A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning

Publishing on the WWW:
What's Happening Today and What May Happen in the Future

Susan Mernit
Editor
New Jersey Online

Introduction

As more and more publishers gain access to the part of the Internet known as the World Wide Web, traditional publishers and their audiences are reevaluating the creation anddistribution of educational materials and all sorts of content, given changing curriculum standards, shifting distribution models, and opportunities for new types of electronic learning.

Although the potential of the WWW as a multimedia printing press is obvious to all, many questions remain about the willingness of consumers and educators to pay for electronic information and about the kinds of content and exchanges that best suit this medium.

This white paper examines the near-term and long-term implications for educational and mainstream publishers as the WWW makes possible new types of content and new means of publishing, distribution, and learning. The ability for authors to create their own content and publish themselves on the Web, and the ability for publishers to update their content, as well as to package and distribute information in new ways, makes this an exciting time to be in the publishing industry. This paper examines trends in the marketplace and forecasts where publishing is going via the Web.

I. The Rise of the WWW as a Publishing Vehicle

At the moment, four kinds of publishers dominate the Web: large commercial companies, small individual publishers, schools, and nonprofit organizations.

In most cases, these publishers share two common goals: to reach a national or local audience with an interest in the issues of their particular niche, and to make publishing interactive.

The Numbers Are Increasing

In the past year alone, the number of publishers, schools, and educational organizations launching WWW sites has increased from perhaps 30 to over 1,800. K-12 schools publish portfolios of student research on the Web, educators use it to conduct research, and publishers launch corporate Web sites and catalogs that give them a greater sense of what their customers might want to do, buy, and link to online.

Given these changes and the growing use and acceptance of the Web by educators and consumers, what is the promise of the WWW for educational publishing? How has its emergence as the dominant medium in education technology affected mainstream education publishers and afforded new opportunities to smaller publishers and the nonprofit research community? What should the education community do to take better advantage of the Web as a publishing platform? This paper explores and answers these questions.

1995: The Year of Change

Traditional education publishers began moving onto the WWW in 1995. Houghton Mifflin, Macmillan, and each launched full-blown, complex Web sites that promote their products and organizations; rumor has it that many of these companies prepared Web-based components as competitive add-ons to the textbook adoptions they submitted this year and will submit in the future.

Electronic Learning, the controlled-circulation educational technology magazine published by Scholastic for the past 10 years, recently cut back its print publication to a quarterly schedule but added a WWW site that is updated monthly.

In the consumer field, the New York Times, Random House, Hearst, and Conde Nast have recently launched Web sites with areas meant to appeal to the home/school market. The Discovery Channel, PBS, CNN, and other media companies that have veered into print with an eye to reaching the home/school market have gone onto the Web as well, promoting their television shows and supplementary print materials to great effect.

And newspapers, late to the market, are coming in big and will play a significant role in driving educators and consumers onto the Web for current information and services.

Business Models for the Web Publishers

How do these companies justify the costs? What do they expect the revenue opportunities to be? Conversations with developers and consultants, as well as a look at common practice, show that the prevalent business models in use today are as follows:

The Web site as an add-on or marketing tool for products sold through retail channels, such as books and videos, and for movie and television promotion (PBS, Discovery Channel, Random House, Paramount, and other movie studios have used this approach).
The Web site as a direct-mail vehicle and sales channel, with editorial content added to attract audiences to the catalog (Houghton Mifflin, Macmillan).
The Web site as a means to promote and deliver subscription-based products published on the WWW, with a charge for access (USA Today's WWW service and Scholastic Network).
The Web as a platform for publishing, with advertising as the revenue generator (React Magazine from Parade Publications, New Jersey Online's Education area, Electric Ink, Global Network Navigator from America Online, Classroom Connect Magazine and Website).
The Web as a platform for subscription-based publishing (the Scholastic Network, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other traditional publishers).

II. The Impact of the WWW on Students and Teachers as Publishers

The WWW has great potential to affect teacher and student publishing. The Web enables students and educators to publish their projects, writing, and curriculum materials in a way that is both similar to, and different from, traditional methods. While self- and small-press publishing is nothing new, the World Wide Web gives students and educators the opportunity to present their work to a potentially limitless audience throughout the world.

Only one-fifth of one percent (0.2 percent) of the approximately 100,000 K-12 schools in the United States currently have enough network access to develop their own Web sites. Yet, when one visits many of these 1,200-plus school sites and sees what they have published online, it is clear that the WWW indeed makes possible new kinds of publishing.

The Web is enabling students to publish work not only in science an early and well-funded popular topic but also in many other areas. Literary magazines and student "'zines" flourish around the country. Teachers are also using the Web to publish materials they once might have sought to publish first through more traditional channels.

In Los Alamos, New Mexico, as part of a testbed known as the Sunrise Project, high school students and their teachers developed online math and science tutorials for their peers. With the guidance of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the students produced units on the history of computing, basic hydrodynamics, and chaos theory. Classes logging into the site can turn to these materials in place of what Prentice-Hall or Simon and Schuster might offer.

In Evanston, Illinois, high school students working with Professor Elliot Soloway of the University of Michigan are studying the local water system and the engineering infrastructure, then posting their reports on their Web site. Researchers from Michigan and beyond consult their findings as part of an ever-expanding regional data set. Says Soloway, "The value of this project is that it makes students players in real learning: they collect and analyze data, contribute to a virtual library, and build resources real scientists can use."

For this group, more than any, WWW publishing may prove to be a vibrant and liberating tool.

III. Where is WWW Publishing Going?

What can we forecast about how publishing on the WWW will develop over the next three to five years? Where can publishers focus their energies to build successes, and what are the competitive tools that will be required? Following is a set of assumptions based on the current climate:

1) National WWW Sites Will Gain in Value

Some of the most promising publishing efforts today come from and will continue to come from WWW entrepreneurs who recognize the participatory nature of the Web and are building sites to appeal to children and their teachers and parents. Nonprofits and education organizations seeking to build national education resources and virtual libraries face similar opportunities.

These entrepreneurial creators recognize the need for focused content and tools to serve niche audiences. Examples of current effective projects addressing students and home/school niches include:

GNN EDUCATION: a national effort for educators that is solely on the WWW.
REACT: a weekly mass-market magazine for 11- to 15-year-olds that launched with a Web site that polls and surveys kids.
YUCKIEST SITE ON THE INTERNET: Cockroach World, high-quality Web science for students ages 7 through 16 offered at a site created by Liberty Science Center and New Jersey Online.

2) Regional and Local WWW Publishing Will Grow at an Expanding Rate

Local and regional Web services, many supported by local newspapers, launch daily. These services have the potential to be strong partners for local educators and assets in building school/home connections. Often marketed through and with the local papers, these services can drive parents and students to a local school district or education consortium's WWW resources and information.

New Jersey Online's Strong Words editorial current events project and its Election 96 package for kids which will be distributed without charge to online services around the country are examples of compelling Web projects directed at local audiences.

3) Content Will Be Syndicated to Local Services

Syndication the creation and distribution of unique content to a distributed network of locally focused sites will gain in power as a way to build larger audiences.

Today, Pathfinder or Playboy commands 5 million visitors per month for a module published on the Web. Through syndicating materials so that users access them through a local port, other publishers can gain the opportunity to reach an audience of the same size.

If regional online services such as Boston.Com, New Jersey Online, Cleveland Online, and Portland Online, and educational sites such as the Mendocino, California, school district can all post the same project on their Web sites, inviting people to work with it through their access point, then that project can gain the same number of local viewers 5 million as would come to a national site. As a national site, the project might never have had the marketing ability to draw in 5 million viewers.

4) The Emphasis on Multimedia and Interactivity Will Increase

In some ways, the value of the WWW as a publishing and information distribution platform suggests that the Web is likely to evolve into a sort of high-bandwidth, "smart" TV, but with a degree of interactivity that TV has never had.

On New Jersey Online, a site targeted at average users rather than technology wizards, 40 percent of the visitors download audio files, 15 percent download quicktime video files, and 10 percent post items in forums. On the Internet, the traffic in GIFS and images almost exceeds that of Usenet ASCII postings.

As AT&T and other telcos move audiences onto the Internet, they quickly will be joined by cable providers able to offer higher bandwidth access to the Web from home and school. Higher bandwidth will make it possible for a larger audience to experience and play a role in shaping the high-end tools, such as Shockwave, Java, television and video to the desktop, and Quicktime VR, that most of us only read about today. 5) Transaction and Authentication Tools Will Drive Business Growth As more and more educators and publishers move onto the Web, one area where the heavy hitters will shake out from the crowd is in the area of server tools, particularly the ability to offer direct sales transaction on the WWW and the ability to authenticate visitors to a site.

Transaction capability, as it is generally referred to, enables visitors to purchase items online. Whether it is used to sell books online or purchase the right to view an article, this is a critical capability.

Authentication the ability for a server to create a unique I.D. for a user, retain that information over a series of Web visitors or sessions, and grant access privileges accordingly is the other key technical capability that will make some publishers more competitive than others. Authentication tools must be in place in order for Web users to employ personalization and customization tools, which allow a user to shape a WWW service to fit her needs.

Conclusion

It would be presumptuous in such a volatile, fast-moving environment to say that any of us know what the future will bring. However, AT&T's recent announcement that it will offer five free hours of Internet access to all its customers and provide unlimited Internet access for $19.95 per month suggests that expanded mass-market access to and acceptance of the Internet and the WWW is not far off. By this time next year, we can expect that Internet backlash will have set in, and that all the educators and publishers happily exploring this medium at the moment will be busy explaining to a frustrated public why this infinitely flexible technology has failed to meet their expectations, and in many cases even offer them real value.

What can we do to be successful publishers those who provide value to the WWW user, whether it's a sophisticated technologist or a 'newbie'?

I suggest the following as words to live by:

A) Remember, this medium is not essential. Whatever you create must be better than it would be in any other format.

B) People want to read less, not more. The trick is in figuring out which exact piece of information they want and making it easy for them to find it.

C) Everyone is an expert after six months. No one really knows any more than anyone else about this medium; it's too new and too unpredictable.

D) Create for your user. The user should drive the product. Always focus on what your audience will want, then give them the best possible quality and ease of use you can create.

E) Publishers are people who know when to cut. Whether it's on the Web or on paper, the old truism holds. Less is more.

And since less is more here as well, adieu, adieu. See you on the Web.

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Last modified September 19, 2001 (KJ).