As we progress through 2024, the publishing industry continues to experience exciting transformations, driven by technology and shifting educational demands. To better understand the current trends and future directions, we've reached out to a range of industry experts.
Here’s what leaders from different sectors of the publishing world are observing and anticipating for the remainder of the year and beyond.
"Textbook publishing will continue to meet the demand of educators and students for interactive, responsive tools to integrate with written course content. Digital books will improve and expand interactive elements and print books will find new ways to include interactive media into the reading and studying experience for students."
"A&P learning will shift to using technology in a more intentional way. In the early days, we adopted any tech tool that was available and now we are seeing that learning works better when we are more careful about which tech products we choose to complement the other parts of our courses."
"As more interactive digital media are incorporated into textbooks, we’re going to see authors adapting and embracing this shift by spending more of their time learning and using the digital authoring platforms that allow creation and editing of these new features. Going forward, these platforms will improve in capability and in ease of use, so they will be a standard tool of textbook authors."
"Besides becoming more widely available as integrations with learning tools such as textbooks, AR learning objects will be used more effectively by educators and students and thus more widely accepted by those looking to build evidence-based strategies in their courses."
"The biggest changes we might see in education will be due to changes in the job market. Lifelong learning will become more emphasized to the current workforce to keep up with skills demand and this will cause another shift towards a more skills-based approach to those looking to enter the workforce or transition within it; further disrupting traditional academic models."
"I'm most excited to see the splash that the Apple Vision Pro makes and how that advances the outlook of spatial computing. Unity offers visionOS support for its developers and I can't wait to see what Unity creators develop for this platform."
"We’re committed to our focus on our core businesses - the Unity Engine and Runtime, as well as our Monetization solutions and AI. We also see a lot of success coming from our Digital Twins business, where in January alone, Unity saw key partnerships announced from Walmart and Mercedes-Benz."
"I anticipate continued market penetration in industries such as education, construction, healthcare, real estate, and manufacturing for the purpose of providing immersive experiences for training, learning, visualization, and more. We'll also continue to see the integration of AI and machine learning technologies to create more personalized and adaptive experiences along with more seamless and user-friendly experiences with better interfaces, environments, and more real-time interactivity."
"There is great potential in how AI can support the publishing industry, but also challenges. For example, the potential lies in new opportunities for features in Natur & Kultur's digital platforms, where with the help of AI, we can deliver added value to students and teachers, as well as new possibilities for support functions for our internal development and production. Challenges include questions about how copyright and personal privacy will be protected."
"In Sweden, there is currently a major shift in education policy, which includes a greater focus on textbooks, both through targeted state subsidies and new provisions in the Education Act. Teachers will have greater opportunities to purchase the textbooks they need. In classrooms, this will be noticeable as students gain access to more books and digital components, and fewer copied handouts and documents. It will facilitate teachers' planning time and support students' acquisition of knowledge."
"Natur & Kultur has several exciting development projects underway, where we are creating digital added value linked to our printed textbooks! For example, we have just launched a more accessible interface for the interactive digital exercises available for all major textbook series - now we will follow students' and teachers' experiences as usage ramps up after the launch. Regarding external collaborations, we will continue the rollout of AR for our middle school science books (within the PULS series), in collaboration with Ludenso."
"We continue to focus on developing digital components for Natur & Kultur's printed textbooks, such as interactive exercises for students, interactive images for teachers to display on a large screen, video, audio, AR, and accessibility focus in all digital content. Of course, we are also looking at how we can use AI effectively, including having AI technology behind the text-to-speech synthesis in our digital platforms."
"I see great potential in AR technology for schools and education, considering that content creation will become more cost- and time-efficient over time."
"I am a believer in two letter acronyms.
"Academic publishing moves slowly: The sheer number of startups based on great ideas and technologies, but with relatively slow uptake is testament to that. If I could make one wish for 2024, it would be for this to change. Willingness to transform to truly digital businesses must prevail over entrenched defensiveness to change."
"I feel the importance of professionalism in the service of science and research growing every year. Increasing digital interconnectedness from bench-to-reader is moving from a concept to becoming a reality. In science, research and learning, I am expecting large language models (LLMs, our first three letter acronym) to break down into 'smaller', specialized and domain-specific applications."
"For us at Reviewer Credits, two main thrusts will dominate our work in 2024. On the one hand, our focus on good old ease of use to further nurture adoption of our platform amongst both publishers and reviewers. To achieve this, we will be launching our improved Reviewer Finder as well as brand new Rewarding functionality which includes a payment solution for publishers that reward financially (many book publishers). On the other, and very much in line with PI trends, we are investing in true researcher identity verification."
This compendium of expert views not only highlights the ongoing transformations within the publishing and education sectors but also underscores the critical role of technological integration in shaping these industries. As we navigate the remaining months of 2024 and look ahead, these insights will continue to guide industry stakeholders, revealing the innovative approaches and tools that will define the future of the publishing industry.
