Educational Publishing Research Articles

Neutrosophic Circuits of Communication - A Review

“Communication Neutrosophic Routes” by Florentin Smarandache and Ştefan Vlăduţescu was published by Education Publishing, Ohio, USA, on May 2014. Florentin Smarandache and Ştefan Vlăduţescu are two remarcable professors, first at University of New Mexico/ USA, the second at University of Craiova/ Romania, with many researches in neutrosophical, communication, mathematic, literature, journalism, social sciencies. Neutrosophy had been in the emergence phase since 1995. With its certification by the scientific community, Neutrosophy has become a type of incident knowledge, i.e. applicable in different fields. Neutrosophy legitimating was achieved by developing some doctoral research, through learning theory as a way of description, explanation and forecast and implementation of neutrosophic congress and conferences. Neutrosophy handles all neutralities. In the neutrosophic taxonometry, a class of neutralities is represented by the neutralities that, without turning into contradiction, generate qualitative leaps. The emergence is the cognitive phenomenon in which, from two or more connected neutralities, without contradiction, a change of quality or a qualitative leap result. Thinking in Hegelian terms has an axiom the idea that the qualitative change, qualitative emergences may arise from related neutral items. Neutrosophy claims that qualitative emergences may arise from related neutral items.

E-text and e-books are changing literacy landscape

The digital world is expanding the reading palette, offering readers -- especially readers who struggle with printed text -- new possibilities for to engage in reading via e-text and e-books. This expanded view of text is consistent with the Common Core’s vision of a successful 21st century learner who is able to critically read and communicate with text in print and multimodal formats. This vision of e-texts has yet to be fully realized, but schools are moving to integrate e-texts and digital curricula, and some authors and educational publishers are experimenting with multimodal composition.

What Makes a Top-Selling Textbook? Comparing Characteristics of AIS Textbooks

The factors involved in the selection of accounting textbooks are under-investigated, and most of the research is survey-based, largely ignoring the information that could be analyzed by direct inspection of textbook content and its impact on textbook selection. In this study the authors fill this lacuna by deploying content analysis of the textbook content and devising new measures of textbook quality that may impact their ultimate selection by accounting information systems (AIS) instructors. These novel measures are discussed in the light of textbook market share information gleaned from three sources: a survey of AIS instructors, and executives at two leading educational publishers. The authors conclude with a consideration of pedagogical policy implications of the findings.

Work and Learning: An Introduction, by Bruce Spencer and Jennifer Kelly

Book review of:Work and Learning: An Introduction Bruce Spencer and Jennifer Kelly. Thompson Educational Publishing, Toronto, 2013.

Significance: U.S. Blind Spots in Judging Research

Opening U.S. educational publishing to the rest of the world promises fresh perspectives and new solutions—but not if U.S.-based editors, reviewers and readers fail to recognize the significance of research conducted outside the United States. This essay explores why U.S.-based reviewers easily miss the social importance and the intellectual interest of research conducted elsewhere, and points to several steps they can take to improve their appreciation of the full global range of educational scholarship.

Significance: recognizing the value of research across national and linguistic boundaries

Internationalization of educational publishing promises fresh perspectives and new solutions—but not if US-based editors, reviewers, and readers fail to recognize the significance of research conducted outside the USA. This essay explores the concept of “significance” in the context of peer review of journal articles, and explains why US-based reviewers easily miss the social importance and the intellectual interest of research conducted elsewhere. It points to several steps that can be taken to increase publication of the full global range of educational scholarship.

Paperless Mark-Up: Editing Educational Texts in a Digital Environment

An affordance “refers to the fact that the physical properties of an object make possible different functions for the person perceiving or using that object” (Sellen and Harper in The myth of the paperless office. The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2002). Historically, authors, publishers and editors have preferred to check and mark up hard-copy page proofs because it has been easy and flexible to read, cross-reference and annotate. Ironically, changes to the physical properties of computer hardware, as well as improvements to software such as Adobe Acrobat, are eroding our nostalgic preference for paper mark-up and highlighting paper’s inherent limitations. This article compares the affordances of paper in regard to editorial mark-up with those of digital, and demonstrates how digital affordances have impacted positively on editors’ workflow within educational publishing’s highly pressured production process. Specifically, how authors are supplied with complete electronic copy from previous editions and how editors perform their paperless mark-up.

Five Poems

Yang Jian was born in 1967 in Ma An Shan, Anhui Province. He started writing poetry in 1986, and loves calligraphy and painting. His awards include the Liu Li Ann Poetry Award, the Rou Gang Poetry Award, the Yu Long Poetry Award, Ten New Prominent Poets, and the Sixth Chinese Media Poetry Award. He has published poetry collections Sunset (Mu Wan ) with He Bei Education Publishing House in 2003, Ancient Bridgehead (Gu Qiaotou ) with Shanghai Arts Publishing House in 2007, and Ashamed (Can Kui ) with Taiwan Tangshan Publishing House in 2009.

When Digitizing Content is Not Sufficient: Digital Strategies for the Educational Publishing Sector

The course of digitisation has transformed the educational publishing sector profoundly. Indeed, new business models are needed to ensure a successful mastering of the digital era in educational publishing. This paper focuses on best business practices concerning the digitisation of an educational content portfolio and shows the state-of the-art in terms of digital publishing. The strategies of leading educational publishers were analysed both in terms of e-book sales and educational content and the main challenges and opportunities that educational publishers are currently facing are outlined. As a result, it is outlined that the current market situation indicates that the educational publishers seem to fully respond to the challenge of digitisation nowadays, although the adaption is still in progress. However, it becomes apparent, that simply publishing the traditional print portfolio is neither a sufficient value proposition for the customer nor a way to fully exploit the benefits of the new revenue streams. Big educational publishers therefore all choose a mixed strategy of bundling, customisation and service provision to realise the full potential of digitisation. The paper concludes that the digitisation of publishing means no threat for the publishing sector but offers a whole range of new opportunities to expand one’s market share, user base and revenues.

A textbook without pages?

The school year 2012/2013 marks the beginning of a new reality in Polish schools. According to the new curricular basis introduced in our country in 2009, teaching must be focused on the media and on experiment. In the same year, a new junior high school leaving examination was introduced. These decisions have determined further educational improvements which are of great use both for teachers and their students. These improvements include electronic books, or the so called multibooks. One of the biggest Polish educational publishers has prepared all of the necessary handbooks in the form of a multibook available on CDs or flash drives.

Institutional Maintenance as Accommodation of Change: Open Access in Higher Education Publishing

Through the longitudinal case study of Open Access in the field of higher education publishing, this paper theorizes and empirically illustrates an institutional process – institutional accommodation – which is unanalyzed and unspecified in the literature. The notion of accommodation problematizes prevailing assumptions about institutional change and maintenance and extends theory in multiple directions: (1) it revisits the artificial partition – both theoretical and empirical – between research on institutional maintenance and research on institutional change; (2) it balances the overemphasis on discontinuity that pervades the literature on change; by doing so, it provides a stepping stone to re-connect current institutional scholarship with early theoretical arguments on the durability and malleability of institutions; and, (3) it sheds light on the mechanisms of institutional change, which remain underinvestigated, by illuminating how the interaction of dynamics of maintenance and change undergirds institutional accommodation.

Writing the history of the victors?

Recently, interest in radical democracy and communism has increased dramatically among cultural theorists. This paper draws attention to two other fields in which a similar shift is visible. First, popular scholarly writing on communism, anarchism and socialism. Second, curricular materials for history teaching. Drawing on ethnographic field work at an educational publishing house in Germany, the paper analyses the production of a history textbook. Analysis identifies ambiguities and tensions in the way forms of political organisation and practice are discussed and changes made. One change involves the subtle revalorization of the 1918 revolution and the early days of the Weimar Republic, which could be considered an attempt at shaping a ‘radical democracy’. The study contributes to emerging work on discourse and social change which aims to not only critique dominant discourse but also explore fissures in hegemonic formations. By analysing the production of these history materials, we explore competing discursive possibilities – ways of understanding and enacting democracy – circulating today.

Disruptive Conclusions: The Future of Australian Educational Publishing

The adherence to the traditional print-distribution business model by multinational educational publishers in Australia precludes their provision of digital-first online resources for students and teachers. In other words, their print-first content embodies linear reading experiences rather than online, hyperlinked journeys. However, one publisher stands out from the rest in regard to the latter—the Jacaranda imprint of educational publisher John Wiley & Sons Australia. Jacaranda recognizes users' disruptive expectations of educational content: digital-first online modular courses that branch out into interactive learning and assessment.

Black Writers, White Publishers: A case study of the Bantu Treasury Series in South Africa

Wits University Press (WUP), South Africa’s oldest university press, is considered a pioneer in the publishing of African-language literature, due to the publication of the long-running Bantu Treasury Series (later to be renamed the African Treasury Series). Along with the mission presses, local-language newspapers and some educational publishers, this publisher played a part in the development of African-language literature in South Africa. But the press would not have earned this reputation without the commitment of Professor Clement Doke. Inspired by the publication of novels in English by black South African authors, Doke established the series to provide a publications outlet in the local African languages. This paper examines the development and impact of the Bantu Treasury Series, with a focus on the authors and their relations with the series editor and publisher.

Costa Rica

Introduction: Master Travel has 20 years' experience organising specialised professional study tours to countries of interest, enabling people to see first-hand how their profession or specialisation is practised in different cultures and societies. We are part of Mark Allen Group, a large healthcare, business and education publishing group, whose contacts allow us to have access to a network of professional institutions worldwide which make our tours truly unique. All professional tours also cover the cultural, scenic and historical spectacles of the countries.

A lot to learn

Are educational publishers ripping off their authors? John Wiley and Sons MD Peter Donoughue thinks not. Here, he explains why he thinks the Australian Society of Authors have got it all wrong.

Editorial introduction: Textbooks and educational texts in the 21st century: writing, publishing and reading

By Mike Horsley and Donna Lee Brien. Higher educational publishing comprises a significant percentage of national publishing outputs, textbooks being an important component. In tertiary education alone, some 3.1 million textbooks were published/sold in Australia in 2011.

The Australian Educational Publishing Awards: raising the benchmarks and extending the scope of Australian educational publishing

This article discusses the history of the Australian Educational Publishing awards. It argues that these awards have extended the scope, and raised the quality, of Australian educational publishing.

The Writing’s on the Firewall: Assessing the Promise of Open Access Journal Publishing for a Public Sociology of Sport

The process of digitization has transformed the ways in which content is reproduced and circulated online, rupturing long held distinctions between production and consumption in the (virtual) public sphere. In accordance with these developments over the past fifteen years, proponents for open access publishing in higher education have argued that the (not yet absolute) transition from physical to digital modes of journal production opens up unprecedented opportunities for redressing the restrictive terms of ownership and access currently perpetuated within an increasingly untenable journal publishing industry. Through this article, I advocate that the sociology of sport community hastens to question, challenge and reimagine its position within this industry in anticipation of a reformed publishing landscape. The impetus for the paper is to ask not whether sociologists of sport should or should not publish open access, but rather as open access publishing inevitably comes to pass in some form, what say will the field’s associations, societies and members have in these changes, and how might they help invigorate a public sociology of sport?

‘Fratricidal warfare’: English-Canadian textbook publishers take on the Americans, 1970–1980

Educational publishing sits at the intersection of industry, culture and education. Pedagogical aims must be balanced with the need for publishers to make a profit, while also acknowledging Canadian national identity and culture. The events of central interest are related to the tensions between two publishers’ associations in the wake of the sales, in 1970, of Canadian publishers Gage and Ryerson Press to American interests. The Canadian Book Publishers’ Council was comprised mainly of American branch plants and the Independent Publishers Association membership was Canadian-owned publishing companies. The two associations became bitter rivals, engaging in ‘fratricidal warfare’, as they lobbied the provincial and federal governments and fought to maintain their places in the textbook market. About 65% of total sales revenues from publishing in Canada came from textbook sales in this period. Both governments and commercial interests had to balance Canadian sovereignty with commercial gain and educational goals.