Agile Publishing Disrupts and Disintermediates, But it is the Future
Is it possible that publishers and educators can work together to offer a more flexible, more personal, more affordable solution to students? Yes, but only if they disrupt tradition, disintermediate the bookstore and embrace “agile publishing.”
More about bookstores and tradition in a moment, but first let’s take a closer look at agile publishing. The word “agile” has been adopted by the software industry to describe an iterative process of product development, a process that celebrates the fundamental notion that nothing is ever complete. The alternative to the agile approach—in the software development business anyway—is known as “waterfall” development, and many programmers hold firm to its advantages. Waterfall development requires that virtually every aspect of the product being developed be defined before any programming begins.
Textbook publishers have utilized a “waterfall-like” product publishing strategy over the years, creating content around a detailed product development plan. While the process has been more flexible than creating certain kinds of software, as the textbook gets closer to its “press date” the process necessarily becomes more rigid. It’s neither easy nor inexpensive to stop the presses and make changes to the content once the plates are secured, the ink is ready and the press is powered-up and humming.
The accepted limitations of printing presses have required publishers to promise that “we’ll fix that in the first reprint,” or “get that into the next edition,” words that offer little comfort to the author or adopters of a book that is incomplete, inaccurate or suddenly out-of-date. It’s not the publishers’ fault. It just hasn’t been practical or cost effective to make changes to a physical product whose material, manufacturing, and distribution costs are substantial.
How about e-books and digitally delivered educational products? Wouldn’t you think that the cost of updating or fixing the content would be so minimal that doing such would become routine? Let’s just say that making changes to the content is far from routine for most publishers. Why?
It has more to do with behavior than anything else. Educational publishers still tend to see their products as having a shelf-life of two or three years before they are “revised.” Furthermore, the operational structure of practically every educational publishing company is designed to support the time-honored practice of introducing new and revised products for instructors to consider for adoption each spring. Most textbook publishers are still working within a system that has been dependent upon printing presses and bookstores. But does it have to be that way?
Not if publishers and professors can embrace an iterative approach to content creation that “bakes in” a crowd-sourcing protocol for peer review that ensures the content meets or exceeds a defined standard. Since the content is often offered within a digital delivery system, agile publishing implies that the content and the functionality of the delivery system is reviewed together. This more holistic concept extends beyond the development phases into the usage phase as well.
In other words, the iterations and content development do not stop at “publication” as with traditional textbooks. Neither does the gathering of user feedback that informs further iterations. In effect, this becomes a feedback-rich process that constantly allows content to evolve to meet user needs. The concept of new editions, as typically defined in education publishing, simply ceases to exist.
Another component of “agile publishing” is an evolved form of custom publishing where user-generated content and open-source content mesh seamlessly with the publisher’s reviewed and refined content. Imagine a scenario where instructors are given the tools to easily adapt peer-reviewed content to meet their specific needs, or add open source, or insert their own original content. This enables users to “own” the result, and it gives enterprising instructors a stake in the creative process. The result is something akin to a textbook, but redacted, enhanced, or customized to whatever degree the instructor desires.
Finally, the “agile model” disrupts the text-heavy tradition that has defined book publishing since Guttenburg. Imagery, animations, videos, simulations, and assessments all become part of a blended mix of content and delivery platform in the agile publishing environment. No longer are publishers, authors, and instructors constrained by the traditional print publishing model.
Best of all, agile publishing can deliver an instructor-specific product direct to the student—without the involvement of the bookstore. The bookstore is disintermediated from the transaction. As for the product itself: with the agile approach it’s digital first with a print option. Imagine a print-on-demand technology that can ship an optional print component directly to the student’s dorm room while they have full access to the media rich content from their laptop, tablet, even a smartphone. No need to imagine this because the technology is here.
Publishers, professors and educational institutions are necessarily imagining and engineering new kinds of relationships. Exciting times, especially if everyone becomes agile.
