With all of the news about digital textbooks to come out of the publishing sector, it’s easy to forget that higher education institutions take on a massive amount of publishing content that is not in the form of textbooks. Faculty research findings, journals, alumni information, prospective student mailings, all can create an expensive deficit for schools and a pointless carbon footprint on the environment.
Adobe, whose Digital Publishing Suite has tackled revolutionizing the digital periodical industry, has now brought in new clients from the higher education sector as well as made its product adaptable to the needs of the K-12 market as well. Trevor Bailey, Director of K-12 and HED at Adobe, spoke to GoodeReader about how Adobe’s DPS can save both budget dollars and the environment.
“A higher education institution publishes a lot of content that is not textbooks. There is a lot of material that universities can publish digitally. We’re looking at how can we can we get institutions to focus more on digital and less on paper printing.”
“The Digital Publishing Suite starts with InDesign to format layout. What we did within that workflow, it’s just a small jump to put it in a digital format instead of a print layout.”
Adobe has brought its Suite to several major universities in the US to demonstrate ways that the workflow of InDesign can streamline the timing of getting materials to the necessary recipients as efficiently and inexpensively as possible by taking advantage of the growing tablet platform. One university has even incorporated DPS into its journalism program, in order to ensure that graduates in the field are as knowledgeable as possible about one of the leading software suites for digitizing periodicals.
As for public schools, one of the most innovative possibilities is the creation of the annual yearbook. Normally an extensively time-consuming task for a team of students and faculty, DPS can speed up the layout process. In addition, schools could have the option to create “digital yearbooks” rather than the expensive print editions, saving on student cost and storage space for the finished project.
While Bailey went to great lengths to point out the increase in productivity and the cost savings to schools who opt to take the bulk of their cumbersome print communications to the tablet users, the potential for better environmental stewardship could not be overlooked.
“There is definitely a factor of going green. It’s difficult to place a true dollar value on it. One tree is approximately 8000 sheets of paper. You end up with a much greener solution when you go digital. The amount of power is takes to create a digital publication has a far less environmental impact. It makes sense that it is a much greener and simpler solution.”
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
