Publishing Industry: “What Would Apple Do?”

From Freek Bijl (Netherlands)

One Trade Publishers’ Manifesto

Revisiting a publishers manifesto

View more presentations from ajaxlogos.

Tuition in Canada

From Macleans Magazine:

“In his teachings, the Greek philosopher Epictetus proclaimed: “Only the educated are free.” Unfortunately, an education isn’t. On average, undergraduate tuition fees across Canada increased by 3.6 per cent this year, the same percentage jump as last year. Ontario had the highest increase at five per cent, the maximum allowed by the provincial government, while British Columbia had the lowest increase at two per cent. Despite a 4.2 per cent increase, students at Quebec universities still pay among the lowest tuition in the country—as long as they are residents of the province. Meanwhile, Manitoba and Saskatchewan ended tuition freezes with increases of 4.3 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively.

Tuition fees in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador remained unchanged, while in Nova Scotia, fees actually decreased by 3.1 per cent. Thanks to the implementation of the Nova Scotia University Student Bursary Trust in March 2008, fees for residents of the province will remain frozen until 2011. International students, who generally pay considerably higher tuition than Canadian students, saw their fees rise 7.1 per cent for an average fee of $15,674.

When it comes to compulsory fees, undergraduate students across the country are paying 6.8 per cent more on average this year, with Alberta students facing an enormous 31.1 per cent increase.

—Sally Brown

All fees in the accompanying chart are for undergraduate arts and science programs as of September 2009. The names of several universities appear twice:

Quebec institutions where out-of-province fees apply, and universities where there are different fees for arts programs and science programs.

Compulsory ancillary fees can vary according to program, or in the case of UBC and UNB, by campus location: students at UBC Okanagan campus pay $125 less than students at the main Vancouver campus; students at UNB Saint John pay $61 more than those at UNB Fredericton. UOIT’s fees include the cost of a laptop. Ancillary fees include student health plan fees. If students are covered by another insurance plan, they can opt out of most health plans, which range in cost from $52 to $386.

*Tuition at Nova Scotia universities is reduced for residents of the province.
Out-of-province students must pay $1,022 more than the tuition fees listed here.”

College Accountability, From the Left

This is a fascinating story. From IHE:

“The document, “Putting the Customer First in College,” calls on the U.S. Education Department to create an Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education that would (1) pressure colleges to produce significantly better data on how well they serve students, (2) develop a system for making that data available for students to use in choosing a college, and (3) direct students unhappy with their colleges’ educational practices to federal, state, or accrediting officials who can help them resolve their complaints. “In most sectors of our economy, customer focus is paramount, as it should be in education, too,” the author, Louis Soares, writes in the paper. “Customer focus could yield a more student-centric system through the development and dissemination of user-friendly ‘truth-in-education’ information that helps students make ‘best-fit’ choices regarding which education provider to select based on customer preferences such as: academic quality, price, convenience, learning style, beginning education level and the anticipated return on their investment in education.”

Read more at Inside Higher Ed

Link to the White Paper on Higher Education from The Center for American Progress

Education Investment Analysis: Three Sources

Three U.S. investment research firms provide reports on the education industry for interested readers. The reports cover K12, corporate and higher education. The commentary often goes beyond investment-related advice, and addresses policy issues and, of course, business strategy.

1. Education Signals from the investment firm Signal Hill.

The firm, Signal Hill produces Education Signals. Note: Trace Urdan, a member of the Higher Education Management Group, is an analyst at Signal Hill, and is considered one of the most respected people in the field.

See this industry update from Signal Hill from earlier in 2009.

Registration for the reports are available here.

2. RW Baird publishes Class Notes.

You can find the most recent (November) issue here.

3. First Analysis is a Chicago-based investment firm.

Michelle Moreno CFA, a member of the Higher Education Management Group, is a Senior Vice-President with First Analysis.

Corey Greendale provides public equity coverage.

Blackboard embraces and extends into open source movement

From ZD Net

Anyone seeking a case study of how a proprietary software company can “embrace and extend” itself into the open source world should stop thinking Microsoft and start thinking Blackboard.

Blackboard has a long-running feud with open source, ably chronicled by our own Christopher Dawson. Open source Learning Management Systems (LMSs) like Moodle, Sakai and OLAT have been seeking its market share for five years now.

Part of the solution was to open source tools for use with its proprietary suite. Blackboard may have been overly-aggressive in pushing this as a true open source solution but it wasn’t finished yet.

Phase Two involves signing alliances with educators and lining up scaled resources from within the open source ecosystem.

Today’s news brings an example.

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