individualization possibilities for books with “print on demand” technique

Master Thesis

Individualisation possibilities for books with «print on demand»

technique

Aldi Alimuçaj BSc. Institute for Information Systems and Computer Media (IICM)

21 June 2012

Overview

• Introduction

• Current Technologies

• Plugin Development

• Proof of Concept

• Conclusion

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• What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

„OER are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse, without charge “(OER Commons)

- Free to use - Edit

- Distribute - Download

- Print

Introduction

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Introduction

• Differences between OER and other Open Initiatives – OER Generalization of all Learning Resources – We focus on Open Access Journals as its subset

• Why are people sharing for free? – Technological (Software/Digital Resources immaterial) – Economic (New business models) – Social (Social movements) – Legal (Constraints over existing copyrighted

technologies)

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Introduction

• (Re-)Funding OER and Sustainability models

– Knowing the Costs

• Value measurement (Manpower, Market value)

– Where is added-value generated

• Preparation

• Premium services

• Marketing

• Dual Licensing

– Costs and revenue models

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Introduction

– Endowment Model

– Membership Model

– Donations Model

– Conversion Model

– Contributor-Pay Model

– Sponsorship Model

– Institutional Model

– Governmental Model

– Partnerships and Exchanges

– CrowdFunding Model

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Current Technologies • Flat World Knowledge

– Innovative, well designed, supporting tools, proprietary

• Open Access Publications – Classic Repository, focus on simplicity, open source

• Open Journal Systems (OJS) – Interactive, process oriented, extendable architecture

• Print on Demand

– Amazon (large amount of orders, globally active) • 10 or more titels to start business

– Epubli • print on demand and self publishing platform

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Current Technologies

• Print on Demand

“the technology based on digital printing that enables books to be printed even in small amounts”

• Event based production ↔ Statistical order

• Access to small/random/personal publications

• No storage costs, but slightly higher price per unit

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POD Plugin Development

• A gear between two frameworks (OJS, epubli)

• Extension of OJS’s core functionalities

• OJS is an open source framework

– Written in PHP

– Supports most popular databases through ADODB

– Implements a variant of the MVC design pattern

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Open Journal Systems MVC Diagram (Smecher, 2011)


• epubli Interfaces

– Client Web Interface (Browser)

– Web Service (XML Request)

– Partner Interface URL (PHP Script interface) [POST/GET]

http://www.epubli.de/interfaces/partnerInterface.php?repository=url&action=workbench&pdfURI=

Influence the print job through defined parameters

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• Action – workbench, price, voucher, order

• Repository – Customized repository, i.e. tugraz

• pdfURI – URI to the PDF document

• Price – Additional charge (amount besides the printing and

shipping costs) static or dynamic

• Format – A4, A5 etc.

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POD Plugin Structure Diagram

POD Plugin Development • Functions

– Select current issue • Offers the possibility to chose articles

– Show cart • Show selected articles

– Removing items

– Rearranging the order

– Quick link to preview the article

– Create request • Compiling the file

• Calculating & Serializing the parameters (price, timestamp, signature)

• Send request over the Partner Interface 16

Proof of Concept

• Develop an open source plugin which gives small and medium OER institutions the possibility to refinances themselves

• Analyze the chances of success of this new

business model by examining the economic and technical perspective of the new plugin and existing solutions in the market

• Starting a topic for discussion about financing

OER (with this business model configuration)

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Proof of Concept

• Building an interconnected environment

• Advantages for all stakeholders

Proof of Concept

• Advantages for Publishers

– Earn money

– Focus on writing/reviewing/publishing

– No installation/operation costs

– Remain free of contracts and other legal commitments

– Complete the publishing cycle by adding printed copies (Students, Pupils with no PC in class)

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Proof of Concept

• Advantages for Users – Price

• Publisher decides whether to charge the user or not

– Access rights • In contrast with commercial OER repositories

• User can download, view online, print

– Usability • All in one solution

• Before: Select, Download, Merge, Upload, Configure

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Proof of Concept

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Prices (in Dollars) for printing-on-demand from FWK and epubli

FWK OER book: Elementary Algebra by John Redden (274 pages) Amazon book: Elementary Algebra by Jerome E. Kaufmann and Karen L. Schwitters (539 pages)

Proof of Concept

• Advantages for POD Providers

– Increased turnover

• Through the cooperation, customers who probably wouldn’t use the service

– Marketing

• As OER partner

– New technologies

• Printing industry has to adapt to the digital era and find new ways of doing business

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Proof of Concept

Proving the solution

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Before After

Conclusion

• Developing the Plugin

• Studying the business model

• Installing it on L3T.eu and bildungsforschung.org

• Successfully printing one copy and closing the test phase

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Live Demonstration

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Questions

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individualization possibilities for books with “print on demand” technique

Technology