Flat World Knowledge

Last updated
FlatWorld
FormerlyFlat World Knowledge
TypePrivate
IndustryEducation
Founded2007
Headquarters Boston, MA, United States
Area served
Global
Key people
Alastair Adam, Co-CEO; John Eielson, Co-CEO
ProductsTextbooks
Website https://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com

FlatWorld is a publisher of college-level textbooks and educational supplements for a worldwide audience [1] [2] [3] [4] founded in 2007 as Flat World Knowledge by Eric Frank and Jeff Shelstad. [5] It was acquired at the end of 2016 by Alastair Adam and John Eielson and its company headquarters was moved from Washington, DC to Boston, MA. Following this acquisition, the company rebranded as FlatWorld.

Contents

Company history

In 2007, Flat World Knowledge was founded by Jeff Shelstad and Eric Frank in Nyack, New York. [6] By August 2009, Flat World textbooks had been adopted at 400 colleges for use by 40,000 students. [7] [8] In 2010, Flat World Knowledge moved from Nyack, New York to Irvington, New York. [9] That year, Flat World Knowledge claimed that they would save [10] 150,000 college students $12 million in textbook costs in the 2010–2011 school year after adoptions by more than 1,300 educators as of August 2010. [11]

FlatWorld secured $11.5 million in investments through 2010, including an initial $700k angel investment. [12] [13] [14] [15]

In January 2011, $15 million in Series B funding led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG, and Bessemer Venture Partners was announced. Returning investors for Series B funding include Valhalla Partners, GSA Venture Partners (formerly Greenhill SAVP), [16] Primary Venture Partners and several angel investors. [17] [18] [19] Random House also announced an investment in Flat World Knowledge in April, 2011. [20] [21]

The company originally offered every textbook published free using online delivery under the open content paradigm, [22] [23] but in November 2012, the company announced that it would no longer offer free access to textbooks. [24]

In late 2016, Flat World Knowledge was acquired by Alastair Adam and John Eielson and rebranded as FlatWorld.

Accessibility and regulatory issues

Flat World Knowledge textbooks have been developed for accessible publishing. Flat World Knowledge partnered with Bookshare to provide books using an electronic Braille format. [25] Flat World was the first postsecondary textbook publisher to recognize and alleviate this problem." [26]

Sustainability

Digital textbook and course material formats offer sustainability advantages over traditional paper textbooks. [27] [28] According to a publishing industry study, an estimated "net [carbon] emission of 8.85 pounds per book [is created for each paper book] sold to consumers." [29] In 2010-2011, approximately 57.5% of students using FlatWorld texts opted for entirely digital delivery. As of fall 2011, 70% of students opt for digital formats, [30] significantly reducing the ecologic footprint from textbook use when compared to the historic paper textbook format. [31] [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

Bertelsmann German multinational media, services and education company

Bertelsmann is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates and also active in the service sector and education.

Textbook

A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbook are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbooks and other books used in schools. Today, many textbooks are published in both print and digital formats.

Public Interest Research Group Organization

Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) are a federation of U.S. and Canadian non-profit organizations that employ grassroots organizing and direct advocacy on issues such as consumer protection, public health and transportation. The PIRGs are closely affiliated with the Fund for the Public Interest, which conducts fundraising and canvassing on their behalf.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley, is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in print and electronically, as well as online products and services, training materials, and educational materials for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students.

Pearson plc British multinational publishing and education company

Pearson plc is a British multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England.

Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.

Open educational resources Open learning resource

Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes.

Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, Longman, Scott Foresman, and others. Pearson is part of Pearson plc, which formerly owned the Financial Times. It claims to have been formed in 1840, with the current incarnation of the company created when Pearson plc purchased the education division of Simon & Schuster from Viacom and merged it with its own education division, Addison-Wesley Longman, to form Pearson Education. Pearson Education was rebranded to Pearson in 2011 and split into an International and a North American division.

The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Serving more than 800,000 students, faculty, and staff at 88 institutions with 117 libraries, OhioLINK's membership includes 16 public universities, 23 community/technical colleges, 48 private colleges and the State Library of Ohio. OhioLINK serves faculty, students, staff and other researchers via campus-based integrated library systems, the OhioLINK central site, and Internet resources.

A digital textbook is a digital book or e-book intended to serve as the text for a class. Digital textbooks may also be known as e-textbooks or e-texts. Digital textbooks are a major component of technology-based education reform. They may serve as the texts for a traditional face-to-face class, an online course or degree, or massive open online courses (MOOCs). As with physical textbooks, digital textbooks can be either rented for a term or purchased for lifetime access. While accessible, digital textbooks can be downloaded, printed, or accessed online via a compatible device. To access content online, users must often use a 3rd party hosting provider or "digital bookshelf" through which digital textbooks can be served.

Michael Kolowich

Michael Edmund Kolowich is a new media and internet content entrepreneur and documentary filmmaker. He is chief content officer of OpenExchange Inc. and is founding producer of DigiNovations, a digital multimedia production company in Acton, Massachusetts. He was founder and CEO of KnowledgeVision Systems Incorporated, which merged into OpenExchange in October, 2019. He was a partner at Bain & Company, chief marketing officer for Lotus Development Corporation, founding publisher and columnist for PC/Computing magazine, was founder and president of Ziff-Davis Interactive, served as president of AT&T New Media, was chairman, president and CEO of Individual Incorporated, and co-founded NewsEdge Corporation.

Kno Software company

Kno, Inc. was a software company that worked with publishers to offer digital textbooks and other educational materials. In November 2013, after raising nearly $100 million in venture capital, the company was acquired by Intel. The website was stopped and the service renamed to Intel Education Study later on.

An open textbook is a textbook licensed under an open copyright license, and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers and members of the public. Many open textbooks are distributed in either print, e-book, or audio formats that may be downloaded or purchased at little or no cost.

Knewton

Knewton is an adaptive learning company that has developed a platform to personalize educational content as well as has developed courseware for higher education concentrated in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The company was founded in 2008 by Jose Ferreira, a former executive at Kaplan, Inc. The Knewton platform allows schools, publishers, and developers to provide adaptive learning for any student. In 2011, Knewton announced a partnership with Pearson Education to enhance the company's digital content, including the MyLab and Mastering series. Additional partners announced include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Macmillan Education, Triumph Learning, and over a dozen others.

Massive open online course Education service on the web

A massive open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012.

OpenStax is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly-licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low cost in print. Most books are also available in Kindle versions on Amazon.com and in the iBooks Store. OpenStax's first textbook was College Physics, which was published online, in print, and in iBooks in 2012. OpenStax has also launched OpenStax Tutor Beta, adaptive courseware based on cognitive science principles, machine learning, and OpenStax content.

Boundless (company)

Boundless was an American company, founded in 2011, which created free and low-cost textbooks and distributed them online. In April 2015, it was acquired by Valore. The combined company is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Open Course Library (OCL) is an effort by the State of Washington to identify and make available digitally, to community and technical college instructors and students across that state, free textbooks, interactive assignments, and videos. Instructional materials can be "a smorgasbord of teaching modules and exercises developed by other open-learning projects.. . Interactive-learning Web sites and even instructional videos on YouTube. . ." However, OCL is not an OER publishing project, although it did contribute to the development of some widely used resources. Goals include: lowering textbook costs for students, providing new resources for faculty to use in their courses; and fully engaging in the global OER or open educational resources discussion.

BibliU is an education technology company, specialising in digital textbook and monograph provision for universities, libraries and other higher education institutions. BibliU is currently partnered with over 130 higher education institutions globally, including the University of Coventry, University of Liverpool and the University of Phoenix.

LibreTexts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit online educational resource project. The project provides open access to its content on its website, and the site is built on the Mindtouch platform. LibreTexts was started in 2008 by Professor Delmar Larsen at the University of California Davis and has since expanded to 400 texts in 154 courses, making it one of the largest and most visited online educational resources. LibreTexts currently has 13 library disciplines ranging from chemistry to work-force to humanities.

References

  1. ↑ Lim, Ronald S. "The World is Flat – Even in Publishing." Manila Bulletin. October 1, 2010.
  2. ↑ Center for Educational Technology. "Shaping the Future: Reconstructing the Textbook in the Digital Age." Eric Frank, Presenter. “Is There Still Such a Thing as a Free Lunch? Economic Models for Content on the Web,” and “Mommy, What’s a Book? The Nature of the Books of the Future.” Tel Aviv, Israel, March 27–28.
  3. ↑ "Flat World Knowledge Usage by Country." WebCite Archive Page. March 29, 2011.
  4. ↑ Hampson, Keith. "Interview: Ed Tech Leader, Jon Williams of Flat World Knowledge." Higher Education Management Group via Bloomberg Businessweek Business Exchange. May 2, 2011.
  5. ↑ Lener, Edward and Cy Dillon. "Building a Better Model: Eric Frank on Flat World Knowledge." Virginia Libraries. Jan–Feb–Mar 2010, pp. 5–9.
  6. ↑ Carpenter, Mason A. "Flat World Knowledge: Creating a Global Revolution in College Textbooks!" Social Science Research Network. Case abstract available at SSRN   1588144.
  7. ↑ Oshiro, Dana. "Open Textbooks Gaining Ground: Flat World in 400 Colleges." Archived 2010-07-02 at the Wayback Machine Read Write Web. August 20, 2009.
  8. ↑ Hoover, Lisa. "Flat World Knowledge Offers Open Source-Style College Textbooks." Gigaom Ostatic. March 25, 2009.
  9. ↑ Ferris, Marc. "Irvington Publishers Shaking Up the Textbook Industry." Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine Rivertowns Patch. October 20, 2010.
  10. ↑ Kolowich, Steve. "A Call for Open Textbooks." Inside Higher Ed. October 1, 2010.
  11. ↑ Walters, Carole. "150,000 College Students to Save $12 Million Using Flat World Knowledge Open Textbooks for 2010/2011 Academic Year: Transformative New Publishing Model Gaining Traction With Faculty, Students, Authors." Marketwire. August 23, 2010.
  12. ↑ Business Headlines. "Flat World Knowledge Secures $700,000 in Funding." EdNet Insight. October 21, 2008.
  13. ↑ Rosenberg, Dave. "Maker of 'open,' free textbooks raises $8 million." Cnet.com. March 26, 2009.
  14. ↑ Ricketts, Camille. "Flat World Knowledge Lands $8M for Online College Textbooks." VentureBeat. March 24, 2009.
  15. ↑ Walters, Carole. Flat World Knowledge CEO Jeff Shelstad to Speak at the Venture Capital in Education Summit 2010. Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine Pressitt. December 2, 2010.
  16. ↑ GSA Venture Partners. Focus. Archived 2010-11-23 at the Wayback Machine "We serve entrepreneurs who transform industries and build great companies. As active, long-term partners to our entrepreneurs, we contribute capital, strategic advice, and a deep network of relationships to fuel their success." 2011.
  17. ↑ Marketwire. "Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Bessemer Venture Partners Invest $15 Million in Flat World Knowledge [ dead link ] Open Textbook Publisher Presents Viable Alternative to Traditional Industry." MSNBC. January 20, 2011.
  18. ↑ Purkiss, Alan. "Bertelsmann Puts Cash Into College Textbook Publisher, FT Says." Bloomberg. January 20, 2011.
  19. ↑ Edgecliffe-Johnson, Andrew. "Bertelsmann Backs Open Textbook Publisher." Financial Times. January 20, 2011.
  20. ↑ Schaffhauser, Dian. "Open Textbook Publisher Flat World Knowledge Gets Random House Investment." Campus Technology via WebCitation.org. April 8, 2011.
  21. ↑ Marketwire. "Random House, Inc. Invests in Flat World Knowledge: [ dead link ] Closes Series B Funding Round for Publisher of Free and Open College Textbooks." MSNBC.com. April 7, 2011.
  22. ↑ Flat World Knowledge with company story.
  23. ↑ Wong, Chin. "Textbooks for free." Manila Standard Today. September 28, 2010.
  24. ↑ Howard, Jennifer. "Flat World Knowledge to Drop Free Access to Textbooks". Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  25. ↑ Kerscher, George, and Jim Fruchterman. "The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights conflict and Access to Commercial EBooks for People with Disabilities." DAISY Consortium. Accessed January 2, 2011.
  26. ↑ Bookshare. "Flat World Knowledge Partners with Bookshare: Breakthrough Agreement Reduces Costs for Postsecondary Institutions; Improves Timely Access to Core Textbooks in Accessible Formats." Joint Press Release. December 14, 2009.
  27. ↑ Johnson, Bryce. "Textbooks: Dead Trees in a Backpack." Archived 2011-07-10 at the Wayback Machine Earth911.com. August 31, 2007.
  28. ↑ Chowdhury, Gobinda. "Carbon Footprint of the Knowledge Sector: What's the Future?." Journal of Documentation 66, no. 6 December 2010 pp. 934-946.
  29. ↑ Milliot, Jim "Toward a Greener Future. (Cover story)." Publishers Weekly 255, no. 10 March 10, 2008 pp. 26–32.
  30. ↑ Outsell, Inc. "Flat World Knowledge Doubles Growth, Outpaces Digital Textbook Trend." Outsell Headlines. August 24, 2011.
  31. ↑ Kolowich, Steve. "Students Face New Textbook Picks: Rent vs. Buy, Print vs. e-Book." (Analog innovations section) USA Today. August 31, 2010.
  32. ↑ Cooper, Tanika. "Free Online Textbooks Becoming a Reality." Daily Nebraskan, University of Nebraska, via UWire: The College Network. July 26, 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.