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"We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway,'" Mr. Jobs was quoted as saying by his biographer, Walter Isaacson. The publishers were then able to impose the same model across the industry, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson. "They went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books,' " Mr. Jobs said. The Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws, the people familiar with the matter said.

if FWK (or other organizations) can find sustainability while distributing free digital textbooks, the textbook market could be dramatically altered. Because it is so hard to compete with "free," textbook prices would likely come down and eventually become only a small part of the cost of higher education. The potential for the disruption of the textbook publishing industry, as well as the potential savings to students, is enormous if one or more organizations can create a sustainable business model. Whether this can be done remains to be seen.

"Transform your institution to reap the benefits of the digital age. With Adobe's industry-leading portfolio of technologies and services, you can help faculty, students, and staff deliver standout digital experiences that promote excellence campuswide."

The majority of students in the Udacity and Coursera courses analyzed were professionals in the software industry - hardly the target audience for those seeking a change in how we educate postsecondary students. The current MOOCs provide a nice proof-of-concept, but hardly solve significant educational problems.

"Readium, a project of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) and supporters, is an open source reference system and rendering engine for EPUB publications. EPUB is the industry-standard open format for eBooks and digital publications. The latest version, EPUB 3, is based on Web Standard technologies such as HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, SVG, and the DOM. The overall aim of the Readium project is to ensure that open source software for handling EPUB 3 publications is readily available, to accelerate adoption of EPUB 3 as the universal, accessible, global digital publishing format. Readium is built on WebKit , the embeddable open source Web content engine."

An open source rendering app to promote epub as an ebook standard. Works as a Google Chrome extension.

Online, on demand access to one textbook (~$19/month) costs more than online, on demand access to every major movie, TV show, and song produced in the US in recent memory ($7.99 + $9.99 = $17.98/month). Really. One textbook costs more than the entire output of the film, television, and music industries combined.

Interesting article. I am seeing a trend for truly defining an eportfolio to be a web-based application that belongs to the learner.

In 2009, JISC Collections commenced a new study to explore in more detail the e-textbook landscape in the UK and to work collaboratively with publishers and libraries to identify and pilot four potential e-textbook business models. The results and reports of this study are available to all. In addition to the reports, there are a number of case studies available from the university libraries that participated in the e-textbook trials which make excellent reading.