Last week, I presented at Learn-X’s Australian Instructional Design Conference, held at Melbourne Convention Center, Thursday 14th March. Was good to be presenting again, even though I have lots on at work and personal life. My topic was “People, Processes and Pleasures of Publishing”. Yes for all you English majors, the alliteration was intentional. I thought I would share with you all, for those that were unable to attend, some of the things I mentioned.
As we all know, changes in the nature of the problems to be solved with publishing has come a huge increase in the complexity of the systems that we Instructional Designers must design and build. With the advent of the Internet, this has meant that much of the solutions today are designed, developed and to be distributed across more than one computer, and potentially used by many hundreds if not thousands or millions of customers. It is no longer enough to write educational material that solves a problem; but it must also be fast, scalable, reliable, and easy to use.
Also in recent years, the focus in secondary and higher education markets has moved from publishing textbooks with a CD in the back of the book to a complete online learning package such as our NelsonNet Platform and MindTap. Todays’ students and teachers now have a mass array of options to enhance their learning experience, such ad AV resources, animations, podcasts, interactive quizzes, games, study aids, even some social media integrated solutions and heaps more created by the demand of the audiences.
Traditionally, publishing involved roles such as:
- Publishers
- Editorial
- Production
- Design
- Sales and Marketing
- Distribution and Logistics
- Permissions
- Contracts
- Finance
These roles still exist, but due to the nature of the growth of digital solutions, it is now not uncommon to see roles like these in a publishing house:
- Instructional Designer
- Multimedia Manager
- UX Designer
- Programmer
- Web Developer
- Web Content Administrator
- Digital Platform Manager
- Social Media Analyst
- Digital Supplements Editor
- Digital Rights Manager
With the future of e-books (especially with Apple’s introduction to iBooks) and the rise of digital solution offerings and options, it seems to me that there will be a massive change in some of the way people will see “publishing”. I personally find this exciting to be on the edge of the wave, watching it come in and riding it to a certain extent. I still think there will be a need for “traditional” books, as the whole tactile nature is important.
As you all may know, I currently research and write about Serious games and edutainment, and that may also present a few angles of consideration for the way students will learn in the future too.
Campbell Craig 