Knowledge Sharing: KGL’s José Fossi Reflects on Another Year of Growth and Opportunity for the PubFactory Community

/
Knowledge Sharing: KGL’s José Fossi Reflects on Another Year of Growth and Opportunity for the PubFactory Community

Despite the economic turmoil, war in Ukraine and climate change, our publishing partners and customers could look back on the past year confidently, stepping off the roller coaster ride of the pandemic to enjoy some sense of stability. It was a year of progress and adaptation where the big scholarly publishing trends, such as Open Science, sustainability, and AI, seemed to further entrench themselves in the market.

The KGL PubFactory team enjoyed another positive year with new site launches and renewals, an exciting acquisition by our parent company, some fresh faces and the return of in-person events. We spoke to PubFactory’s co-founder and VP of Client Services, José Fossi, to explore his highlights for the year.

Read More

Publishing and the Climate Emergency: the Monumental Challenge Ahead

/
Publishing and the Climate Emergency: the Monumental Challenge Ahead

The global publishing industry has always had a conflicted relationship with the environment. On the one hand, no single industry has done more to educate and inform the general public about environmental issues. Whether through peer reviewed research and journals, consumer magazines, news reporting, books sold in shops or loaned through libraries, pretty much everything we know about the climate crisis is down to publishing, in some shape or form.

Yet, on the flip side, the industry cannot shy away from its own impact on climate change. Hundreds of years of deforestation to serve the print publishing industry are taking its toll. In the US alone, it is estimated that 32m trees are felled every year in order to make books—25 per cent of which are sent back to publishers unsold. Throw in reliance on fossil fuels, water usage, the use of chemical dyes and solvents, and the toll of shipping and flying physical products around the world, and you’ve got yet another manufacturing industry with a resource-heavy supply chain.

Read More

Teaching English as a Second Language: Challenges and Opportunities

/
Teaching English as a Second Language: Challenges and Opportunities

KGL is introducing an occasional series of explorations into the current issues in K-12 and higher education, where we will spotlight the varying perspectives of teachers, students, education publishers, and other stakeholders in the learning life cycle. We begin with a conversation with an elementary school teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL), in order to gain more insight into the struggles of students, gaps in ESL and ELT resources, and opportunities for content providers.

Over the last two years, teachers have borne the brunt of the pandemic. Teachers who work in specialized areas of learning where students need additional resources are feeling that to an even greater extent. We sat down with an ESL teacher, Ms. T in a school in the Bronx, New York to better understand the current teaching environment.

Read More

The Rise of OER: A Look at Equity and Quality

/
The Rise of OER: A Look at Equity and Quality

The spring semester has started and students are back to the classroom. And with this return to the classroom comes some of the debate over the physical and the virtual that has been brewing recently: in-person versus remote classes, print books versus ebooks, and the effectiveness of using Open Educational Resources (OER).

Over the last several years, higher education has witnessed a rise in the use of OER, though adoption plateaued slightly in the 2019-2020 school year as faculty focused more on pivoting their lessons plans to remote learning. As noted in our recent publishing predictions, we expect to see more adoption and creation of OER materials because of the proven value of OER in making higher learning more equitable. Yet while access to materials might become more equitable, adapting to digital instruction can still create a learning divide.

Read More

Developing a Culture of Accessibility

/
Developing a Culture of Accessibility

Accessibility has been the buzzword in publishing over the last several years as the industry embraces the need to make its content available to all readers. We at KGL have previously highlighted innovations in accessibility in K-12 learning and also potential hazards of not making scholarly content accessible.

As we look to the future, most specifically 2025 when the requirements of the European Accessibility Act will be enforced, we want to focus on the important steps and perhaps changes in corporate culture publishers need to take in order to make their content available for all readers.

Read More

Accessibility Continues to Evolve in Education Publishing

/
Accessibility Continues to Evolve in Education Publishing

In an article we published on this blog back in 2017, we highlighted some of the challenges, complexities and benefits associated with making digital educational content (K-12 and Higher Ed) more accessible for visually and cognitively impaired readers.

Fast forward several years and the sector’s commitment to digital equality has really been put to the test. As millions of students all over the world switched to remote learning, educational publishers and learning providers had to act quickly to ensure that all the right resources and content were available digitally in order to support students’ rapidly evolving needs.

Read More

The Meteoric Rise of Video Content

/
The Meteoric Rise of Video Content

Consumer behavior is constantly evolving. Some consumer trends are temporary and relate to the circumstances and conditions du jour, while others take on greater cultural significance, establishing a permanent foothold on society, our habits and customs, and the way we go about our everyday lives.

Our relationship with video content is perhaps one of the most underestimated cultural phenomena of recent years. And global consumption of video as a medium has certainly accelerated since the start of last year. A recent study by video marketing firm Wyzowl revealed that 68 percent of consumers felt the pandemic had impacted the amount of video content they watched online, with 96 percent saying this had increased.

Read More

The Case for a New Alt Text Strategy

/
The Case for a New Alt Text Strategy

In recent years, Alt Text—a contextual description that conveys information on the appearance and function of an image or graphic in digital content—has become a hot topic for publishers. A common practice in education publishing where accessibility standards come in to play, there has been a wider awakening regarding the art and benefits of applying effective Alt Text for publishers and authors, particularly in the STM domain.

While many refer to the challenges involved in getting it right, publishers shouldn’t be intimidated by the basics, but rather begin to apply image accessibility as part of a successful online content strategy.

Read More

Educating the Netflix Generation: Digital-First Strategies for Textbooks Take Hold

/
Educating the Netflix Generation: Digital-First Strategies for Textbooks Take Hold

Publishing giant Pearson boldly announced recently that it was moving towards a digital-first strategy, thus rendering the century old traditional textbook model as good as dead. Meanwhile, higher education specialist Cengage has been steadily expanding its online textbook subscription offering globally, experimenting with new cost-effective digital distribution models to cater to the Netflix and Spotify generation.

There are a number of reasons why, in this day and age, digital-first strategies make more sense than ever for education publishers.

Read More

W3C Publishing Summit 2017

/
W3C Publishing Summit 2017

The first-ever W3C Publishing Summit took place in San Francisco, November 9 to 10, to discuss how web technologies are shaping publishing today, tomorrow, and beyond. Publishing and the web interact in innumerable ways. The Open Web Platform and its technologies have become essential to how content is created, developed, enhanced, discovered, disseminated, and consumed online and offline.

Read More

The Future of EPUB: Facts Regarding the IDPF and W3C Merger

/
The Future of EPUB: Facts Regarding the IDPF and W3C Merger

The IDPF and W3C are working to combine the two organizations. Working together, they will strive to foster the global adoption of an open, accessible, interoperable digital publishing ecosystem that enables innovation. The primary motivation to combine IDPF with W3C is to ensure that EPUB’s future will be well-integrated with, and in the mainstream of, the overall Open Web Platform.

Read More