XanEdu: Out of Chaos, Coursepacks
Some of the most successful educational technology ventures have taken an artifact
of the pre-technology world and revolutionized it for contemporary use. One
such artifact is most certainly the coursepack, that compilation of photocopied
readings and instructor scribbles distributed to students through the campus
bookstore.
Digital publishing services have revitalized this old technology, opening up
new options for instructors who want the uniqueness of a coursepack but lack
the time to compile the readings and clear all the copyright permissions. XanEdu,
a leader in the academic digital publishing services business, offers a number
of customized coursepack options and resources for instructors. But XanEdu d'esn’t
just compile coursepacks. It is also a copyright clearance center and a source
of developmental support for instructors.
In addition, XanEdu, a division of ProQuest Information and Learning, is also
a content provider, with an extraordinarily large digital storehouse of academic
material that it makes available for both coursepacks and online research. XanEdu
gives users access to a large commercial archive, encompassing thousands of
respected publishers worldwide. Spanning 500 years of scholarship, this archive
includes periodicals, newspapers, out-of-print books, dissertations, scholarly
collections of manuscripts, and other original-source materials.
Launched only two years ago, XanEdu has taken the coursepack market by storm.
Its coursepack products are in use in more than 900 schools nationwide and some
in other countries. As a full-service digital and print coursepack provider,
XanEdu offers the instructor several options. An instructor can send XanEdu
a bibliography and ask XanEdu to build a coursepack. Instructors can also register
with XanEdu and gain access to the directory of materials in order to build
their own coursepacks. Other instructors may choose to submit the course syllabus
and leave it to XanEdu to select and suggest relevant resources from their collections.
XanEdu offers complete copyright clearance regardless of how the coursepack
is created. The company also sells pre-packaged coursepacks for many common
courses, created by instructors for instructors specifically for XanEdu.
About 25 percent of XanEdu’s coursepack business is digital, with the
rest sold as a combination of print and digital material. Lew Gossage, general
manager and senior vice president for the company, says they are moving toward
a ratio of 45 percent digital to 55 percent print or print/digital. XanEdu can
provide digital coursepacks within 24 hours of receiving the request if all
of the material is drawn from XanEdu’s archives.
In addition to its core business of coursepacks, XanEdu has launched an impressive
series of what it calls ReSearch Engines. The general ReSearch Engine is appropriate
for social science and liberal arts undergraduate student research. There is
an engine for pre-service and in-service education students and one for MBA
students, and the company is looking into adding nursing and psychology engines
as well. Through these engines, available via subscription, students can access
millions of pages of targeted content from thousands of newspapers, magazines,
and scholarly journals. The engines are searchable in a number of different
ways and can be viewed by page image, text only, text and graphics, or abstract/citation.
XanEdu has an extensive collection of content in many areas, especially business,
the social sciences, and the humanities. As with the ReSearch Engines, these
documents can be viewed in a variety of formats. XanEdu recently partnered with
Harvard University’s business school to include its case studies and the
Harvard Business Review in its offerings. Says Gossage: “Our alliance with
Harvard Business School Publishing, our leverage of our databases and additional
case content—from schools such as Thunderbird—make us the strongest
player” in the business arena. XanEdu’s goal is to become the largest
digital case archive in the world.
XanEdu’s content collections are too numerous to list more than a small
percentage. The company offers the National Security Archive, with video and
declassified National Security Agency content related to the Cuban missile crisis.
For humanities students, there are many resources, including Literature Online
and Early English Books Online, which includes Shakespeare’s first folios.
XanEdu’s owner, ProQuest, is a leading online research tool, giving XanEdu
access to that company’s vast collections as well—thousands of newspapers,
magazines, and scholarly journals. For instance, every issue of the Wall Street
Journal and The New York Times is available through ProQuest’s Historical
Newspapers series.
XanEdu has plans to offer content in the sciences and technology fields, as
well as develop original content through various partnerships. Gossage is excited
about The Bondswoman’s Narrative Companion, a supplement to the landmark
text (see www.bondwomansnarrative.com). The print and digital companion, edited
by Henry Louis Gates Jr., includes original scholarship, research documents,
archival images, full-text editions of 19th-century fiction and non-fiction
for comparative analysis, and other materials to support and enrich study of
the work. Gossage hopes that XanEdu will get involved in more ventures like
this one in the future.
For more information on XanEdu, visit www.xanedu.com.
