Custom Publishing

We all know that digital content delivery in the form of digital coursepacks and online course materials are finally storming the college publishing world, including the Kendall Hunt world of custom college publishing. But how do students want to get this content? According to a recent article on mashable.com (you can find it here: http://mashable.com/2012/01/06/tablet-publishing-education/) they want it to be available on their tablets. That’s because 86% of tablet-owning students in a recent survey said the tablet helps them study more efficiently, and 76% said they perform better in class as a result. Pretty impressive figures, no?

But what’s the reality? Well, we’ve always known that interactive learning boosts retention. We know that from our experience with inquiry based science products. But now we’re finding out that digital learning environments take students who were usually passive learners and turn them into active learners. And when you can carry everything you need to learn about your school subjects on a small, thin, tablet…wow, I wish I’d had that in college, it would have made studying so much easier in any location. Today’s college students are the first real digital generation, a generation whose learning environments can take them all over the world. Makes me wonder, where will they take our world?

How do you like to learn? Do you want everything on a tablet? In one place? Would you study more or better if that's how your learning materials came to you?

More than ever college professors recognize the importance of getting first year students off to a good start. Not only does it set them up for success in college, but it vastly improves a school’s retention rate.

For the past couple of years, each spring and fall, higher education publisher Kendall Hunt has offered the Promoting First-Year Student Success in College and Beyond Symposium. The dates for the upcoming seminar at the end of March have just been announced. The Symposium will take place March 30 – April 1 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Atlanta Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia.

Beside the fact that it should be a beautiful time of year to be in Atlanta, this professional development symposium features leading educators in the field of college student success and diversity education. It will address the full range of factors that promote college student success, focusing on high-impact practices that are well grounded in research on student learning and persistence, and which educate the student as a whole person.

You'll also be able to explore Kendall Hunt's custom college publishing, online course materials, and content delivery system options for your customized first-year title.

Visit the Symposium website at http://www.thrivingincollege.com for more information. Register by February 20^th and save $25 per person. Watch for more posts with info on the sessions and authors. Don’t miss this outstanding event!

So, what do you do if you teach a unique higher education course and you can’t find the perfect book to fit your needs? You create your own custom college textbook.

That is what education professors at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa did.  They teach a Human Relations course, which seems basic enough, except they took it one step further for their education students.  They teach their Human Relations course specifically for educators.  Since educators face different human relations situations than persons in other careers, they wrote their book to prepare pre-service teachers for those situations. Congratulations  to Scott Arnett, Susan Burns, and Susie Lubbers on their publication Human Relations for the Educator.

With the opportunities available in custom publishing, you can create a traditional printed textbook, lab manual, digital course pack, college ebook or a combination of any of them.

Discover your Create... Customize ... Adopt solutions at www.kendallhunt.com/highered.

As the days get longer and the weather warms up, I can’t help but think about cold treats. There’s an ice cream store in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa that is called Cold Stone Creamery.  I’m sure you are probably familiar with this business concept.  The customer walks in, looks at a large sample of ice cream flavors (ranging from vanilla to cookie batter, to banana) and numerous mix-ins (such as Oreo, Snickers, brownie, or Cookie Dough). 

Now the customer can do one of three things when they enter: they can order an existing creation directly from the menu; use the menu as a template and add their own mix-ins; or create their own treat from scratch.

This concept dovetails perfectly to my work at Kendall Hunt Publishing.  As a leading higher education textbook publisher, we allow professors to create, adopt, or customize a variety of our college textbooks and ebooks.

Like my father-in-law orders his ice cream treats directly from the menu, so to can a professor adopt a textbook directly from our online college textbooks catalog.  This serves him well.  He gets a tested and proven ice cream treat – similar to a professor getting a classroom tested textbook.

Or you could be like my wife and use the menu at Cold Stone as a guide.  She looks up a certain ice cream flavor and consults a list of recommendations to meet her palate.   Her favorite is the cake batter ice cream with the cookie dough mix-in.  This is very similar to Kendall Hunt’s customization process.  Professors can meet with one of our educational consultants, discuss their higher education course, and discuss their options.  They can adopt an existing book and add their own content to create a digital course pack; they could consult our digital learning center to see some of our existing material to add, or they could create a new digital coursepack and deliver via our content delivery system.  The possibilities are truly endless!

Finally, the customer can walk into this ice cream store and invent their own ice cream creation.  This is how I like to roll.  Throw a little bit of this, little bit of that, and bam, a new creation!  As always, Kendall Hunt Publishing offers the educator to create their own course content to meet the needs of them and their students.  Professors can create their own college ebooks, college textbooks, or digital coursepacks. This is the principle that Kendall Hunt was based on and has followed for over sixty years…

All this talk about ice cream is making me hungry…..Thank heavens that Kendall Hunt Publishing offers online content delivery so I can work on the run….I’m off to the ice cream store!

We spend a great deal of time here on the KH blog talking about our outstanding PreK-12 curricula. But there’s a whole other side to our business that I’d like to share with you:  our custom publishing for higher education. No, not vanity press, but true custom publishing. We’ve been doing this longer and better than anyone else. Ever have a professor in one of your higher education courses who gave you the book list, but then supplemented with all kinds of material and research of his own? Those are the professors who have discovered the value of custom publishing with KH.

We got started in the business back in 1944, when our founder, William C. Brown, bought the rights to 26 workbooks and lab manuals written and used by Midwestern professors. These titles, therefore, had guaranteed sales in those authors’ schools.  Kendall Hunt’s story is unique in today’s publishing industry full of mergers and acquisitions. You can read the rest of our story here.

Today, our Higher Education division offers you the opportunity to custom publish a title for your class with all your own, original material. Or, you can use some of your material, and some of the vast library of material Kendall Hunt has available to custom publish one of our existing titles for your specific school and course. You can use digital content delivery exclusively, or you can combine a traditional textbook with online course materials to create a hybrid product that will work for the digital generation as well as returning students. Check out our custom publishing options and solutions today!

That first day of school isn’t far away now, is it? My son starts 5^th grade this Fall, which, due to a very crowded elementary school, is the first year of middle school in our town. While he’s pretty excited, I’m of course suffering from, “Ack, my baby’s going to middle school, where has the time gone?” syndrome.

All this talk about middle school got me looking in depth at Kendall Hunt Publishing’s middle school offerings this week. We talk a lot about high school science textbooks and elementary education books, but we don’t talk all that much about middle school. But have you checked out our new Math Innovations program? It’s amazing. It develops mathematical habits of mind, teaching students to think like mathematicians. It improves the reasoning and critical thinking skills that are crucial to success in the 21^st century.

Math Innovations offers textbooks, but is also a robust online math curriculum with an array of technology options to enhance and supplement the text. Three grade levels and five units per grade allows for customized alignment to state and district standards. Check it out when you have a chance!!

Have you ever reviewed a high school biology textbook and liked what you examined but wished a few things with the layout could be changed? Whether it's a high school physics textbook, a primary textbook, or anything in between, talk to your sales rep about a custom textbook. Kendall Hunt is willing and able to do custom publishing for schools or districts.

Why not adopt a high school science textbook that you're comfortable using and is published the way you want it to be? Talk to us and we'll develop solutions to your school's textbook needs.
 

You can preview most of our K12 textbooks at Kendall Hunt Publishing Company's website.

In the previous article, I spoke about the beginning stages of creating a high school science textbook: acquisition and planning, as well as the development of the manuscript and art package. In this article, I'll introduce the design process that we, as an educational publishing company, use.

Around the same time that the copy-editing is being done, we coordinate with a designer to develop the cover image/design. When selecting a cover image for a high school biology textbook, high school chemistry textbook, or any of our textbooks, we look for a good balance of gender and ethnicity in an photos of people that we use. We also consider age-appropriateness for grade-level, whether it’s a primary school textbook vs. secondary school textbooks and whether it’s a product targeted to a specific ability, such as a curriculum for high ability learners.

The cover image needs to be strong and eye-catching and express the concept that we are trying to project for our target market. We want to draw the student into the content. The text/logo-type needs to be nicely balanced and eye-catching as well. We usually request 3-4 choices and may go through several "proofs" to complete the front/spine/back panels of the cover. The text on the back cover is another tool used to interest and draw students into the content. The saying, "you can't judge a book by its cover" is certainly true, however, we need to show something dynamic in order to have potential customers review our products in the first place!