICT integration

strategy. At the beginning, the training is traditionally focused on elementary op-
erational skills such as email, internet, usage of office tools, and sometimes some
technical elementary skills. However, with the increasing usage of ICT, teachers
need more advanced skills which relates directly to everyday pedagogical practice
and didactical issues.

- Technical support: In the early times of ICT integration, the technical support was
ensured by passionated teachers (mainly science teachers) who had the knowledge
from their earlier research and professional activities. But with the raising complex-
ity of the systems on both hardware and software sides, and the necessity for these
teachers to focus on their main task, or simply due to the lack of such teachers (for
example in primary schools), the technical support had to be professionalized and
outsourced to specialists.

- Pedagogical and curricular change: Not only because of the connection of

schools to the internet and the integration of new types of teaching and learning
resources, but also due to the increasing presence of the internet and media, the
part of curricula which contain competences related to the media, creativity and in-
formation had to be broadened to the new reality. This imply new types of activities,
such as cross-disciplinary projects.

- Content development: Traditionally, teaching and learning resources are com-

posed of books (for students and teachers), and workbooks for students. Some
collective resources are used to illustrate or support the explanations: wall maps,
science experiments, skeletons and anatomical charts, etc. A school library contains
textbooks, encyclopedia and journals to help the preparation of teaching and stu-
dents projects. In the ICT world, teaching and learning resources are now digital:
this means that they are immediately accessible, interactive, sometimes multi-user,
and that they can be relatively easily copied and edited. On the other side of the
coin, good learning resources are difficult to find, copyright informations are not
always provided and respected, and teachers rarely find pedagogical hints for the
integration of the resource in class. The great majority of resources are published on
the internet without rigorous bibliographic informations, making it difficult for li-
brarians to describe them rigorously. In certain cases, governments produce localized
and adapted resources to fulfill their curriculum specificities.

Ministries, local authorities or even schools organize framework conditions to support

and coordinate the integration and usage of ICT in schools. Directives may be pub-
lished from ministries where competence centers have been established, and from local
authorities, which usually finance and organized the equipment and the technical support.

21
Governments also organize national or regional websites which include general education
informations for different target groups (authorities, teachers, parents, researchers, pub-
lishers, etc.), support topic-oriented communities and provide learning resources reposito-
ries. Figure 2.2 shows the position of educa.ch within the different inter-cantonal, federal
and european institutions involved in the ICT and education policy.

Swiss Conference of Cantonal Swiss

Ministers of Education (EDK) Confederation

Latin cantons German-speaking cantons

Federal Office for European Schoolnet:

EDK Regions

Professional Education Steering Committee and

and Technology thematic working groups
State Secretariat for
Education and Research

CTIE International activities

... CSRE IDES
... Swiss Education Server ... ...

educa.ch

Figure 2.2: Inter-cantonal, federal and european institutions involved in the ICT and
education policy.

European Schoolnet
At the European level, European Schoolnet (EUN) is a network of 31 ministries of educa-
tion in Europe and beyond. Its activities are divided among three areas of work: (1) Policy,
research and innovation, (2) Schools services, and (3) Learning resource exchange and in-
teroperability.7 Each year, EUN produces a series of country reports which describe the
actual ICT and education situation. [Barras (2010)]

Swiss Agency for ICT in education

In Switzerland, the Swiss Agency for ICT (CTIE)8 in education is financed by the cantons
through the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education and by the Federal
Government though the Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology. This
service is hosted at educa.ch, a non-profit cooperative. The CTIE plays a coordination
role at the national level and is in contact with regional and cantonal competence centers
for the integration of ICT in education; it covers all school levels, from Kindergarten to
7
http://www.eun.org
8
http://www.ctie.ch

22
the upper secondary level, included professional education and is in charge of the Swiss
representation within European Schoolnet.
educa.ch manages also the Swiss Education Server, which is a common project financed
by the Swiss Confederation and the cantons. The Swiss Education Server is composed
of information websites accessible through www.educa.ch and a virtual collaboration and
learning environment: www.educanet2.ch.

2.2.4 Digital learning resources

Definition and main classification
Digital learning resources differ from traditional resources as they are designed to be used
on an electronic device, such as a computer, a mobile device, directly or within another
software environment. Digital teaching and learning resources are defined as [CTIE (2009);
CERI (2009)]

any digital content accessible online and used by a teacher, a learner or any
person implied in a pedagogical project, as a help to prepare, organize, conduct
or evaluate a learning process.

To restrain the scope of this broad definition, the CTIE has defined four main classes of
digital learning resources: [CTIE (2009)]

1. General resources are resources which have not been necessarily developed with a
pedagogical intention, but which represent an interest for education.

2. Pedagogical resources are resources which have been especially developed for educa-
tion purposes.

3. Recommended pedagogical resources are any pedagogical resources which have been
tested and approved by any recognized authority.

4. Official pedagogical resources are pedagogical resources which have been declared as
such (but not necessary mandatory) by a local authority (a school, a canton or a
group of cantons).

Granularity level and aggregation

One of the main property of digital resources is that they are very often composed by other,
smaller, digital objects (like a web page which is composed of texts, images, videos, or
maps) and that they compose themselves bigger digital resources (like an on-line interactive
animation which is a part of a website about a special topic of interest for education).
The main question which appear within the selection of a digital resource is to define at
which level of granularity the choice is made. A whole tradition of structuring traditional
resources has been developed by librarians: a book can be a member of a bigger series
or collection, and is composed of parts, and chapters, which are referenced in a table of

23
contents. An issue of a scientific journal has a reference number and a year of publication,
and is composed by articles.
In the digital world, and especially for digital learning resources, this structure cannot
be applied. It is also know that teachers, even with traditional resources, rarely use a
resource as a whole, but take parts from different resources and aggregate new resources
which fulfill their needs and representation. This fact will have consequences for the topic
of this work, while attempts are made in electronic books to “simply” reproduce the
traditional structure in the digital world.

Conceptual framework
A lot of attempts have been tried to facilitate the access to good digital learning resources,
to evaluate their quality and to foster their re-use within communities of teachers. In the
middle of the years 2000, a cyclic value chain has been proposed by Kennisnet9 in the
Nederlands and adapted for Switzerland by the CTIE. The main steps of this cycle can
be described as followed:

1. The production and the publication of the resource or a bundle of resources by a

publisher, a media channel, any organization or institution (such as a university, an
NGO or a private company), a group of teachers, or an individual person.

2. If necessary, the preparation, adaptation or the valorization of the resource for its
usage in education.

3. The organization of the access to the resources (which includes the selection,the
pedagogical tagging of the resource, and it’s organization in bundles and collections).
This steps represents the interface between content providers and the users.

4. If necessary, the adaptation and contextualization of the resource for its integration
in class.

5. The integration and direct usage for a pedagogical activity.

The Swiss model integrates around these five steps an overwhelming coordination
layer which integrates tasks such as national coordination, link with political authorities,
definition of framework conditions (in fields like metadata profiling, definition of quality
criteria, definition of rights conditions, or defining virtual identity and user management
policies), or link with research. Figure 2.3 shows the whole model used for Switzerland.
At the origin, the model foresees the possibility for the teacher to share the resource
after its usage, maybe in a modified or commented form, transforming the value chain in
a value generation cycle. The emergence of the web 2.0 wave on the internet has given a
certain legitimacy to this cyclic part of the model. Tasks 1., 2., 3., and the coordination
has to happen at institutional level. Tasks 4. and 5. happen at teachers’ or pupils’ level.
9
http://www.kennisnet.nl/

24
 Coordination • Financial resources allocation and roles definition
• Definition of strategies • Continuous inventory of ongoing activities and projects
• Network of stakeholders • Trends observation and identification

Existing DLRs Access Usage

• Creating and maintaining an • Definition • Establishment of • Tools for • Analysis of the initial
inventory of institutions that of relevant technical identity situation in an educational
have relevant resources for collaborative solutions management context
educational use models (acquisition, research and user
and management of profiling • Establishment of an
• Development of a strategy of • Choice, DLRs) inventory for the
acquiring partners with DRLs discussion • Methods requirements for integration
providers and • Organization of the and tools to in teaching and learning
development catalog (collections, establish the • Evaluation of teachers' needs,
• Selection and quality control of technical metadata, semantic ranking of • Assessing the importance of analysis of consistency with the
(acceptance, adequacy with solutions for networks) search media and ICT existing supply
needs) the results
acquisition • Referencing • Assessment and monitoring • Organization of collaborative
• Organization of educational of DLRs educational • Develop of interactions within the work (published resources through
development (and providing development in technical community, assessing the community participation in
tools and skills) • Trading connection with the solutions for change in work habits referencing)
conditions study plans collaborative
for access work around • Organization and encourage the
and use • Checks continuity DLRs provision of experiences
of objects referenced
• Financing
Production of new models, • Animation editing
DLRs licenses the catalog,
advertising and
• Develop educational support
• Inventory of existing skills specification
s for the
• Organization of production provision
process (coaching)

DLRs
Digital Learning and Teaching resources

Figure 2.3: Representation of the cycle value chain model used since 2006 by the CTIE to
frame the discussions around digital learning resources. Adapated from Barras (2007).

2.2.5 Case study - The One Laptop Per child Initiative

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) 10 began in 2002, when Nicholas Negroponte from MIT
experienced how connected laptops transformed the lives of children and their families
in a remote Cambodian village. Based on the simple idea to provide a low cost laptop
computer to every child in development countries, Negroponte initiated the development of
specific laptop – the XO laptop – built for learning and designed specifically with children
in mind. This laptop is convertible with pivoting, reversible low-cost display (around $ 35)
which can be read in sunlight and is connected to the network by WiFi.
The software has been especially designed for education as well and is distributed un-
der open source licence11 and is built on top of Fedora, an open source Linux distribution.
It emphasizes educational activities such as reading, writing or playing music and games,
and uses a collaboration (activities within communities) metaphor for the user interface
(Sugar12 user interface), instead of the desktop metaphor. The software is not organized
around applications, but around activities. In this concept, activities are distinct from
applications in their focus (collaboration and expression) and their implementation (jour-
10
http://laptop.org
11
An activation and developer key has to required to access the code
12
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/interface/index.shtml

25
naling and iteration).
In the general case, the laptops are sold to governments and issued to children by
schools on a basis of one laptop per child; using this model, deployments around the world
began at the end of 2007.
A new version of the XO laptop, the XO 3.0,13 will feature a new design using a single
sheet of flexible plastic and will be unbreakable and without holes in it. It is foreseen for
2012.

2.3 Technology
Entering the knowledge society is de facto linked to an intensive use of ICTs to the extent
that these technologies have been precisely designed to meet the developmental needs and
the transmission of information and knowledge. This section describes the technological
environment surrounding the development of the knowledge society. The role and influence
of internet-based technologies and technologies related to electronic books on education
are in the focus.

2.3.1 Hardware
Personal computers are generally classified into four different categories, or form factors:
desktop computers, dotebook and laptop computers, netbooks and mini PC, and tablet
PC. According to a Forrester Research report [Rotman Epps (2010a)]
Consumers [will] adopt multiple PCs to fit their lifestyle. Nearly half a billion
PCs will be sold to consumers in the US between now and 2015, but the share
of the market among form factors will shift considerably. Growth will come
from new form factors like tablets, which will cannibalize netbook sales, while
full-size laptops will constitute the largest share of the PC market. Desktops
will be fewer in number but still an important segment, buoyed by growth in
gaming and 3D. Product strategists should align their products to capitalize on
these market shifts, with chipsets, displays, accessories, software, and content
that anticipate the growth of tablets and the continued relevance of traditional
PCs.
Figure 2.4 shows the evolution of the personal computer market as forecasted by Forrester
Research.
Based on new data from consumer surveys, as well as Apple’s iPad sales informations
(3.27 million iPads sold in the quarter ending June 26), Forrester Research announced
in July a modification of the initial forecast towards a higher rate for tablets PC. It is
mentioned that [Rotman Epps (2010b)]

The iPad isn’t behaving like other consumer devices: It has a steamroller of
momentum behind it that indicates incredibly strong demand for this entirely
new form factor.
13
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/xo3.shtml

26
Figure 2.4: Share of US consumer PC sales form factor, evolution and forecast from 2008
to 2015.

2.3.2 Internet, the web and electronic content

Internet is a communication system composed of inter-connected networks of computers

using a common technical protocol suite: TCP/IP. Although the main protocols were
developed in the 1960s by the U.S. army, the explosion of the use of the internet happened
in the early 1990s with the development of the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) at
the origin of World Wide Web, a system of interlinked hypertext documents developed at
CERN.

The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) has facilitated the publication of digitally encoded docu-
ments and informations in form of interactive electronic pages, or static files to be streamed
or downloaded from a distant server to a local computer of device. Although the HTTP
protocol was conceived to foster interactive work on information documents, the WWW
was until the beginning of the 2000s mostly a static media used to present oneself of an
institution, or to sell physical goods such as books.
After the collapse of the Dot-com bubble in 2001, the development of all the web tech-
nologies and related business models were confronted to the real economy and needed to be
consolidated to survive. The web became more interactive and more comfortable for the
user to contribute himself by publishing an on-line diary (blogs), by sharing photographs
(Flickr) or documents (Scribd), or simply by sharing ideas and small thoughts to friends
in social networks (Facebook, Twitter). To describe this new way of dealing with content,
the term web 2.0 appeared in 2005. [O’Reilly (2005)]

27
Electronic Content

To be published on the internet an information, a document or any electronic content

(interactive of static) has first to be digitally encoded, and then stored in a filesystem
or in a database. The way this content is encoded and organized is defined by the file
format specification, a document which can be secret and proprietary, or open and public.
With different computer systems accessing to the same pages, the web has favored the
deployment of open file format specifications. For complex content which require more
than one files (e-learning packages, electronic books), the different files are compressed in
one single Zip archive and transferred on the Internet as a single file.
The rapid development of all internet-based technologies is driven by Moore’s Law
which stipulates that the number of components in integrated circuits doubles approxi-
matively every two years, which represents an exponential increase. The experience has
shown that different capacities of electronic devices improve at similar exponential rates,
such as the information processing speed, memory capacity, hard disk storage, or network
capacity, just to name a few. [Wikipedia (2010b)]
This leads in industrialized countries to a wide generalization of the connectivity of
users, either at home, at work or at schools, or even in public locations with WiFi access
points or 3G UMTS connection.

Trends in the web development

The following technological trends can be considered as potentially drivers for the evolution
of the World Wide Web.

Web Services Web services are application programming interfaces (API) which uses
the HTTP protocol to get access to remote services. They are mainly used to support
computer-to-computer transactions and exchange of informations. Web services are used
within service oriented architectures (SOA). Examples of applications of web services
are identification and authentication services, support of mashup integration (automatic
integration of content), or browser-based rich application integration.

The Semantic Web The semantic web14 is a vision of the web developed by one of
the web inventor: Tim Bernes-Lee. The semantic web describes an information organiza-
tion which allows computer not only to get and display content, but also to interpret its
meaning. Semantic web technologies are closely related to the concept of ontology which
can be defined as a formal representation of the knowledge by a set of concepts within a
domain and the relationships between those concepts. One of the most popular ontology
used on the internet is the Friend of a friend (FOAF) ontology used in social networks to
model the relationship between persons, or WordNet, a lexical database for the English
language.
14
The semantic web is sometimes designed as the web 3.0, stressing the next evolution of the web.
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

28
 The semantic web should be seen as a way to organize information and resources on
the web to facilitate the access and foster their re-use for learning and teaching. The time
to adoption in education is two to three years [NMC (2010)].

Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a way to organize computing with internet-

based shared resources, software, and information provided on demand. It is based on the
hypothesis that the internet is nearly everywhere and every time available from different,
personal thin client devices.
For education, cloud computing is especially interesting not only because teachers and
pupils work in different locations (at schools, at home, in a library) and with different com-
puters (personal laptops, library computer, computer in a lab), but also for economical
and organizational reasons: with on-line accessible shared resources, schools can delegate
their server and software maintenance, orient their ICT strategy to on-demand services,
and take benefit of permanent technology updates. More and more, the access to com-
munities of practices helps teachers and students in their work. Due to its delocalized
and shared structure, cloud computing is especially adapted to support and meet these
educational requirements. Schools can take benefit from services such as free on-line web
applications (Google Apps as an example), or low cost personal disk space (for example
Dropbox). There are also situation where an access to informations and works from pupils
should be granted to third party such as parents or teachers.
Not only the issues of interoperability and the ability to export data to other sys-
tems (avoid lock-in effect), but also aspects of security and protection of privacy must be
considered in the choice of a cloud computing solution.
The time to adoption for cloud computing in education is one year or less [NMC
(2010)].

Rich Internet Applications A rich internet web applications (RIA) is a web applica-
tion that has many of the characteristics of a traditional desktop application. Different
technologies are involved in the development of rich internet applications. Google Docs
and SplashUp are examples of such applications.
Until recently, Adobe Flash technology and its related development environments Flex
and AIR were considered as quasi-standards. But the decision from Apple not to support
Flash on the iPad and to set the preference to HTML 5 [Jobs (2010); Naone (2010)] led
important websites such as Scribd to re-consider their technological choice. HTML 5 is the
following version of the actual HTML 4.0 used in the majority of websites and is developed
to integrate interactivity facilities for RIAs and H.264 video encoding scheme. [Pilgrim
(2010)]

2.3.3 Learning environments

A virtual learning environment (VLE) can be defined as a web platform designed to
support teaching and learning. A VLE offers a collection of tools for communication,
collaboration, organization and learning. Developed originally for e-learning (in the sense
of digitally supported distant learning), VLEs have been integrated in traditional teaching

29
to support the use of digital learning resources, exchange files and facilitates written
communication through e-mail service, a situation which is sometimes described as blended
learning. [Petko (2010)]
Each pedagogical and didactical situation can be described within three main actors
in the general sense of the word: a learner, some knowledge to be acquired (should it be a
subject matter or a competence), and a teacher. This model is call the didactic triangle.
It is important to accept that no didactical situation can fulfill simultaneously the needs
of the three actors: every didactical situation will favor two of the three actors (i.e. one
side of the triangle), and therefore lower the importance of the third one, which will come
back trying to disturb the game.
Originally, e-learning and blended learning environments have been developed for the
industry and tertiary education by commercial companies. Examples of commercial envi-
ronments are Blackboard or CLIX. With the evolution of the open source trend and the
easy access to high quality web development environment such as the PHP programming
and the Apache HTTP server, open source products have gain in popularity and are widely
used. Examples of open source learning environments are Moodle, Ilias, or OLAT.
Figure 2.5 shows the position of the three actors of the didactic triangle, which can
be supported by tools installed in a VLE. The didactic triangle is very well adapted to
describe traditional teaching and individual learning situations. In a 21st Century compe-
tences based pedagogical approach, learners and teachers are however not alone anymore,
but members of a learning community (or knowledge building community), whose collab-
orative and collective work is supported within the virtual environment. Social networks
are intensively used by teenagers and young adults to exchange ideas and impressions, and
share informations. We can therefore expect to see the use of social networks become in-
creasingly common in education. Under these conditions, conceptual framework presented
in Figure 2.5 should be adapted to take into account the collaboration between students,
between students and other teachers or experts, and teachers between themselves.
Virtual learning environments, when well organized, are nowadays seen as potential
tools to support individualized learning, i.e. an organization of the class where the teacher
can differentiate part of his or her teaching according to different needs of the pupils. An
important and innovative part of individualized work consist of produced texts, pictures,
documents or any other results obtained within a pedagogical project.
In order to support the demonstration of acquired competences, marks are usually
not sufficient and not representative enough. Students use therefore a folder to show
summaries, documents or pictures: a portfolio. The open source project Mahara 15 is a
project with the aim to develop an electronic portfolio environment, or e-portfolio.

Usage of VLE in Swiss schools

In Switzerland, schools have access to a commercial product managed by the Swiss Educa-
tion Server, educanet2 .16 A representative statical survey in 2007 has shown that among
15
http://www.mahara.org
16
http://www.educanet2.ch

30
 Knowledge

Content
Multimedia, interactive
and adaptive learning
resources

Tasks Evaluation
Tools
Problems, positioning Goals, methodology,
Personal and collective,
and context, processes, products, criteria, scale.
knowledge management
resources. Deadlines. Feedback

Label

Communication
Exchange between
learners, coaching
through teacher

Learner Teacher

Figure 2.5: Conceptual framework for blended learning (adapted from [Petko (2010)])

48 % of Swiss schools who declared to officially use a virtual learning environment, 98 %

were using educanet2 . [Barras and Petko (2007)]

2.4 Politics and rights

2.4.1 The Swiss education system
A formal description of the Swiss education system is given in Appendix A.
The integration of media and ICT in education was a strategic priority for the Con-
federation and the cantons at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. A
national public-private partnership program – PPP-ésn17 – was launched in 2001 on the
basis of a federal law (entered into force in 2002). This program was limited for five years
and has been officially closed in September 2007. In 2006, the Federal Council revised
its 1998 strategy on the information society. Schools, which were in the first priority
in 1998 are now in the fifth priority level, behind cyber-administration and e-health.18
On March, 1st, 2007, the CDIP published its strategy for media and ICT in education,
which declares digital teaching and learning resources at the highest priority. Currently,
no national program is foreseen for the next three to five years in Switzerland.
17
http://www.ppp-esn.ch
18
http://www.bakom.admin.ch/themen/infosociety/

31
Harmonization of compulsory education

The new inter-cantonal agreement on the harmonization of compulsory education (the

HarmoS Agreement) has been accepted by the required minimum of 10 cantons and is
entered into force on August, 1st, 2009. Within this agreement, the cantons decide to
harmonize the duration of the different school levels and their main objectives. In that
sense, the cantons respect the article 62, al. 4 of the Federal Constitution which has been
accepted in 2006 by a great majority of the Swiss people (86%). The HarmoS project is
coordinated by the CDIP.

2.4.2 Privacy and identity management

Privacy is a special issue institutions have to care about in a pedagogical context. Unlike
universities or high schools, compulsory schools and upper secondary levels have underage
students. Especially at school, parents and teachers are entitled to expect from the educa-
tion system absolutely safe collaborative online spaces. Institutions in charge of managing
virtual spaces have to respect the privacy legal rules.
Identity management of teachers and pupils is a sensible issue. In Switzerland, the
Swiss Education Server organizes with cantons and with schools the on-line management of
local identities through a responsibility delegation system: schools are officially announced
by the Swiss Education Server to get the right to manage an on-line, virtual institution
within the educanet2 VLE. A local system administrator is in charge of creating and
managing local user accounts. A web service interface allows partner institutions of the
Swiss Education Server to use a distant authentication system for their local or regional
platforms, which provides to the users the same authentication credentials as they have
on educanet2 .

2.4.3 Copyright

In Switzerland, copyright is ruled by a federal law: Loi fédérale sur le droit d’auteur et les
droits voisins 19 . Art. 19, al. b, considers as a private usage the use of works by a teacher
and his of her students for educational purposes, which allows the copy of partial parts
of a work (formally, the law excludes the reproduction of all or essential parts of works
available on the market).
Art. 19 excludes formally the software, which have to be licensed for schools. In
Switzerland, the Swiss Agency for ICT in Education (CTIE) is responsible for negotiating
schools price conditions with software distributors.
Attempts are done by some cantons to foster open content based content licensing
schemes, such as Creative Commons.20

19
RS 231.1, du 9 octobre 1992 (état le 1er juillet 2008)
20
http://www.creativecommons.ch/

32
2.5 Synthesis and discussion
The world economy is slowly recovering from the financial crisis, but the recovery is still
fragile and will happen at different speeds, especially in Europe where the economical
consequences of sovereign debts are still unknown. Even before the financial crisis, public
expenditures on education in Switzerland did not follow the growth of GDP. Assumptions
can therefore be made that public expenditures on education will be affected by the con-
sequences of the crisis. The impact can be twofold: firstly, the lack of resources can be
a barrier to innovation in teaching and learning, especially when it requires investment
in new developments and equipments, but also can generate questioning of existing mod-
els and replace them by more effective ones. Economically favorable practices are not
necessarily inconsistent with good teaching practices, especially when they aim to share
experiences and pool resources, which is supported in switzerland by the harmonization
process.
The knowledge society reinforces values such as openness, creativity, innovation, and
intercultural collaboration. These values are fully compatible with values fostered in ed-
ucation. The introduction of ICT in education is closely linked to the development of the
knowledge society by the presence of web and the new competences models. The current
technical developments in web technologies and touch-screen mobile devices open up new
possibilities for collaboration and learning.
Both learning environments and learning resources are deeply modified by the the
technology and new social behaviors. The virtual learning environments have to go beyond
the model individual e-learning and focus on collaboration and cooperation and integrate
easy-to-access qualitative informations and learning resources. Learning resources have
to to propose good and rigorous content in an interactive and collaborative environment,
while respecting the copyrights of the resource itself and its components. New cooperation
models have to be defined to collect and describe good learning resources in a way that
anyone can take benefit from local contributions.
Technologies such as the semantic web, rich internet applications and could computing
are available and accessible through open source tools and standards.

33
Chapter 3

Business Analysis: Electronic

books and learning resources

3.1 Industry
This strategic analysis concerns the production and distribution of electronic schoolbooks
and is focused on the impact of the technological evolution on the production and distri-
bution processes. Following the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS R
) from
1
Standard & Poor’s , the industry sector concerned by this study is

25401040 – Publishing: Publishers of newspapers, magazines and books, and

providers of information in print or electronic formats.

This sector has been chosen according to the definition and by exclusion of all other
possibilities provided by the classification.

3.2 Electronic Books Publishing

3.2.1 Introduction
Definition and history
The term electronic book, or shortly e-book , defines the digitalized version of a work orig-
inally foreseen to be published as a physical book. The idea of transferring the contents
of a book on a digital device is relatively old and has appeared with the first laptops
(Wikipedia cites a project in the early 1970s). The availability of an electronic represen-
tation of a literary work has become natural to the extent that the standard production
process of publication involves the processing of text on a computer since the 1970s as
well.
The difficulty of having a reading device, portable and pleasant to use has hindered the
development of electronic books over the past 30 years. But the development of different
1
http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices/gics/

34
systems of electronic paper has promoted the marketing of new mobile devices for reading
electronic books. These devices, called e-readers, are portable, lightweight and consume
very little electricity (only page turns require energy to be delivered). The electronic paper
technology used in the screen allows, contrary to the screens of laptops, reading a text
even in direct sunlight, unlike conventional laptop displays.
The first grand public e-reader occurred in 1998 (Rocket eBook), but it took a few
years with the Sony (2006) and Amazon (2007) products to see a real explosion in sales
of electronic books outside professional circles.2
The actual rapid growth in sales leads the publishing industry to rethink its business
models in depth. Publishers should note that loyalty to the traditional book is perhaps
not so strong as originally thought. Readers in 2010, as music listeners in 2001, seem to
appreciate to have entire libraries in their pocket and want to be able to purchase and
download a book immediately, as they read a review, or simply as a friend may recommend
it in a discussion.

E-books production
For traditional books, the process of publishing an electronic book can be integrated into
the traditional publishing process. It can be seen as an additional distribution format of
the same work (such as hardcover and paperback editions). The original work is available
in electronic form and can be treated differently according to final desired format: high
quality camera-ready form, pdf or postscript formats for printing, electronic format for
electronic distribution (see below).
Cross-media publishing is a normal practice of publishing chain. For newspapers or
periodicals, the electronic version of the articles are used in different forms for web and
mobile publishing, for archives, or for delocalized printing: international parts of important
national newspapers are sent electronically to delocalized printing services, which prints a
small amounts of issues for local customers.

Technical formats
As it is the case for many new arising technologies, there exist a lot of different tech-
nical formats [Rothman (2006)] in which electronic books can be encoded. Table B.1
(Appendix B, page 77) describes the main formats used for electronic books.
With the important exception of the Amazon Kindle, nearly all e-books readers and
mobile devices reads electronic books in ePub format. Basically, two formats are well
established and prominently used on reading devices for traditional texts:

- PDF for documents in which the layout is has to conserved (in PDF the page of a
document can be seen as the central component)

- ePub for long, linear texts where the the document organization is more important
than the layout (ePub does not conserve pages, but allows adaptation to the screen)
2
It has been common for several years now in the publishing industry that manuscripts submitted by
authors are read and commented on e-readers.

35
Both of them are used within the paradigm of traditional, static, paper-based documents
and books. With the emergence of new highly interactive devices such as smart-phones
and tablets PCs, new possibilities of presenting articles, stories and ideas are experienced.
The publishers are developing their content within programmed applications, but new
standards including more interaction facilities than hyper-text navigation and page turns
will be developed.3

3.2.2 Distributing and selling e-books – Case studies

There exist different forms for the distribution of electronic books and it is exactly here that
the technical and business models evolve the most rapidly. Some of the most representative
models in the form of small, elementary case studies, are described in this section.

Digitalization of books – The Google Books Library Project

Within partnerships4 with big municipal or university libraries, Google scans collections
of books and converts them to text using optical character recognition. These electronic
books are stored in a database, which offers users the possibility to perform full text
search within the texts. According to Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and co-founder of
the Internet Archive, a book of 300 pages can be scanned in 30 to 45 minutes, and the
cost can be estimated to $ 0.10 per page. [Kahle (2010)]
The goal of the Library Project is:
Make it easier for people to find relevant books – specifically, books they wouldn’t
find any other way such as those that are out of print – while carefully respecting
authors’ and publishers’ copyrights. Our ultimate goal is to work with publish-
ers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of
all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers
discover new readers.5
If the book is in the public domain, it can be downloaded and saved in PDF format. If
the publisher or the author asks for it, Google provides a full view access on-line. For the
time being, the access to the full view is suitable for computers, within a browser. It is
not intended yet to be seen in a convenient way on a mobile device.
Google plans to begin the distribution electronic books this summer with the scanned
books.

Free e-books – The Project Gutenberg

The mission of the Project Gutenberg6 is to encourage the creation and distribution of
electronic books. It was launched in 1971 as Michael Hart was given the equivalent of
3
Recently, Sharp announced the creation of a new electronic book platform called XMDF which enables
easy viewing of digital contents including video and audio, and allows automatic adjustment of the layout
to match and meet publishers’ needs.
4
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html
5
Google Books Library Project http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html
6
Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/

36
$ 100’000’000 of computer time of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the Materials Research
Lab at the University of Illinois. Thinking about what would be the best way to create
the equivalent value with computer time, Hart arrived to the conclusion that
The greatest value created by computers would not be computing, but would be
the storage, retrieval, and searching of what was stored in our libraries.
Today, the Project Gutenberg is known as one of the biggest source of public domain
electronic texts. The repository contains over 33’000 free e-books in different formats
(ePub, Mobipocket, HTML and plain text) and in different languages.7 The catalogue
of the project is accessible directly on-line and integrated to mobile applications such as
Stanza or iBooks.
To read a book, the reader has different possibilities, for example:

- Download the text in one of the formats and read it directly on the computer.

- Download the text and transfer it to the reading device (normally via an USB cable
or a local Bluetooth connection).

- Use an e-reader application which integrates an interface to download the texts

directly from the Gutenberg website, without any direct user interaction with the
e-book file. These applications are available for different devices, such as computers,
e-book readers, tablet PCs or mobiles phones. This is a first example that shows
how digital libraries will be interfaced with reading devices in a near future.

Commercial e-books – The Amazon Kindle Store

In 2007, the biggest on-line books distributor Amazon launched its own e-reading device
– the Kindle – linked to its e-books selling platform, the Kindle Store. The Kindle is an
electronic paper based device and is connected to the internet through a WiFi card or a 3G
SIM card (the connection is free, but limited to access the Amazon Whispernet service).
This connection is used to access directly to the store, allowing the customer to buy books
without using a computer. Amazon claims that any book can be downloaded within less
than a minute anywhere around the world. A small integrated physical keyboard allows
the reader to highlight parts of the text and insert notes, which can be shared on social
networks such as Twitter or Facebook.
The Kindle Store is primarily an e-books selling platform, but it plays the role of a
personal library, keeping in a virtual space the informations about the books bought by
the customer. This web interface allows the user to register his or her different devices
(should it be a Kindle, or a Kindle application installed on a computer or a mobile device).
The Kindle Store catalogue contains more than 600’000 books, but only in English.
The books bought in the Kindle Store are encrypted (format AZW) and can be read only
on a Kindle or a Kindle application.
7
Languages with more than 50 books in Gutenberg are: Chinese (405), Dutch (482), English (27796),
Esperanto (69), Finnish (531), French (1616), German (690), Greek (92), Italian (244), Latin (70), Por-
tuguese (455), Spanish (287), Swedish (65) and Tagalog (54).

37
Figure 3.1: “Manage your Kindle” personal page on the Amazon website (as seen on an
iPad) with two detailed views: device registration and on-line saved e-books references
(free and commercial e-books).

38
Buying e-books at a local bookseller – Stauffacher

Stauffacher is a major bookseller in Switzerland (Bern), with an important presence on

the web (www.stauffacher.ch). Stauffacher actively promotes electronic books, both in the
bookshops and on-line (Figure 3.2).
The buying process of an e-book is similar to any on-line order, until and including
payment check out. The buyer receives then a link where he or she can download an
encrypted ePub file. To unlock the file, the user has to use a software produced by Adobe,
Adobe Digital Editions8 . This software checks the consistency between the user and the
file, unlocks the text and allows the transfer to the reading device. Adobe Digital Editions
is linked to an on-line user account by Adobe (Adobe ID).
The price of the electronic version of a standard printed book is normally smaller
by 20% (varying from -10% to -30%) compared to the standard paper edition, but more
expensive than the pocket version.
Recently, some models involving local booksellers have appeared on the market. The
concept is based on a principle of partnership with local booksellers: When buying an
electronic book, a part of the sales margin is attributed to a bookseller. It is the customer
who decides to which bookseller the margin is attributed, or the bookseller is determined
automatically through the geographical location of the customer. This model is foreseen in
Switzerland by the Office du Livre de Fribourg, the main French-speaking books distributor
in Switzerland. Google announced recently Google Editions, a similar agreement with the
American Booksellers Association which should offer an electronic book selling service to
local booksellers starting this summer in the United States.
An alternative for publishers is to sells their books directly in both paper and electronic
forms. In the IT industry, the publisher O’Reilly Media9 offers various modes of access to
the publications: traditional paper orders, on-line reading through a digital library service
called Safari10 , or DRM free e-book download in different formats (ePub, Mobipocket,
Android and pdf). When an electronic book is bought from O’Reilly, the file comes with
an integrated watermark on the first page of each chapter indicating that this version
has been especially produced for the user in order to trace the source, in case of illegal
publication of the document on-line.
An interesting model is shown by Pragmatic Programmers11 who sells their future
books in so-called beta version in electronic form. The customer buys the book before
its final publication and receives regularly electronic messages informing about a new,
updated version of the book.

3.2.3 Reading e-books

Reading an electronic book requires the use of a device. Different possibilities are offered.
Table B.2 in Appendix B describes the main classes of reading devices.
8
http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions
9
O’Reilly Media, Inc. http://www.oreilly.com
10
Safari
R
Books Online http://www.safaribooksonline.com
11
The Pragmatic Programmers http://pragprog.com/categories/upcoming

39
Figure 3.2: Stauffacher website (e-books section), which is representative of an on-line
e-books selling platform.

40
 Recently, a study by Nielsen (2010), showed that within 24 readers who were asked
to give their feed-back after having read a short story by Ernest Hemingway, reading a
traditional book was faster and more relaxing, but reading on a tablet was more satisfying.
The readers were also asked to rate their satisfaction of the four experiences on a one-to-
seven scale: the iPad was top at 5.8, followed by the Kindle at 5.7 and the printed book
at 5.6. The PC came in last, with 3.6.
If we except the size of the screen for mobile phones, reading on an electronic device
is acceptable after a brief period of adaptation. Computers, with vertical screens and
no direct interaction with the content except with a mouse or a keyboard shortcut, are
definitively not competitive, as the study shows.
This study was conducted on the narrative text and static as can be found in a tradi-
tional book. For this kind of content, electronic paper based devices or reading applications
on mobile phones such as Stanza are well adapted. But since the smart-phones with touch-
screen technology have appeared, new possibilities for the user to interact with the content
have been created. These new devices open up new possibilities for creating interactive
digital learning resources and inserting dynamic contents into traditional texts.

3.3 Production and distribution of educational resources

3.3.1 Generalities
The production of a textbook is different from the production of a book in that it not
only starts by choosing a theme or story, but also by the definition of a series of learning
objectives, and the didactical and methodological approaches. Learning objectives are
normally part of an official, published curriculum. The selection of didactical approaches
is based on the teaching culture and organization.
The decision to design and produce a new learning resource can be taken at publisher
level (development or a new product), or commissioned by a regional educational authority.
The production of a learning resource is a high inter-disciplinary task which can be
divided into four main phases described in Table 3.1 (section 3.3.2 describes the concept
and design phase in detail for electronic resources).

3.3.2 Conception and design of electronic learning resources

The elements which integrates the whole design process elements can be divided into ten
different categories:

1. Learning theory elements – It is important for the authors to know the pedagogical
fundaments of their approach. The three main learning theories know are behavior-
ism, cognitivism, and (socio)-constructivism.

2. Instructional position elements – Different forms of instruction can be embedded

into a learning package. It is here necessary to describe the different instructional
roles integrated in the package. Examples of instructional roles are: provision of
information, tutoring, remediation, reflection, experience, or counseling.

41
Table 3.1: Phases of the production of teaching and learning resources and actors involved.

Phase Description Actors involved

Conception Organize and coordinate the project (in-
and design cluding planning, budget), define and spec-
ify the topic, define of the target group
(age, school level, geographical coverage),
develop and specify the concept, develop
the mockups for traditional and digital
parts
Project manager (publisher), cur-
riculum and topic specialists, ed-
ucational scientists, teachers (in-
cluding teachers’ associations),
usability specialists

Redaction Write and elaborate the content, produce Content specialists, writers,
or collect the pictures and illustrations, graphical designers or artists,
test and correct the content (exercises, ex- pedagogues and psychologists,
periments) teachers

Layout, programming Elaborate the final elements, implement
and production digital parts, test with pilot classes, cor-
rect and adapt the content, produce the
resource (print, or more complex produc-
tion)
Graphical designers, developers,
teachers, curriculum specialists,
printer, games and tools manufac-
turer

Distribution and Marketing, logistics and sales, on-line mar- Publisher, printer, marketing spe-
on-line publication keting, publication and distribution (e- cialists and lobbyists, salesper-
commerce) sons, e-commerce specialist

In italic: elements specific to digital resources

3. Layout and presentation elements – These elements refer to the way a learning
package is presented to the end-user in the sense of the role taken by resource toward
the learner. Examples are based on the part of the teaching and learning metaphor
used to present the resource and are: book, toolkit, simulation, database, tests,
tutor, assistant, instructor, or coach.
4. Environmental elements – Taking into account the environment of use for the pack-
age supports the design of information and interaction elements. Perspective are:
home, open learning center, conventional classroom, virtual learning environment,
conference.
5. Usability elements – It is here important to mention that it is impossible to control
all the different ways a learning resource will be used. Much more important is here
the consistency of the design of the learning product and to offer some flexibility.
6. Controlling elements – These elements describe who has the control on the learning
process (the learner himself, other students, a teacher). If the learning resource is

42
 designed to be integrated into a virtual learning environment, the interface will have
to deal with external roles implemented in the VLE, which will lead to compatibility
issues.

7. Aspects for intervention – These elements imply all the feedback policy on user
actions, and, for example, access grant to solutions.

8. Aesthetic – These elements refer to all visual and “touch” aspects of the learning
resource used to improve its quality. The user experience in an “entertainment”
point of view has here a high priority.

9. Content – This refers the core aspect of the learning resource: its content related
to the specific subject matter or topic. An important aspect is the general orga-
nizational structure of the content: it could linear (like in the greatest majority of
textbooks) or presented in a more “flat” networked form, depending on the chosen
learning strategy.

10. Role of technology – This final perspective considers the technological aspects which
will influence the user learning experience, and broaden (or limit) the possibilities.

3.4 Markets
3.4.1 Products and services
Table 3.2 gives a list of the products and services considered is this analysis.

Table 3.2: Products and services

Products Services

– Electronic learning materials – Consulting for development

– Electronic teaching materials – Development and pedagogical
– Learning software integration services

– Web-based learning tools – Tagging service

– B2B financial and on-line publi-
cation services

3.4.2 Potential customers

This work assumes Switzerland as the primary geographical market location for publishers
of learning and teaching resources. The education market is deeply related to the public
sector. Therefore, it is insightful to distinguish between the end-users (persons who use

43
the products and services) and the customers (persons or institutions who pay for the
products). Table 3.3 shows a detailed description of the different categories.

Table 3.3: Primary end-users and customers for products and services

Product or service End-users Decision of purchase and customers

Learning resources I Pupils and students of schools in com- Local authorities (schools, cantons);
pulsory education (ISCED levels 0, 1 for some cases (official learning mate-
and 2A) in the different speaking re- rial), regional conference for speaking
gions. regions (CIIP, D-EDK).

Learning resources II Pupils and students of upper sec- Choice and decision: Schools, profes-
ondary levels (ISCED levels 3A, 3B, sional associations or teachers. Pur-
3C) in the different speaking regions. chase: students.

Support services I Teachers’ association creating new learning resources

Support services II B2B services for small size publishers

Number of teachers and pupils

School levels are describes with their common names plus their reference to the ISCED12
scale (see Figure A.1, page 75). Table 3.4, page 45, lists the number of pupils for school
year 2008/09 in Switzerland. Detailed statistics providing the numbers of pupils per canton
and per ISCED levels are available on the Swiss Federal Statistical Office website.13

Access to computers
Nearly all compulsory and upper secondary schools (99 %) in Switzerland have installed
computers used for teaching, and the average accessibility value in 2007 was 7.6 pupils
per computer. Table 3.5, page 46, shows where computers are installed in schools. [Barras
and Petko (2007)] We can see a clear difference between primary level where computers
are located in classrooms, dans secondary levels where computers are still installed in
computer labs. These figures (sek I CH) could be a part of the low frequency in the use
of computers by students at the end of compulsory education (15 years old) extracted
from PISA studies (page 10): when computers are installed in computer labs, they are
more difficult to be used during the class, except when the lab has been especially booked.
While computer labs are suitable for teaching computer science and office applications,
they do not support the integration in other disciplines where computers are used as source
of informations or as players for a learning resources, maybe spontaneously, during the
lesson.
12
ISCED International Standard Classification of Education (UNESCO)
13
http://www.portal-stat.admin.ch/isced97/files/index f.html

44
 Table 3.4: Pupils statistics per school levels (left-hand side) and per canton (for compulsory
education, right-hand side). Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 2010.

Students, in Students,
Pupils and 2008/09 in 2008/09 Pupils, in 2008/09
Students, in 2008/09 Teachers in 2008/0
Pupils, in 2007/0
condary Education Tertiary Level Primary, Lower and Upper Secondary Education
Pre-primary, Compulsory Education, Cantons, Class Size
Tertiary Level in Compulsory
Universities Educ
2008
n National origin Educationlevel
Education level Total Men Women
Women National
National origin
origin Education level
Canton Total 1
Compulsory education Men Women
Pupils perNational
class 2 origin Education
Canton level Com

Swiss Foreign Swiss

Swiss Foreign
Foreign Total Primary Lower Primary Swiss LowerForeign Type of personnel Tota
secondary secondary
319 111 619 41 300 Pre-primary
Higher vocational education 152 919
50 043 78491
25 600 2474 319 40
552 111 619
692 941351
300 Higher vocational education 50 043 25 491 24 552 40 692 9 351
ZH 116 311 75 392 40 919 20,8 18,9 ZH 11
603 337 851 103 034
Colleges of higher vocational
Primary schools 440 885 224 282 216 603 17337 851 103 034 BE Colleges of higher vocational
86 115 55 192 30 923 18,4 18,7 Pre-primary
BE 8
education and training 20 332 9 879 10 453 738 2 594 education and training 20 332 9 879 10 453 17 738 2 594
LU 39 054 24 959 14 095 19,2 18,9 Compulsory education 3
LU
292 231 113 63 751 Lower secondary
Advanced schools
federal PET 294 864 148 572 146 292 231 113 63 751 UR Advanced federal PET 3 663 2 375 1 288 18,4 16,7 UR
diploma examinations Primary
diploma examinations
Schools with basic
4 360 2 967 1 393 3 834 526 SZ 14 669 94401
360 2 5967
268 1 393
18,2 3 834 18,7 526 SZ 1
531 52 297 26 208 requirements
Federal PET diploma 78 505 42 974 35 531 52 297 26 208 Federal PET diploma Lower secondary
examinations 12 702 7 575 5 127 10 983 1 719 OW examinations 3 770 2 351
12 702 7 1575
419 5 127
18,2 10 983 16,71 719 OW education programme
Special
Schools with extended NW 3 985 2 584 1 401 17,2 17,5 NW
008 147 377 26 451 Other
requirements 12 649
173 828 583070
820 790
579
008 8147
137377 426
512
451 Other 12 649 5 070 7 579 8 137 4 512 Upper
GL 3 775 2 337 1 438 17,9 16,3 GL secondary education
753 31 439 11 092 No selection requirements 42 531 21 778 20 753 31 439 11 092 ZG 10 238 6 624 3 614 18,0 17,0 General
ZG education3 1
University 184 756 92 600 92 156 144 556 40 200 University 184 756 92 600 92 156 144 556 40 200
FR 30 465 19 747 10 718 19,5 20,3 FR
Vocational education 3
249 23 303 18 342 Special education programme
Universities 41 645 26 396 15 249 23 303 18 342 Universities
of applied sciences 63 747 32 177 31 570 53 669 10 078 SO of applied sciences 22 912 63403
14 747 32 8177
509 31 570
19,8 53 669 18,5
10 078 Tertiary
SO level 2
144 592 267 185 127 Compulsory education 777 394 399 250 378 144 592 267 185 127 BS including Universities 13 700 5 392 8 308 19,5 19,8 BS 1
including Universities University
of Teacher Education 12 069 2 797 9 272 11 260 809 BL of Teacher Education 23 824 1212
462
069 11 362
2 797 19,1 11 260 19,3 809
9 272 BL
Professors 2
952 63 034 9 695 Matura school 72 729 31 777 40 952 63 034 9 695 SH Universities 7 051 4 349 SH
Universities 121 009 60 423 60 586 90 887 30 122 121 009 60 2423
702 60 586
18,2 90 887 16,5
30 122 Other teaching staff
296 17 950 6 129 Other general education school 24 079 7 783 16 296 17 950 6 129 AR 5 889 3 707 2 182 19,6 17,8 AR
Humanities and social sciences 41 970 14 543 27 427 33 562 8 408 Humanities and social sciences 41 970 14 543 27 427 33 562 8 408 Assistants and scientific personnel
042 189 268 38 191 Vocational education
Economics 227
17 459
157 132 417
11 633 595 042
524 189
11 268
417 38 191
5 740 AI Economics 1 935 117 157
160 11 633
775 5 524
19,0 11 417 19,4 5 740 Clerical
AI and technical personnel
Preparation
Law 14 202 6 410 7 792 12 085 2 117 SG Law 48 295 3014
670
202 17 625
6 410 19,7
7 792 12 085 18,7 2 117 SG
Universities 4
of applied science
for the fed. vocational GR Exact and natural sciences 913
17 1119
500
841 126501
413 17,0
7 340 13 247 15,1 6 594 GR
Professors 1
Exact and natural sciences 19 841 12 501 7 340 13 247 6 594
242 6 276 655 Matura (after apprenticeship) 6 931 3 689 3 242 6 276 655 AG 58 508 30 083 28 425 19,4 17,9 AG 5
Medicine/pharmacy 12 026 4 555 7 471 10 139 1 887 Medicine/pharmacy 12 026 4 555 7 471 10 139 1 887 Other teaching staff
909 1 938 1 016 Basic vocational training 2 954 2 045 909 1 938 1 016 TG 25 610 15 823 9 787 19,8 19,0 TG 2
Engineering 12 137 8 891 3 246 7 499 4 638 Engineering 12 137 8 891 3 246 7 499 4 638 Assistants and scientific personnel
590 1 650 1 343 Pre-vocational training 2 993 1 403 1 590 1 650 1 343 TI Interdisciplinary and others
28 819 15 789
3 676 13 030
1 890 18,8
1 786 2 938 20,4 738 Clerical
TI and technical personnel 2
Interdisciplinary and others 3 676 1 890 1 786 2 938 738
VD 68 431 30 164 38 267 19,5 19,1 1
VD 6
Full-time equivalents are expressed as t
031 280 116 57 029 Upper level
Tertiary secondary education 337 799
234 145 118
179091
114 116
158 031185
708 280 116 4957
248 029
551 VSTertiary level 30 462 234 799 11810
19 652 091
810116 708
19,2185 248 20,1
49 551 VS (e.g. a person employed for 50
full-time 3
NE 17 272 9 507 7 765 18,8 18,9 2
NE
The 1
figures include all teachers working
Not specified 12 000 6 073 5 927 1 654 10 346 GENot specified 45 396 12 000
30 201 6 073
15 195 5 927
20,0 1 654 10 346
19,1 3
ForGE 4
cantons that did not provide us with
were estimated on the basis of the cant
JU 7 687 5 061 2 626 17,0 19,1 JU
4
Percentages are calculated taking into a

Switzerland 735 749 440 885 294 864 19,3 18,8 Switzerland 735
1
The 41 645 pupils in special education programmes are excluded 1
The 41 645 pupils in special educat
2
Public education 2
Public education

3.4.3 Stakeholders
With the broadening usage of internet and the participation to on-line communities, the
collective development of open source VLE and on-line exchange of experiences have fos-
ter the emergence of a “new power” which is able to influence the choice of (technical)
standards and major trends for on-line education. For example, one of the most active
community has emerged around Moodle14 , a widely used open source VLE.
Table 3.6, page 54, lists the different stakeholders on the market and evaluates their
potential influence.

3.4.4 Market system

The production of on-line resources is a complex process. Figure 3.3 shows an example
of a schematic representation of the productions and publications systems by Pearson
Education. The main differences with traditional resources are created by the following
mechanisms:
14
Moodle http://www.moodle.org

45
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42'56-56$+"".+56)'(7$")+.(%)'(8&")9&&:-(#$(%)'(7$;#6.(%)'(/&0 12")'(%)'(!562.)
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&!!
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NMM.+-&,6!H!]!N,1$.+!c01$M00E(!2,!-$%!N,52*+!U079&1$%!-$%!D)*&+$!
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each with their own user software), and mobile devices such as mobile phones, smart
phones and tablets. Electronic book readers are today only marginally used.
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be installed. Such systems are very complex to implement and manage, although there
!"#"!! 2(3&'445-+&-,6-&+5-73383&-/-,
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! 15
http://shibboleth.internet2.edu ! ! "!

46
 We are currently investigating a number of
vocabulary management systems to consolidate
and standardise our own internal vocabularies
and import and export those where appropriate.

Figure 3.3: Example of production and publication workflow (Pearson Education)

3.4.5 Concurrence intensity

The concurrence intensity is estimated on the basis of the 5-Forces Porter model. For 2
each of the five forces, the partial dimensions defined by Porter [Porter (2008)] are con-
sidered. Each dimension is evaluated through a qualitative five steps scale (−−, −, 0, +,
++),16 summarized with an equivalent weight in a summary in the sense of an average
appreciation.

The power of buyers

Buyers are powerful if they have negotiating leverage relative to industry participants. In
the publishing industry for electronic learning resources, buyers are mainly local authorities
who are in charge of the equipment of schools.
Dimension Comment

Few buyers with large volume
Standardized and undifferentiated prod-
ucts
Low switching costs by changing
Ability of buyers to produce the product
themselves if they judge it as too expensive
Mainly local authorities (monopolistic po- ++
sition of public education)
Learning resources are normally localized −
and must match local curricula
Continuing education costs are tradition- −
ally not considered in public education
Well known process, especially in upper ++
secondary level

16
The value −− means that the dimension lowers the concurrence intensity of the considered force, the
value ++ contributes in contrary to a higher intensity of the force.

47
 Dimension (continued) Comment

The product represents a significant frac-
tion of its costs structure or procurement
budget
The buyers are under pressure to trim their
purchasing costs
The quality of buyers’ product is little af-
fected by the industry’s product
The industry’s product has little effect on
the buyer’s other costs
By tradition electronic materials are com- ++
plementary and part of the books (“should
be free”), learning materials represent an
important part of the budget at cantonal
level
−
No direct relation is made between learn- −
ing materials and the quality of education
system
Learning materials have normally their −
own budget position

The power of buyers +

The power of suppliers

Suppliers are powerful if they are able to capture value for themselves by charging higher
prices to the industry sector. For the publishing industry, potential suppliers are the media
(multimedia assets), the authors, VLE developers and device manufacturers.

Dimension Comment

The suppliers are concentrated Delocalization through internet and glob- −−

The suppliers do not depend heavily on the
industry:
– Media
– Authors
High switching costs for the industry:
– For web-based learning resources
– For VLE-dependent resources
– For device-dependent resources
Suppliers offer product which are differen-
tiated
There is no substitute for what the supplier
group provides
Suppliers can credibly integrate the market
alized market for suppliers
There exist a lot of assets libraries −−
Difficulty to find good authors, but recruit- +
ment possible
Platform independent by definition −−
Interoperability issues, but not so many +
different standards
Different, incompatible operating systems ++
Especially for media or large publishers +
with big assets repositories
Substitutes exist for all products and ser- −
vices, with the small exception of localized
or specialized assets publishers
In Switzerland, the media do it, not always +
in collaboration with the education system
(credibility issues)

The power of suppliers −

48
The barriers to entry
The barriers to entry measure the difficulty for new actors to appear on the market; on
the other side, they measure the advantages of the incumbents. Porter identifies seven
major sources of difficulty.

Dimension Comment

Supply-side economies of scale IT infrastructure for production exists, but +

Demand-side benefits of scale (buyers’ net-
work effect)
Customers’ switching costs
Capital requirements
Incumbency advantages independent of
size
Unequal access to distribution channels
Restrictive government policy
a part of knowledge has to be acquired
There is no dominant publisher for schools −
in Switzerland. In other countries, the sit-
uation may strongly differ
Changing from a resource may not gener- −
ate direct supplementary costs in schools
The capital requirements for a foreign pub- +
lisher whose language is one of the national
Swiss language is not so important to enter
the Swiss market
The technological barriers are not high 0
(+), but the reputation and network is im-
portant (−)
A parallel distribution channel can be es- +
tablished over the internet
Once a resource has been selected and de- −
clared as official, the market is closed for a
rather long time.

The barriers to entry 0

The threat of substitutes

A substitute is a product which performs the same function as an industry’s product
by different means. In the publishing industry, substitutes to electronic digital learning
resources are traditional resources and open resources on the web.

Dimension Comment

The substitute offers an attractive price-
performance trade-off to the industry’s
product
The buyer’s cost of switching to the sub-
stitute is low
The buyer’s inclination to substitute is
high
Free and open educational resources, ed- ++
itable open resources in another language
In some cases, the VLE or the device must +
be adapted (interoperability issues)
Teachers are not attached to a brand or ++
a special publisher for learning resources,
they trust their local authority or own net-
work for evaluation

The threat of substitutes ++

49
The rivalry among existing competitors
High rivalry within a market limits the profitability of an industry. The degree to which
rivalry drives down an industry’s profit potential depends on the intensity with which the
companies compete, and on the basis on which they compete.

Dimension Comment

Competitors are numerous or are roughly The Swiss market is very small and special- ++
equal in size and power ized. A lot of small, specialized publishers
are present
Industry growth is slow Electronic materials are evolving very −
rapidly
Exit barriers are high There are no barriers to leave the market −−
Rivals are highly committed to the busi- A climate of uncertainty and distrust dom- +
ness and have aspirations for leadership inates
Firms cannot read each other because of (see above) +
lack of familiarity
Products or services of rivals are nearly Yes in the same disciplines for the compa- +
identical rable school levels. But high specialization
between publishers.
Fixed costs are high and marginal costs are Capacity building and IT infrastructure +
low costs.
Capacity must be expanded in large incre- Start investments are not so high, but ex- −
ments to be efficient perience and reputation build an advan-
tage
The product is perishable Although the technology evolves rapidly, if −
standards are respected, the product has a
life-cycle fro three to four years.

The intensity of rivalry +

3.5 Discussion and analysis

3.5.1 Concurrence
The concurrence intensity analysis shows that this market is quite challenging.
The most important factor is the threat of substitutes (++), for example through open
educational resources or similar products from competitors. It is basically very difficult
to patent a ”teaching approach”, and therefore difficult to keep a competitive advantage
outside the pure technical fields.
The second most important forces are the power of buyers (+) and the internal rivalry
(+). Buyers of learning resources are traditionally local or regional authorities, which have
the legal obligation to regularly evaluate their suppliers. Although this may change in a
near future, and due to the relative low level of the integration of ICT in teaching and
learning, digital learning resources are very often seen as complementary materials. This
has of course an impact on the level of investments granted to these kind of resources. It
is also relatively easy to derive a digital learning resource from a traditional textbook: for

50
example, a dedicated web page with links and videos can be linked to special chapters of
a books, or figures can be published in digital form for electronic presentations. As every
competitor tries to understand the impact of the technical developments, the tension on
the market is very high and increases the internal rivalry.
The current situation on the publishing market is vey often described as a tipping
point for this industry. Customers expect new or complementary products, but are not
willing to pay once again the equivalent as for the traditional resources (contrary to the
CD, electronic books are not considered as a very positive progress compared to traditional
books, but more as a complementary alternative). This means for actors in the publishing
industry the following trade-off: there is a higher pressure on the resources that can be
allocated to research and development on one side, but on the other side each actor has
to acquire a new position in the digital world.

3.5.2 Challenges and trends for the publishing industry

2009 will be remembered as the beginning of the digital tipping point for book publishing,
the year the publishing industry took its turn as the last of the major media to enter the
digital transition, following in the highly challenged footsteps of the music, newspaper,
magazine, and network TV industries. For four years now and every year, O’Reilly Media
organizes a conference on “Tools of Change for Publishing” which deciphers the change
in the industry and aims at help cut through the hype for a more profitable future in
publishing. This section is structured according the topics in 2010:17

The mobile web Accessing to electronic content published on the web (including news-
papers, magazines) will be more and more commodity and independent from place. Mobile
devices have in common the rather low band width and small size screens which implies
new organization of on-line content.

Evolving business models in publishing New actors are appearing with new business
ideas for the creation and the distribution of digital content.

The lowering of geographic boundaries in digital distribution The internet al-

lows direct access from user to the content hosted by the publisher (or at least a web service
controlled by the publisher) and is therefore much faster than physical distribution, which
needs a big logistics.

What readers want With the success of new reading mobile devices such as the Ama-
zon Kindle and the Apple iPad, it is difficult to identify the basics trends in customers
behaviors. The actual models of major publishers have to be interpreted as large scale
pilots.
17
http://www.toccon.com/toc2010

51
Rethinking how to do the “job” of a book A book has been seen as a kind of
long term repository of static content. Electronic books will be “updated” and will embed
moving and dynamic contents.

Emerging standards for content delivery, discovery, and distribution The ePub
file format seems to become a de facto technical standard for electronic book distribution,
although this format is not suitable for every type of content that can be imagined on a
new generation electronic book reader.

Case studies from those trying (and sometimes failing) new models The actors
on the market carefully observe the concurrents’ business models and customers’ behavior.
Failing attempts to launch electronic book readers in the 2000s offer a basis for comparison.
The difference today is the large amount of books digitally available. More and more,
research and usability studies show how consumers express their choices on digital content.
These studies will lead future developments of devices and distribution models.

Tools and techniques for a digital-centric workflow Tools and techniques for the
creation and the publication of digital content will get optimized. Their possibilities will
be enriched and technical standards will short be established. These tools and techniques
may integrate “publishing on-demand” as well.

Selling and merchandising in a digital marketplace Major companies are very

aggressive on the market: they have a wide offer, content is simply and immediately avail-
able, contents and users profiles are analyzed (for personalized marketing and advertising),
communities are fostered. These models are permanently refined and adpated, and com-
panies are building know-how. It is urgent to get documented, quickly identify trends,
and be agile enough to adapt ones model.

Financial modeling for digital products and understand the impact of free
content on paid sale It is commonly admitted that one of the music industry’s mistakes
facing the arrival of digital content – especially MP3 standard – was to mistake consumer
demand for piracy. Industry execs reacted to digital media piracy in the same way they
would have reacted to bootlegs and counterfeit products: they tried to stamp it out.
But this was a new breed of piracy with no profit motive involved. The new pirates
didn’t make money from sharing MP3 files, and they didn’t have legal digital options to
turn to because MP3s were simply not for sale (notwithstanding some short-lived trial
runs like Sony’s Connect Sony format). So there were no credible alternatives to piracy:
Consumers were showing a preference for digital music and labels did not have anything in
place. Early experience show that the insertion of digital rights management encryption
limits the access of consumers to the content; on the other side, customers are willing to
pay for digital content, as shown by iTunes and Amazon MP3 services. [Biglione (2010)]

52
3.5.3 Sucess factors
According the analysis and the observation of the content related to the production and
distribution of electronic learning and teaching resources, it is possible to identify the main
success factors for actors in this industry. Table 3.7, page 55, summaries these factors,
structured according the main success potentials: Market position, Offer, and Internal
resources.

Remark for teaching and learning resources

For quality criteria of teaching and learning resources, the following documents were used
as reference:

- Norwegian Senter for IKT i utdanningen. Quality criteria for digital learning re-
sources. (Version 1.0)
http://kvalitet.iktsenteret.no/files-itu/kvalitetskriterier EN.pdf

- Dr. Martin Wirtensohn, Interkantonale Lehrmittelzentrale. Qualitätskriterien für

Lehr- und Lernmittel.
http://www.ilz.ch/projekte/levanto.html

- European Schoolnet (EUN). Quality criteria. Insight Dossier.

http://www.xplora.org/ww/en/pub/insight/thematic dossiers/qualitycriteria.htm

Remark for support services

Support services can be understood in two ways, which are close to each others:

1. Support services for publishers: this includes all services delivered to support pub-
lishers in creating and distributing digital teaching and learning resources, as well
as support during a process of change related to an entry in the market for digital
resources.

2. Software services to support the distribution (tagging, on-line publication, protec-

tion) and sales (support for e-commerce proceses) of digital learning resources.

53
 Table 3.6: Stakeholders

Group Role Influence

Regional authorities Coordinate (with cantonal representatives) the choice of High

official teaching and learning materials for compulsory
education, organize tender, develop selection criteria and
standards

Cantonal and local au- Decide in fine the general learning material policies, or- Very high
thorities ganize the choice, participate to coordination working
groups

Coordination bodies Fix the underlying policies and standards (at a more Medium to high
(CTIE, EUN, IMS, technical level), provide services, link to international
ISO) coordination bodies and to research, manage on-line ser-
vices (Swiss Education Server)

Teachers’ training in- Evaluate and use learning materials (demonstration pur- High to very hign
stitutions pose), organize continuing education

Teachers (compulsory Use the materials, are directly or indirectly involved in Medium to high
education) the choice of new learning materials

Teachers (upper sec- Use the materials, are directly or indirectly involved in High
ondary) the choice and the creation of new learning materials

Teachers’ associations Are directly or indirectly involved in the choice and the High to very high
creation of new learning materials, decide for their col-
leagues

Professional associa- Are directly involved in the choice and the creation of Very high
tions new learning materials for professional education, decide
for the whole industry

Pupils and students Use the learning materials Low

Parents and Parents’ Evaluate the work of their children, help at home, are Medium
associations consulted during decision making process (new curric-
ula), are members of local school commissions

On-line communities Compare and evaluate resources, exchange opinions and Medium (to high)
(e-Twinning) experiences, identify trends, observe the market

VLE developers Develop integration application interfaces, choose tech- High to very high
nical standards, organize on-line communities (Moodle
users)

Devices manufacturers Choose technical standards, eventually create distribu- High to very high
tion channels (Apps Store, Marketplace)

54
Table 3.7: Publishing industry (electronic teaching and learning materials) success factors
Success factors
Market position
Market shares
Reputation and image
Rentability
Offer
Teaching and learning resources
Scientific quality
Pedagogical quality
Localization of content
Usability
Aesthetics
Conformity to norms and Platform and device independence (interoperability and transferabil-
standards
Price and licensing schemes
Support services
Reliability and security
Market relevance
Simplicity
Prices
Internal resources
Culture
Institutional network
Pedagogical competences
Assets collections
Technical competences
Possible measurement criteria and qualitative indicators
Independent market figures
Degree of knowledge (driven and spontaneous)
Financial indicators compared to the industry average
Acceptance of content (transported values, political, multi-cultural and
religious aspects, gender issues, advertising), content choice, target
group compliance (contents, language, possible link to everyday life)
Curriculum compliance, learning process, methodological diversity, in-
dividualization and differentiation
Schools would prefer localized contents (not only language, but also
illustrative examples), which will foster transfer competences to the
everyday life
Content organization, coherence and simplicity of the user interface,
reactivity of the system, help informations, respect of accessibility stan-
dards and guidelines (special needs education)
Layout in service of clarity and readability, graphical design and illus-
trations specific to target group
ity), clear separation between content and its graphical representation
and layout, normalized metadata system
Easy access to the materials for teachers, pupils and students. By com-
mercial content, integration of SSO technologies to avoid multiple au-
thentication procedures, clear price policy and simple, understandable
licensing systems
For software services, conformity to technical norms and standards
(availability, security of data and transactions)
Actuality of services, modular and flexible packages
Modalities to register and contracting, availability of support documen-
tation
Adaptability of pricing systems to the reality of schools and teachers’
associations
Attitude to innovation, agility in minds
Contacts with decision makers, contacts with other publishers and de-
vices manufacturers, presence in workgroups, active and constructive
stakeholder of the education system , references and case studies
Access to specialists, experience of designers and writers
Agreements with multimedia assets providers, tools and services for
technical integration
Flexible and agile development teams, awareness of new technology,
flexibility to test products on new devices, identity management com-
patible with official ones, coherent and solid metadata system
55
Chapter 4

Vision

This chapter aims at describing a vision of the use of electronic digital learning resources
and electronic books within a digital working and learning environment. This vision is
built with short descriptions taken from a representation of what could be the tools and
their applications.
The purpose is here not to replace all traditional books by their electronic counterparts,
but to show how a digital working environment could be used in schools.

4.1 Assumptions
The development of this vision is based on the following assumptions:
- It is possible to realize the vision with the current, existing technology. Of course
there is a need for developments, coordination, organization, capacity building and
investments, but the non-existence of a technology cannot be seen here as a limiting
factor.
- A pedagogical model where the acquisition of 21st century skills is accepted: this
model fosters activities where collaboration, creativity, or intercultural dialogue are
supported.
- The school is registered to a VLE service and the accesses are organized and granted
to their teachers, and students or pupils.
- Teachers, pupils and students do not have any problems to get access to mobile
device such as laptops, tablets or a smart-phones. They have access to a computer
at home and in their classroom. They know how to use them in an elementary way
(web browsing, login procedure, use the tools provided in the environment).

4.2 Teaching and learning resources

Learning resources and electronic books are multimedia resources and use the full inter-
active potential of computers and mobile devices when this is considered as relevant (for

56
example for small workgroups). Video, sounds and interactive facilities are embedded in
the resources. The structure of content is not a priori linear, but can be organized with
different navigation options and different axes of entry. Links with other resources and
dynamic integration of external data (mashups) are common features.
Electronic textbooks, teaching and learning resources are referenced and accessible
through one single system which is organized and managed by local authorities in part-
nership with content providers, digital libraries and learning resources exchange services.
The resources have been especially selected for educational purposes and are easily acces-
sible, well described and free of advertisement.
Resources and electronic books can be easily used on different devices, within a one-step
installation procedure. Cooperation with publishers is barrier-free and relatively informal.
It is possible and easy for teachers to ask for special permissions on the resources, and
publishers are open to propositions for updates and future developments. Commercial
support and consulting may be provided in order to create dedicated, localized resources.
A set of references and learning resources is allocated to each student at the beginning
of the year (or any other teaching cycle). These resources are accessible within the personal
learning environment and will be used in a way which is similar to traditional textbooks.
If required, a system with credits will allow students to purchase other, complementary
resources.

4.3 Teachers’ environment

The teachers are provided with tools and resources to prepare, organize, manage and
evaluate their teaching. They can progressively assume their role within a competence-
based pedagogical environment, without compromising the quality of their teaching and
its content.
For the general organization of teaching, efficient et easy-to-use tools are provided,
so that their time is focused on pedagogical and didactical aspects. All the tools and
resources can be accessed and used not only from school, but also on mobile devices
and on a computer at home. A tool provides an easy access to the students’ profile and
results, and offers the possibility to insert not only grades, but also qualitative evaluations,
pedagogical appreciations and informal comments. The whole organization structure of
the school is mapped into the system: for example, in schools where several teachers are
involved in the same class, the system automatically grants the access to the informations
of the groups of pupils to all teachers concerned.
Teachers have a simple and direct access to the official curriculum integrated to their
working environment, so that they can prepare their lessons according to the foreseen
levels of competences in the different disciplinary fields. Links to recommended learning
resources are proposed with learning objectives. A digital library provides a simple search
engine on different learning resources repositories and networks. Learning resources are
proposed in a way that allows small modifications and reorganization by the teacher,
or so that they can be integrated in resources created by the teacher. Communities of
teachers can collaborate, share experiences and resources, or get in touch with publishers

57
to express their needs in relation to resources or to a particular discipline. Learning module
components can be accessed individually and used independently of the whole module.
During teaching, the resources are accessible on different devices. For example, a
computer connected to the beamer allows the teacher to show a short excerpt (10 min.)
of the interview of an author of the book the teacher is currently studying with his class.
Students will have the possibility to watch the entire film later in the library, at home, or
as a podcast on their smart-phone. Actually, the video is included in a pedagogical dossier
prepared by a literary association which references the important elements of the life of the
author, and provides links to historical events. Different complementary materials such as
dynamic historical timelines, pictures of manuscripts, or electronic versions of books are
provided as well.
Tasks and regular assignments are given electronically to the pupils. According to the
nature of the work, the results may be delivered electronically or in another form. At
the end of the evaluation process, the teacher records the grade and or any comment in
the student’s profile. A tablet PC is used during the evaluation, and any drawings or
the discussion itself may be recorded. At the end, the teacher and the student decide
together what is kept and to whom the access may be granted. Tests can be organized
and delivered within this environment, results will of course be integrated into the profile.
Schools take part to different national and international projects whose aim is to
foster school and class partnerships across language and country borders. Colleagues
from neighbor schools or in other countries with the same interests can be found on the
basis of their profile or within a Friend of a Friend -based school-oriented social network.

4.4 Learners’ environment

Pupils and students receive at the beginning of the year an access right to a personal
learning environment. This environment contains different tools and is the point of access
to all services and resources, should they be installed in the environment itself, or hosted in
another environment. This environment is linked to a private, permanent and sustainable
environment which will belong to the student for his or her whole life.
The personal learning environment is the privileged working environment of the stu-
dent. It is connected to internet services through the school network which plays the role
of a gatekeeper. The student manages his or her profile and has the possibility to publish
personal contributions, should they be linked to school or not.
The environment has been developed to be used not only on a computer, but also
on other devices such as smart-phones and tablet PCs (the user interface is specifically
adapted to these different environments). The environment is simple and intuitive to be
used. The user interface and the installed tools can be customized and adapted to the
development level, the competences and the needs of the student. The priority is set on a
loose integration of specialized and simple tools designed for educationa activities. When
a tool is used, only the relevant options are provided on the interface in order to help the
student to focus on his or her main task. Switching from one tool to another is simple,
and relevant shared informations are immediately synchronized.

58
 This vision can be seen as a generalization of the Sugar user interface of the OLPC
XO laptop (see case study in Section 2.2.5, page 25).
The following list gives a possible palette of tools that should be integrated in a personal
learning environment:

- Personal profile with personal informations, résumé, personal activity journal, elec-
tronic portfolio and blog.

- Personal library including learning resources (and the necessary related players),
documents, files and bookmarks management tool, RSS and podcasts management
tools, and an electronic book reading application. All objects referenced or stored in
the personal library may be tagged, commented or shared within the collaboration
environment (see below).

- Document preparation system for writings or calculations (see for example Google
Apps).

- Other tools such as mind mapping or drawing applications. Additional, complemen-

tary tools can be installed easily.

- Calendar application, including links to shared calendars.

- Activities and tasks management system, including links to shared tasks for work-
groups.

Groups of people are organized primarily on the basis of the school organization, but
other ways may exist to establish contacts. The following list gives a possible palette of
tools that should be integrated in a collaboration environment:

- Wall, voice and video over IP, chat and e-mail tools for synchronous and asyn-
chronous communication

- Wiki and other collaborative document redaction tools (the focus will be here on
the management of small workgroups)

- Content management systems for websites

4.5 General comment

The list of tools integrated in the personal learning environment is not necessarily new
and is available on most personal computers.
The most important aspect has to be seen in the possibility to access to the tools from
different locations and devices, loose coupling of these tools. Particular attention should
be paid to the exchange of data and information between the different applications and
tools, and between the personal and collaboration environment, which is used to interact
primarily with teachers, principals, colleagues and friends.

59
Chapter 5

Implementation

5.1 Framework for Switzerland

An implementation of the vision presented in Chapter 4 requires the collaboration of
several stakeholders of the education system and a long term partnership with publishers
of digital learning resources and other content providers. The goal of this last chapter is to
describe the constraints and framework conditions that would help publishers to produce
and distribute digital learning resources in favorable market conditions.
The following elements are derived for Switzerland from the elements presented in the
former analysis (Chapters 2 and 3), and in the vision. Already existing measures are
mentioned in the text.

5.1.1 Constraints to the implementation

In applying this vision to Switzerland, the following constraints have to be considered.

- The actions have to be organized within the budgets allocated to the CTIE and the
Swiss Education Server. This financial constraint are the current conditions which
are imposed to the CTIE and the Swiss Education Server by the cantons and the
Confederation.

- All initiatives and projects have to respect the federalist organization of the Swiss
education system and the fact that learners are under the age of 18. This constraint
is a direct consequence of the structure of the education system in Switzerland.

- Any new system has to incorporate the acquis of the actual systems (educanet2
for instance, which contains informations and files for more than 550’000 registered
users and more than 3’000 registered institutions) and have to be localized in the
three national languages. This constraint derives from the current success of the
educanet2 platform, but also from its technical and architectural limits.

60
5.1.2 National coordination
Due to the federalist structure of the Swiss education system the risk of duplication is
present. This risk is lowered by the presence at the national level of institutions in charge
of coordination.
For the implementation of the vision presented in Chapter 4, the following elements
have to be strengthened:

- Publication and exchange of learning resources (partnerships with publishers and

content providers, quality insurance, technical and semantic interoperability, legal is-
sues, technical developments, conception, development and test of a semantic service
to link curriculum objectives with learning resources). This point is under develop-
ment with the national Digital School Library1 project, but has to be strengthened
in order to provide a big number of qualitative good resources and federate existing
repositories.

- Synergies for technical developments and integration of tools and services (personal
and collaboration environments): Currently, the Swiss Education Server proposes
a closed source platform where the integration of new services and applications is
rather difficult and cannot be differentiated for registered institutions. A future envi-
ronment should be developed within an open and modular architecture, and provide
application programming interfaces (API) for the development and integration of
differentiated, localized services. In this case, guidelines should be published to en-
sure the coherence and stability of the whole environment. A model of submission
and approval of applications based on a list of technical criteria and stability tests
should be organized.

- Coordination of identity management, authentication and authorization systems,

federation with existing services. The Swiss Education Server provides now an el-
ementary interface for distant authentication based and educa.ch is defining and
implementing an Identity and Authorization Management (IAM) system based to
two standards: OpenID and SAML 2/Shibboleth. A strong policy anchor must be
ensured for this system.

- Support and assessment of the pedagogical added value of the ICT integration in
general, and specific tools in particular. Independent and focused studies about
the real impact if ICT on education results are very rare and their result are not
transferred to the pedagogical practice. The exchange between research and practice
has to be fostered.

- Definition and documentation of a legal framework for copyright, license schemes

such as Creative Commons, privacy and safety issues.
1
http://www.biblio.educa.ch

61
5.1.3 Usability issues
Environments used by learners should be carefully designed in a direction of simplicity,
intuitiveness and clarity: the issue is the quality and sustainability of the work and learn-
ing. In addition to current usability good practices for web applications,2 the following
aspects have to be taken into account:

- Familiarity, habit and consistency between the different applications

- Clear guidelines for user interface design (based on patterns), workflows and system
feed-backs.

5.1.4 Technical developments

In the continuity of the actual system implemented by the Swiss Education Server, and
in particular due the acceptance and popularity of the educanet2 VLE, different tools,
systems and services have to be developed or updated.

Personal and collaboration environments The educanet2 VLE has to be updated to

reflect the vision of a real, user-oriented personal learning and collaboration environment
able to be individualized (in both layout and functionalities). Networking and commu-
nication facilities have to be adapted in order to match the current standards of social
networks. This environment could be developed on the basis of two stabilized open source
projects: Moodle and Mahara.

Development of mobile applications Mobile versions of the personal learning and

communication environment have to be developed (eventually only for the specific, relevant
parts). Mobile versions should really integrate the facilities provided by the hardware at
the level of user interactions.

Authentication and authorization service A federated service for authentication

and authorization should be developed on the basis of standard protocols and deployed
for schools in collaboration with the cantons. A clear usage policy has to be defined in
order to regulate the access and accept authentication from other services in order to
organize Single Sign On bridges between platforms. A billing service should be linked to
the authentication service to allow the selling of access rights.

Network of learning resources repositories Existing learning resources databases

and repositories have to be inter-connected in order to be simultaneously indexed, so
that their resources would be visible for every user working in their personal learning
environments. To share learning resources implies the respect of (international) standards
for their descriptions. Current tools and services developed within the Digital School
Library project for the tagging of learning resources have to up upgraded on the basis of
2
See for example http://www.nngroup.com/reports/flash/

62
semantic web technologies. Publishers should get an interface to distribute (tag, publish,
sell, evaluate) their learning resources.

5.2 Recommendations for Publishers

5.2.1 Enterprise
The following part of this work is targeted to a generic teaching and learning material
publisher in Switzerland, should it be an independent publisher or the educational depart-
ment of a bigger company. But it is important to mention that elements given in this
section should be applicable to any publisher considering a strategic reorientation towards
digital resources and electronic books.

5.2.2 Opportunities and threads

Opportunities and threads brought by the technological evolution of digital learning re-
sources and electronic books can be derived from the analysis and defined in the perspective
of the vision. They are listed in Table 5.1.

5.2.3 Recommendations
This section contains recommendations for publishers according to the strategic analysis
(Chapters 2 and 3), the strategic success factors (Section 3.5.3), the vision and opportu-
nities and threads (Section 5.2.2).

Recommendation #1 – Develop products and competencies in the digital world

The experience of neighbor industries has shown that digital is inevitable. Forget the
like a normal book, but electronic paradigm, and try to innovate in using the new facilities
brought by new devices such as smart-phones and touchscreen tablet PCs. Use the current
opportunity to innovate and to build the competences around multimedia content (rich
user experience, mashup technology and dynamically updated content, integration of social
networks aspects, just to name a few). Interactive digital learning resources are certainly
part of the most complex resources to produce, so that the competencies built will be
transferable to other business fields or developed as consulting service.

Recommendation #2 – Do not fight piracy with technical solutions

Digital Rights Management (DRM) are technical, protecting systems used to avoid piracy
on digital contents. These systems have shown their limits in the music industry and
famous examples3 show that consumers are ready to pay for good, valuable content, but
they do not want to be captive in a specific format or by a specific distributor. Institutions
such as the CTIE and the Swiss Education Server can play the role of an independent
gatekeeper between publishers and schools. Bet on interoperability and open standards,
3
For example Apple iTunes and Amazon MP3 for the music

63
 Table 5.1: Opportunities and threads

Opportunities Threads

- Harmonization of curricula in the Swiss - Low investments in new resources due to

linguistic regions, and school monitoring
projects (international, national and re-
gional)
- Competences models in agreement with
social and technological developments
(tools and competences of the knowledge
society)
- Broad public acceptance of internet-based
technologies and mobile devices
- Space for innovations and tests due to the
rapid evolving industry sector
- Fast growing demand on digital content:
schools have been equipped, but are still
missing good digital learning resources
- Rich internet applications framework al-
low the development of desktop-like plate-
form independent applications
- Established virtual learning environments
in public Swiss schools
- Several digitalization projects of books
and multimedia archives which claim a re-
lation with education
the shortage of public resources for educa-
tion (consequences of the financial crisis)
- Technological evolution not stabilized
(many electronic books standards, differ-
ent development platforms for mobile de-
vices)
- Customers expectations and behaviors
not stabilized
- Identity and access managements are still
under development
- Strong trend towards open and free, low
quality, web resources (high threat of sub-
stitutes)
- New competences to be developed within
the production and distribution process

In italic: elements specific for Switzerland

and use on-line access control when possible, or insert watermarks in files to ensure the
traceability in case of illegal publication. Use simple license schemes, especially adapted
to the reality of schools. For example, propose the possibility to buy only parts of modules
and allow adaptations and small modifications for the usage in class.

Recommendation #3 – Intensify the collaboration with teachers

Teachers are now content creators, publishers, and distributors and used to get what they
want on the web, but still need to adapt the materials. They share experiences within social
networks and take part to international pedagogical projects. These are the primary source
of information for the assessment of the quality and efficiency of the resources. Establish
long term collaborations with teachers, teachers’ associations and regional authorities.
Integrate you system from start into existing platforms used by teachers and follow the
development of regional curricula.

64
Recommendation #4 – Propose a rich and rapidly evolving offer
Customers want to compare resources and want to have the choice. If the offer is enriched
on a regular basis, customers will come back, or register to get information updates. Ob-
serve the major actors on the market to get familiar with marketing practices and identify
trends. Give the opportunity to your users to provide feedback to your resources. Surprise
your customers with innovation and improvement of resources, and develop resources for
disciplines which are not already covered by open resources.

65
Chapter 6

Conclusion and Outlook

For different reasons – but not so far apart from each other – schools and publishing indus-
try are confronted to an intense changing environment: The emergence of the knowledge
society imposes to future citizens high level scientific and social competencies (challenges
for education systems), and the development of new business models to respond to techno-
logical innovations and new customers behaviors (challenges for the publishing industry).
A big part of this revolution is driven by the technological development which opens up
new ways to access to digital information and contents, to communicate, to work, to learn
and to collaborate.
The goal of the context and industry analysis presented in this work was to identify
the main success factors in the publishing industry in order to develop a vision for a
meaningful integration of digital learning resources and electronic books in virtual and
personal learning and collaboration environments.
The current pressure on public resources devoted to education have been identified
not only as potential barriers to innovation, but also as incentives to find consistent and
coordinated solutions, made possible by recent developments in web technologies. For the
publishing industry, new technologies and devices open new business opportunities and
broaden the limits for presenting multimedia contents and informations. The design and
production process of good digital learning resources is complex and involves actors with
heterogeneous backgrounds, from psychologists and pedagogues to usability specialists,
from content specialists and teachers to developers and graphic designers.
To thrive in a market where the intensity of concurrence has been identified as strong
(the main forces are the threat of substitutes, the power of buyers and the internal rivalry),
publishers have to carefully design their business strategy. To contribute to this process,
this work proposes a list of success factors identified as important to serve the education
and support pupils and students in their acquisition of 21st Century key competences. The
analysis shows a very uncertain situation, but also great opportunities for reorientation.
Four recommendations are proposed:

1. Develop products and competencies in the digital world in order to be in phase with
the evolution of the technology, and to bring an active contribution to the develop-
ment instead following rapidly evolving trends.

66
 2. Do not fight piracy with technical solutions. These solution are limiting, usually
integrated to the cost of user friendliness and usability, and not usual in education.
With the publicly supported Swiss Education Server playing the role of neutral
gatekeeper, an evolutive distribution model for commercial teaching and learning
resources can be developed.

3. Intensify the collaboration with teachers, network of teachers and regional authorities
as they are the main stakeholders who define the demand.

4. Propose a rich and rapidly evolving offer to respond to the customers’ expectations

The real challenge is not to transfer conventional models in the digital world, but to
identify the basic trends, the foundations on which new models can be developed, both
for teaching and learning, as for the publishing industry.
The proposed vision describes how digital teaching and learning resources should take
benefit of the latest developments in multimedia contents, and integrate collaboration-
based learning activities. This implies the embedding of the resources in a personal learn-
ing and collaboration environment which should be developed ab initio for education by
privileging an activity and collaboration based approach, as implemented for example on
OLPC computers.
The implementation of this vision for Switzerland would imply a very important re-
design of the tools currently proposed by the Swiss Education Server and an intensive
collaboration with publishers to develop a framework suitable for the distribution of com-
mercial content.

Outlook
New devices have been announced and the trend to mobile, flat and interactive reading
devices has been confirmed by the success of smart-phones or devices such as the iPad.
It is therefore important to carefully observe the technical evolutions and to identify the
emerging trends in innovative pedagogical and didactical practices.
The next steps to this work should be an open discussion of the recommendations with
publishers and associations of publishers, and an intensive discussion of the vision, mainly
with teachers.

67
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71
List of Figures

1.1 Dependencies between the different concepts which are considered in this
work as important influence factors to the environments of schools. . . . . . 8
1.2 Students (15 years old) frequently using a computer at home, school or
other place in PISA 2003 (left-hand side) and PISA 2006 (right-hand side). 10

2.1 Swiss GDP forecast for 2010 and 2011 (left-hand side, [SECO (2010)]), and
KOF Economic Barometer and GDP (right-hand side, [KOF (2010)]) . . . . 15
2.2 Inter-cantonal, federal and european institutions involved in the ICT and
education policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 Representation of the cycle value chain model used since 2006 by the CTIE
to frame the discussions around digital learning resources. Adapated from
Barras (2007). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 Share of US consumer PC sales form factor, evolution and forecast from
2008 to 2015. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5 Conceptual framework for blended learning (adapted from [Petko (2010)]) . 30

3.1 “Manage your Kindle” personal page on the Amazon website (as seen on an
iPad) with two detailed views: device registration and on-line saved e-books
references (free and commercial e-books). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2 Stauffacher website (e-books section), which is representative of an on-line
e-books selling platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.3 Example of production and publication workflow (Pearson Education) . . . 47

A.1 Swiss Education System (simplified version). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

72
List of Tables

3.1 Phases of the production of teaching and learning resources and actors
involved. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2 Products and services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3 Primary end-users and customers for products and services . . . . . . . . . 44
3.4 Pupils statistics per school levels (left-hand side) and per canton (for com-
pulsory education, right-hand side). Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Of-
fice, 2010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.5 Locations of installed computers in schools. Source: Barras and Petko (2007) 46
3.6 Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.7 Publishing industry (electronic teaching and learning materials) success fac-
tors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5.1 Opportunities and threads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

B.1 Summary of main digital formats used by e-books publishers (See [Wikipedia
(2010a)] for a more complete list and description). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
B.2 Summary of the different existing classes of reading devices and their prop-
erties (see [MobileRead (2010)] for full updated and structured list) . . . . . 78

73
Appendix A

Swiss Education System

Important key parameters in education are uniformly regulated, either on a national or

inter-cantonal basis. The cantons are responsible for the education system wherever the
Federal Constitution does not stipulate that the Confederation is responsible. Each canton
has its own legal regulations for education and manages its school system. The respon-
sibility for legal implementation, execution, supervision and financing varies depending
on the type of educational level and the respective educational institution. Figure A.1,
page 75 depicts the overall organization of the Swiss education system according to school
levels and cantons.
The primary responsibility for education lies within the cantons: Each canton has its
own legal regulations for education. Essentially, the cantonal school laws or education
laws in all 26 cantons are based on the same foundations and comprise similar objectives.
Wherever the Confederation has legislative authority according to the Federal Constitu-
tion, the Confederation passes the legal regulations and entrusts the cantons with their
implementation. The revision of the education regulations in the Federal Constitution
(2006, see below) provides a constitutional legal basis for inter-cantonal cooperation and
for cooperation between the cantons and the Confederation.
The cantons share responsibility for the oversight of compulsory education with the
municipalities: They can transfer various powers to the municipalities. In particular, the
municipalities assume various capacities at the pre-school, primary and lower secondary
levels. Supervision and funding of compulsory education schools, in particular primary
schools, lies generally with the municipalities. However, the cantons are alone responsible
for the supervision and funding of general education at upper secondary level.

74
 THE SWISS EDUCATION SYSTEM
PhD

CONTINUING EDUCATION
Doctorate

7 Master (5 years)

6 Bachelor (3 years)
6
5
TERTIARY

Federal Diploma
4 Federal Diploma Advanced Federal Certificate

3 UNIVERSITIES UNIVERSI- UNIVERSITIES OF COLLEGES OF PREPARATION:

INCL. FEDERAL TIES OF APPLIED SCIENCES HIGHER VOCA- EXAMS OF HIGHER
2 INSTITUTES OF TEACHER TIONAL EDUCATION VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION AND TRAINING AND TRAINING
1
5A 5A 5A 5B 5B

Specialised Matura +
Certificate of Specialised Professional Baccalaureate +
Matura Middle School (4 y.) Federal Certificate
Certificate of Specialised Basic Federal
Middle School (3 years) Federal Certificate Certificate

4A ADULT MATURA SCHOOLS SECOND VOCATIONAL TRAINING 4B

CONTINUING EDUCATION

option 2*

4 PREPARATION BASIC VOCATIONAL EDUCATION option 2*

SPECIALISED MATURA AND TRAINING
3 (APPRENTICESHIP)
UPPER SEC.

MATURA SCHOOLS SPECIALISED Vocational colleges + businesses +

MIDDLE SCHOOLS business-to-business courses | full-time colleges
2 during the apprenticeship BASIC VOCATIONAL
option 2*: PB after the apprenticeship (full-time 1 year or EDUCATION AND
part-time 1,5–2 years) TRAINING
1
3A 3A + 3B 3A + 3B 3C

COURSES TO BRIDGE GAPS IN TRAINING

(10TH SCHOOL YEAR)

PREP. MATURA
9
LOWER SEC.

SCHOOLS
Compulsory schooling
8 PERFORMANCE-BASED GROUPS The diagram shows
the present structure of
7 2A the education system.
6 AI | AR | BE | FR | GE | GL | GR | JU | LU | NW | OW | SG | SH | SO | SZ | TG | UR | VS | ZG | ZH The cantons aim at
AG | BL | NE | TI
harmonising the structure
5 of compulsory schooling.
4 BS | VD www.edk.ch > HarmoS
PRIMARY

SPECIAL
PRIMARY SCHOOL
3 NEEDS
EDUCATION
2

1
1

3
PRE-SCHOOL
2

1
0
© EDK CDIP CDEP CDPE, October 2009

ISCED Degree
Figure A.1: Swiss Education System
The diagram contains a link to the ISCED (Interna- ISCED 6 (simplified version).
tional Standard Classification of Education ISCED 5A + 5B Transition: 1 Matura ≥ Universities of applied
www.uis.unesco.org). ISCED 4A + 4B sciences (practical training)
The ISCED assigns an internationally defined ISCED 3A–C 2 Professional Baccalaureate ≥ Universities
code (ISCED 0 to ISCED 6) to each educational level. ISCED 2A (additional qualifications)
This ensures international comparability of
75 ISCED 1 3

educational levels. ISCED 0 Number of years 1

Appendix B

E-books: Technical formats and

E-readers

This appendix contains two tables:

B.1 Summary of main digital formats used by e-books publishers – This table presents
different technical formats used to present texts on computers and reading devices

B.2 Summary of the different existing classes of reading devices and their properties –
This table presents a classification of the electronic devices currently used to read
texts. A description and an advantages / disadvantages analysis is provided as well.

76
Table B.1: Summary of main digital formats used by e-books publishers (See [Wikipedia
(2010a)] for a more complete list and description).

Format File Description and main properties License

extension(s) or Responsibility

Plain text .txt Contains ASCII-only text (small files), no picture, no None
layout. A book can be transferred in one single file.

HTML .html, Used normally web pages (hypertext facilities), the W3C
.htm Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) format brings
navigation facilities (links) and elementary layout.
HTML files can be encoded in different character sets
such as ASCII or Unicode (UTF-8).

PDF .pdf PDF stands form Portable Document Format. It was Adobe Systems
developed by Adobe on the basis of the PostScript (specification avail-
language to distribute fully layouted documents. This able free of charge)
format supports the navigation within the docu-
ment and to external links (requires a call to the
browser), and offers the ability to embed interactive
elements (forms) and user annotations (highlighting,
comments, drawings).

Mobipocket .prc, The Mobipocket format is closely related the Mobipocket.com

.mobi homonym reading software specially developed to be (Property of Ama-
used on PDAs and smartphones. It supports interac- zon since 2005)
tivity and links with integrated databases.

ePub .epub The ePub format succeeds to the former OpenBook International Digi-
format. It is designed for re-flowable content, i.e. tal Publishing Fo-
content which has to be reorganized according the the rum
reading device screen specification. The use of Uni-
code characters sets (UTF-8 or UTF-16) is manda-
tory. This format supports the definition of text styles
(through the CSS technology) and supports Digital
Rights Management for commercial contents. The
ePub format is actually the mostly used format by
publishers and distributors of electronic books (with
the except of Amazon) and has the tendency to be
established as a quasi-standard.

Kindle .azw The Kindle format is used by Amazon to encode the International Digi-
books sold through the Kindle Store (see below). Due tal Publishing Fo-
to the distribution mechanism which occurs directly rum
through the Kindle device or the Kindle application
on other mobile device or computer, the user never
sees the file directly. The Kindle format is based on
the Mobipocket standard.

77
Table B.2: Summary of the different existing classes of reading devices and their properties
(see [MobileRead (2010)] for full updated and structured list)
Description and properties, with
Class advantages (+) and disadvantages (–) Examples

Desktop, Electronic books files can be read on every computer (desktop or laptop) Desktop and lap-
Netbook with a dedicated software. top computers,
and laptop with all oper-
computers + High availability of reading software (for example: Acrobat Reader for ating systems
pdf, Internet browser for HTML, Adobe Digital Editions for ePub) (Microsoft Win-
– Vertical position of the screen (not a natural position for reading) dows, Apple Mac
– Indirect interaction with content (through a mouse and tool, or key- OS X, or Linux)
board shortcuts)

Electronic Electronic paper based devices are designed primarily to read digital books Amazon Kindle
paper (i.e. long form linear texts). Some models have a screen able to display a series, Barnes
based full size PDF document as well, but most of them map the size of a pocket & Noble Nook,
devices book. Some models offer touchscreen facilities (with fingers or stylus). Skiff Reader
(unreleased but
+ Long autonomy due to electronic paper technology foreseen as the
+ Mobile and lightweighted electronic news-
+ No glare by reading in sunlight paper reader),
Sony PRS series
– Only grey shades
– Delayed screen refresh by page turn (1 to 2 seconds)
– Reduced user interactivity (low reaction level of the display)
– Needs of an external light source to read in the dark (no back light)

Smart- Smart-phones belong to the latest generation of mobile phones. These phones Apple iPhone,
phones could be seen as the fusion between first and second generation GSM mobile BlackBerry, HTC
phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Dedicated electronic books Desire
reading applications can be installed on smart-phones and are very successful.
+ Fully integrated to a largely used device
+ Mobile and lightweighted, high memory capacity, high internet inte-
gration
+ Interactive colored touchscreen with included backlight
– Small screen, even for ePub resized files
– Difficult/impossible to read in sunlight

Tablets Tablets can be laptop computers with the possibility to turn the screen and Acer TravelMate,
and slates interact directly (finger or stylus), or touchscreen-only devices. Apple iPad, Ar-
computers chos tablet se-
+ Interactive colored touchscreen with included backlight ries, HP Compaq,
+ Mobile and lightweighted, high memory capacity, high internet inte- WeTab
gration
– Cost
– Difficult/impossible to read in sunlight

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Erklärung

Ich bestätige die vorliegende Arbeit selbständig verfasst zu haben. Sämtliche Textstellen,
die nicht von mir stammen, sind als Zitate gekennzeichnet und mit den genauen Hinweis auf
ihre Herkunft versehen. Die verwendeten Quellen (gilt auch für Abbildungen, Graphiken
etc) sind im Literaturverzeichnis aufgeführt.

Vuadens, den 2. August 2010 Jean-Luc Barras

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