Report May 2009
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Status Report, ICP Project
Field Research Methodology
Status
Next Steps
Alternative Energy
General Status
Work Completed
Work Remaining
Research Methodology in use
Problems and Considerations
Next Steps
Biotechnology, Genomics, and Proteomics
General Status
Work Completed
Work Remaining
Research Methodology in use
Problems and Considerations
Next Steps
Educational Materials
General Status
Good
Work Completed
- Our research in these areas is particularly strong:
- We have started to answer the questions in the following areas:
Work Remaining
- Our research in these areas needs to be expanded:
- Outputs and Products of the field: Data, narratives and tools produced by the EM field
- IP in EM / IP in EM-K12
- Still building list of important cases of copyright and patents
- Competitive advantages in EM / Competitive advantages in EM-K12
- Some of this material can be extracted from other sections of the wiki
- IP Profile of non-profit companies in EM
- IP Profile of Associations in EM / IP Profile of Associations in EM-K12
- Need to expand profiles of each associations advocacy for IP and particular business practicies
- IP Profile of Biggest for-profit companies in EM-K12
- McGraw-Hill (Higher Ed sector profile is strong)
- Pearson (Higher Ed sector profile is strong)
- Houghton Mifflin / Harcourt Education
- Reed Elsevier
Research Methodology in use
- Literature review (ongoing)
- Business School Cases review (awaiting reply from HBS staff)
- Media review: Area Specific Blogs and News (ongoing)
- Market databases and reports review
- MarketResearch.com has been a key resource for K-12 and College market analysis
- The ORBIS database has been useful in profiling individual companies
- Interviews, see Contacts for EM
- Nicole Allen, Campaign Director for Make Textbooks Affordable - followed up in May 2009
- Ahrash Bissell, Executive Director of ccLearn - interviewed by e-mail in May 2009
- Joel Thierstein, Executive Director Connexions - contact in April 2009
Problems and Considerations
- Having only focused mainly on textbooks, how broad to we extend our research?
- Supplementary materials often blur into the textbook market through the business strategy of bundling (including educational software)
- Arguments criticizing the high cost of textbooks in the US often point toward lower prices in foreign markets (the UK particularly), would a comparative study of reasons for lower prices for identical textbooks and greater price elasticity of those markets?
Next Steps
- Continue literature review
- Expand policy analysis
- Keep abreast of latest news and trends on OER and company blogs
- Need to better understand both the market and the social barriers to innovation
- Do professors trust certain forms of EM over others, affecting OER adoption?
- Do state's require mandates like California's to legitimize OER and peer produced EM at the K-12 level?
- Conduct a survey of K-12 teachers and higher education professors to look at social barriers
- Use California as a potential paradigmatic case in public policy pressure on business trends
- Expand descriptive research exercise to the remainder of the EM field, as defined:
- More on higher education upper-level course EM, including University Press practices
- More on supplementary materials (digital and non-digital)
- Study educational software as market vs. sub-market