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EDUCATION FOR LIFE: commercialisation, competition and courseware
WEDNESDAY 6 DECEMBER 2000

As educational institutions attempt to respond to government initiatives to encourage huge increases in student numbers without enlarging the numbers on campus, courseware must become the battleground for competitive advantage. Is this the end of the textbook industry or can traditional providers of textbooks find innovative ways of working with new aggressive competitors which exploit the strengths of each partner?
Keynote's 1999 seminar on tertiary educational issues was an acknowledged success. This year Keynote addresses evolutionary threats and opportunities with firm focus on the investment costs involved in developing and delivering more complex forms of content and emphasis on the importance of maintaining high standards of textbook output and supplementary materials if the expanding market is to benefit fully.

Keynote speaker
Professor Stephen Hill, Pro-Director of the London School of Economics, argues powerfully for the excellence of an established educational force in providing the resources for lifelong learning.

Coffee

Professor John Lidgey, Creator and Director of Brookes Virtual, puts the case for educational establishments like his to become both developer and teacher of online learning where lecturers are closest to students' needs and are on hand to act as both authors and tutors. Dominic Knight, Managing Director of Palgrave, Macmillan's global academic publishing, highlights the pivotal role of publishers with their extensive experience of developing and delivering high quality learning material on a global scale.

Participating debate

Lunch

Linda Vendryes, Senior Director of Acquisitions at Net.Library in Colorado, USA, reasons that lifelong learners want access to a far larger repertoire and that organisations like hers are ideally placed to provide the required resources digitally. Kathryn Toledano, Director of Business Development at MCB University Press, doubts that merely high standards of technology can help new or returning learners but that proven systems and methods which guarantee the quality of new material will win out.

Participating debate

Tea

Bruce Heil, Assistant Principal of Edinburgh's Telford College, shows how locally produced materials must be made to meet closely local learners' needs. Ian Marcouse produces interactive business case-studies for the BBC. He sees huge scope for courseware as a supplement to conventional publishing, and believes well-targeted materials can always find a national market.

Participating debate

Chairman's summing up

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