AcademicPub Expands Rapidly in Canada

ACADEMICPUB SIGNS CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS AGREEMENTS WITH SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY IN BC AND YORK UNIVERSITY IN TORONTO 

Nearly 350,000 Students on 14 Canadian Campuses Gain Access to Affordable Custom Books

New York, NY, July 24, 2012 - AcademicPub™, the leading provider of custom books in the North American higher education market, today announced CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS™ agreements with Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, and York University in Toronto, ON to provide affordable print and digital textbooks and other course materials to students, beginning in the 2012/2013 academic year.

The Simon Fraser and York arrangements, combined with 12 other deals in place at institutions of higher education across Canada, will result in nearly 350,000 Canadian college students having access to more affordable course materials that can be created by their professors. CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS is AcademicPub's co-branded custom publishing solution for institutions of higher education.

"We're thrilled that the AcademicPub custom publishing platform will be widely adopted across the country in the coming school year, helping to control the rising cost of education for Canadian students," said Caroline Vanderlip, CEO of AcademicPub parent, SharedBook Inc.

"The importance of providing students with high-quality materials at the lowest possible price has never been greater," said Mikhail Dzuba, CCR, Director, Simon Fraser University Bookstore. "What's unique about AcademicPub is that it combines custom delivery with cost savings - features that are often mutually exclusive." Simon Fraser, York and other Canadian institutions participating in CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS receive a co-branded AcademicPub web portal; custom-designed book covers with school colors and logo; font, alignment and trim-size options; eBook and professionally published output choices, and a repository of all custom course materials created.

To enable easy copyright clearance, AcademicPub partners with 143 academic publishers, which collectively supply more than 5 million units of content available in chapters and individual articles to the AcademicPub Content Library. Recently, AcademicPub has added content from 17 newly signed partners. They are medical publishers F.A. Davis, Jones & Bartlett Learning (a division of Ascend Learning), SEEd Medical Publishers, and Thieme Medical Publishers, along with Brill Publishing, Broadview Press, Central European University Press, Cornell University Press, Portland Press, Syracuse University Press, University of Alaska Press, University of Colorado Press, University of Massachusetts Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Toronto Press, University of Utah Press, and Westminster John Knox Press. A complete list of publishers in the AcademicPub library may be found here.

About AcademicPub

AcademicPub, SharedBook Inc's technology platform for higher education, assembles, composes, prices and delivers custom textbooks - in eBook and/or print format. AcademicPub allows for immediate creation and inclusion of copyright-cleared content from anywhere, such as web articles, self-generated lectures or from the AcademicPub Content Library. Digital or print distribution generates a fast and easy way for educators to provide an engaging educational experience, with lower prices and up-to-the-minute materials for students. More information and free registration for faculty is available at www.academicpub.com. Headquartered in New York since 2004, SharedBook Inc. is privately held and can be found at www.sharedbook.com.

Contact Info

James A. Boyle
Boyle Public Affairs
jim@boylepublicaffairs.com
571-213-3979

Academic Freedom & AcademicPub in the Press

We're happy to announce that our AcademicPub CEO Caroline Vanderlip recently had an editorial on academic freedom and the cost of textbooks publishing in the Hufington Post. As she notes:

But freedom is never truly free, and academic freedom, as a practical matter, needs ongoing vigilance. Today, our academic freedom is imperiled, ironically, by one of its core tools: Textbooks. Or rather, imperiled by the increasing cost of these important learning materials, and by the methods that are being proposed to rein in these costs.

Additionally, we’re always excited when AcademicPub is generating buzz. Educators have been blogging about us and these posts have caught our eye recently:

Brian O’Leary discusses the benefits of AcademicPub’s real-time copyright clearance and pricing. 

Richard Byrne summarizes how instructors can customize and combine their course materials with anything from our content library. 

Gustavo Martínez highlights, in Spanish, how customizing course content can substantially lower textbook costs for students.

Want to know more about AcademicPub? Come visit us today.

If you're interested in keeping up to date the state of course materials and ed tech in general, or AcademicPub in specific, be sure to follow us on your social network of choice whether that's Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn.

Thanks to our intern, Katrina Lee, for contributing heavily to this post!

We're at Campus Technology 2012!

Campus Technology

Booth #729

Dates: July 16-19, 2012

Location: Seaport World Trade Center, Boston

Attending: Paul Palumbo

Sales Director, Northeast

ppalumbo@sharedbook.com

More information on the conference is available here.

More information on AcademicPub is available here.

We've Signed a Landmark Agreement with CSU

New York, NY, July 10, 2012 - AcademicPub™, the leading provider of custom books in the higher education market, today announced an agreement with The California State University (CSU), the largest four-year university system in the United States, to provide affordable print and digital textbooks and other course materials to students, beginning in the 2012/2013 academic year.

The initiative will be part of CSU's Affordable Learning Solutions campaign, a multi-pronged effort to provide choice, affordability and accessibility to students, while offering greater access to no-cost or low-cost academic content for faculty. The CSU arrangement will be the first system-wide deal for CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS™, AcademicPub's co-branded custom publishing solution for institutions of higher education.

"It's an honor for us to become part of this important CSU initiative to help control the cost of education for students, and we take our responsibility seriously," said Caroline Vanderlip, CEO of AcademicPub parent, SharedBook Inc. "Since our program is easily installable, we look forward to hitting the ground running on as many of the 23 CSU campuses as soon as possible."

"AcademicPub's services are well-suited to the university's objective of empowering faculty with the tools necessary to provide affordable, high-quality academic materials for their students," said Gerry Hanley, CSU Senior Director of Academic Technology Services. "This tool preserves student choice on digital versus print. Working closely with our bookstores, academic communities and partners like AcademicPub, we continue to find ways to enhance faculty and students options for teaching and learning."

CSU institutions participating in CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS receive a co-branded AcademicPub web portal; custom-designed book covers with school colors and logo; font, alignment and trim-size options; eBook and professionally published output choices, and a repository of all custom course materials created. Schools choosing bookstore distribution for CUSTOM COLLEGE PLUS receive access to all of the above options, plus the ability to sell eBooks if the bookstore is not already enabled.

Launched in 2011, AcademicPub now partners with 142 publishers, which collectively supply more than 5 million units of content available in chapters in the AcademicPub Content Library. Recently, AcademicPub has added content from 16 respected academic publishers such as F.A. Davis, Jones & Bartlett Learning (a division of Ascend Learning), SEEd Medical Publishers, Thieme Medical Publishers, Brill Publishing, Broadview Press, Cornell University Press, Central European University Press, Portland Press, Syracuse University Press, University of Alaska Press, University of Colorado Press, University of Massachusetts Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Toronto Press and University of Utah Press. A complete list of publishers in the AcademicPub content library may be found here.

About AcademicPub

AcademicPub, SharedBook Inc's technology platform for higher education, assembles, composes, prices and delivers custom textbooks - in eBook and/or print format. AcademicPub allows for immediate creation and inclusion of copyright-cleared content from anywhere, such as web articles, self-generated lectures or from the AcademicPub Content Library. Digital or print distribution generates a fast and easy way for educators to provide an engaging educational experience, with lower prices and up-to-the-minute materials for students. More information and free registration for faculty is available at www.academicpub.com. Headquartered in New York since 2004, SharedBook Inc. is privately held and can be found at www.sharedbook.com.

About the California State University

The California State University is the largest system of senior higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, approximately 427,000 students and 44,000 faculty and staff. The CSU awards about 99,000 degrees annually and since its creation in 1961 has conferred nearly 2.6 million. The CSU is renowned for the quality of its teaching and for the job-ready graduates it produces. The mission of the CSU is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever changing needs of the people of California. With its commitment to excellence, diversity and innovation, the CSU is the university system that is working for California. Connect with and learn more about the CSU at CSU Social Media.

Contact Info 

CSU Contact:
Erik Fallis
Media Relations Manager, Public Affairs
The California State University
efallis@calstate.edu
562-951-4064

AcademicPub Contact:
James A. Boyle
Boyle Public Affairs
jim@boylepublicaffairs.com
571-213-3979

An Interview with Zip Publishing

We recently sat down with our friends at Zip Publishing to talk about AcademicPub as an e-book solution, the future of digital textbooks, and more:

AP: Tell us about your company and your history.

CoursePackets.net was created as a national brand for our parent company Zip Publishing, which has been servicing the Ohio State University since 1969. As our clientele grew from OSU to other local schools, and then to other schools in Ohio, we decided that it was time to go national and offer our services to colleges and universities across the country. Today CoursePackets.net serves over 150 schools across the nation, offering custom course materials, Out-of-Print book reprints, copyright clearance, print services, and book publishing for all genres.

AP: Why did you choose to partner with AcademicPub?

For many years, we have known that the state of course materials would move from print to digital. Even though this migration has not happened as quickly as some had predicted, it is happening none the-less. After efforts to create and offer a service which offered digital downloads, we were approached by a representative of AcademicPub. Although the service that we had created offered robust course management tools, the AcademicPub service offered what we considered to be the most important feature, the ability for instructors to assemble their materials through a web-based system that allowed for real time creation and pricing. A system that also let the instructor offer both print and digital materials to their students. The fit between the resources and experience of CoursePackets.net, and the AcademicPub system seems perfect.

AP: Do you have a view on the future of course materials you'd like to share?

The progression from printed course materials to electronic materials has been slow but steady. Recently it has gained momentum, mainly due to the sharp rise in the costs of textbooks and copyright fees. The ability to use digital files and cut out the production costs of textbooks is a great advantage in the war on education costs.

As the move to digital materials progresses, and technology becomes more integrated into the classroom, the entire teaching paradigm will change. Instructors have already begun using internet teaching tools that allow them to teach students anywhere in the world, another tool that can lower education costs as schools depend less on buildings and campuses to educate their students. Instructors also have started using new tools within the classroom that help them communicate and demonstrate their subjects more easily and dynamically.

The future of course materials, and the classroom appear to be taking shape right now. A vision of the future classroom will most likely involve students that "attend" classes in the comfort of their own homes via downloads of readings & multimedia presentations, testing and more. They will visit a course management system that allows them to learn at their own pace and offers the assistance of not only the instructor, but an online community of experts and fellow students. And from the instructor's side, they will be able to create and upload their own course materials, choose complete textbooks or portions of textbooks from publishers in digital format, create and administer testing, teach video classes and offer help to students in need, all via the internet.
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If you're interested in keeping up to date with more interviews like the one above, the state of course materials and ed tech in general, or AcademicPub in specific, be sure to follow us on your social network of choice whether that's Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn.

You can learn more about the partnership between Zip Publishing and AcademicPub here.

Happy Fourth of July from AcademicPub

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