1. THE POTENTIAL AND PITFALLS OF OERs
FOR UNISA PRESS
PUBLISHING AS SUPPORT SERVICE TO UNISA
Hetta Pieterse, Unisa Press
pietehc@unisa.ac.za

2. OVERVIEW
1 Unisa Press: balancing economic models
2 Unisa: interacting with content hyper-abundance
3 Open education resources in a global context:
pooling of resources, niche positioning
4 A new paradigm: focus on service delivery,
not content: the value-added proposition
5 Moving traditional print channels into
multiple delivery channels

3. 1 UNISA PRESS:
BALANCING ECONOMIC MODELS
.
1.1 The financial sustainability imperative
... serving the public good, yet attaining financial sustainability?
“A university press is an extension of its parent institution, and it is also
a key player in a more general network—including learned societies,
scholarly associations, and research libraries—that makes the scholarly
endeavor possible. ..... university presses are charged with serving the
public good by generating and disseminating knowledge.’
‘That's why the government has recognized our common interest in the
work of university presses and similar mission-driven scholarly
publishers by granting them not-for-profit status.”
AAUP, 2012

4. In contrast with the position of American university presses,
strategy aspects relevant to Unisa Press may be outlined as:
the need to sustain a supportive, enabling research environment ;
to advance the positioning of Unisa Press towards a leading publishing
house;
to leverage strategic partnerships to increase capacity;
to create an enabling environment for persons with disabilities;
and finally, to ensure long-term financial sustainability.

5. • fear of loss of the income generated from the sales of textbooks to possibly be made
available for free on an online platform.
• income consistently gained from study material-related items has brought in much-
needed income and has served to cross-subsidise other smaller niche-market
publications ...
• 1.2 Dual delivery modes and strategies
• HSCR Press : digital content available for free yet still sells print copies ;
• long-term impact of this model is beginning to show a decline in sales.
• care should be taken to give material away for free, since this may devalue the materials.
• uptake of e-books increased, - increasing number of customers to prefer the freely
available digital download, and not the book.
• Various pricing strategies ; value-added components , additional material, special print
versions

6. 1.3 Legal aspects
Contractual and royalty obligations on textbooks
Permissions re online availability
Study materials:
From the classroom environment to a globally open document
New copyright permissions may be required
1.4 A hybrid publishing model
Unisa Press may to develop a hybrid publishing model
to contribute meaningfully to Unisa’s larger pool of open education
resources:
select published works, parts of select new and previously published
works, back copies, and separate chapters of out of print books available
for open access online –
while it will continue to publish works on a commercial basis, too.
An adaptive publishing policy: first draft form:
The imperative to diversify its traditional print channels
(into print-only channel, print and online publishing in parallel, XML
workflow books and print on-demand books as well as open access
books).

7. 1.5 Multiple online hosting channels
The trick is in the manner of dissemination &
how the hosting of the open education resources is hosted, branded and positioned.
-to maximise the impact of such select open resources
-by ensuring the material is hosted to simultaneously market other available material
which is for sale
(a known strategy in the e-book world, to advertise subject-specific content within the
same hosting space).

8. 6 Unisa Library’s Institutional Repository
Select books, & additional links to commercial items.
Low profile of the Unisa Institutional Repository –
additional hosting of the same materials elsewhere
and even on a commercial basis, or as bundled content on offer to subscribing libraries
(via commercial e-book vendors such as Dawson Books etc)
Manage its open access resources optimally, part of a collection of commercially
available print materials.
Not just back issues or outdated material,
add value to the Collection.
advertise commercial content available on the same platform
? can the IR offer this as a parallel marketing and referral service?
The visibility need to be enhanced
via increased hyper-linked entry points and search engine optimisation,
For optimal commercial gain

9. 1.7 Unisa Press journals collection
Select articles from the Unisa Press journals collection of 44 titles;
can add further value to the Unisa IR collection, more back issues articles
However, 22 of these journals: exclusive contract: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.
select back issues in certain markets within Africa (discounted rates
: STAR initiative).
Apart from this agreement, 10 journals hosted online via SABINET.
a non-exclusive hosting platform, bundled content on sale: subscriptions
making the same material available for free, may impact on the
income generated for these Unisa journals.

10. Increasingly, a flood of open education resources
available to users around the world,
Unisa has an established network of institutions:
explore partnerships
For the institution as a whole, the scope to interact with
the global pool of available resources on offer:
A challenging yet rewarding aspect.
Unisa as an institution can offer materials for sharing,
but also pool resources with any subject-specific partner on any continent.
2 UNISA: INTERACTING WITH
CONTENT HYPER-ABUNDANCE GLOBALLY

11. 2.1 Two examples: Collaboration globally: Publishers, universities
CourseSmart
provider of college textbooks in eTextbook format on a common online platform.
New venture founded and supported by textbook publishers:
Pearson Education; Cengage Learning;
McGraw Hill Education; John Wiley & Sons;
F. A. Davis Company Bedford, Freeman, Worth Publishing Group
Offering free online material comes at a cost; even for large institutions partners:
Harvard University & Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
May: formation of edX, a $60 million joint venture
Free online university-level courses, along with a list of services
Offering massive open online courses (MOOCs).’
Supported by 2 commercial online education providers, Coursera and Udacity
Available September 2012
With the University of California-Berkeley
-EdX is a not-for-profit service ...
? Any certification to follow?
What users/students may want.

12. 3 UNISA: POOLING RESOURCES AND
GLOBAL NICHE POSITIONING
The Unisa subject specialist to select suitable available and quality open education
materials
Content pooling per subject field to grow from within academic communities
Several online research communities exist.
Local collaborative pooling is an option to strengthen the impact and scope of
collections.
One such a resource is the Social Science Research Network,
several university presses contribute
either single articles or vast collections
of over 800 articles (Routledge).
Forthcoming, new and previously published materials
Elsevier 6 425 free papers
Unisa’s cooperative agreements & within the rest of Africa,
critical mass of resources may be jointly built up .
.

13. 4 A NEW PARADIGM: SERVICE DELIVERY, NOT
CONTENT: THE VALUE-ADDED PROPOSITION
Increased competition in the higher education sector ;
more e-textbooks are available for free online
The shift with content hyper-abundance: towards service delivery
The Unisa teaching offering itself is to distinguish it from other institutions;
The teaching component unlocks the content, towards certification &
a much-valued Unisa qualification.
Service delivery: additional practical exercises, tuition workbooks, workshop sessions,
additional social media channels smses to cellphones
The economic model: student pays for the tuition, and not so much for the materials.
The reputation of the lecturer is key; students flock to a university for a specific academic’s
(or institution’s) teaching style or influence in the field.

14. .
5 FROM TRADITIONAL PRINT
TO MULTIPLE DELIVERY CHANNELS
5.1 On-demand print channels in parallel with
digital course offerings
5.2 XML workflow
multiple delivery formats; online to print, cellphones
5.3 Material for the disabled: Daisy-compliant XML coding
auto conversion of materials for the visually impaired, audio book
5.4 Widening the pool to also cover older, ‘classic’ materials
5.5 Bundling and unbundling of e-content
Chapters, parts, re-bundled, removed, inserted
`new income from old content’: customised textbooks

15. 6 CONCLUSION
The overall prospects for the adoption of
open education resources are mostly positive,
provided that Unisa Press and its parent Institution
can jointly develop a hybrid model for embracing
this socially responsible teaching model.
Hetta Pieterse, Unisa Press pietehc@unisa.ac.za