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To say that the last couple of months at Symtext has been busy is a monumental understatement.  And the past few weeks have been crazy, with enough work coming in over the bow that a normal company might founder in the face of it.  But, I’m happy to say, we’re not a normal company.  Believing from the start that we were on to something, we have simply refused to let up, spurred on by ever increasing levels of validating data.  Recent positive market feedback is nothing if not empowering — supplying us the energy to persist — and now suddenly we’re in calmer waters, analyzing a set of rather successful performance data.

Before sharing some findings, let me elaborate a bit on access and payment methods because that offers critical context.  Liquid Textbooks are intended for a discrete audience: the population of a given course.  We authenticate students into courses in two ways: via a School’s Learning Management System (LMS) or directly.  There are a number of LMSs out there, with variability in how they are implemented and supported.  But the basics are the same: we need to work out a Single Sign On (SSO) protocol with each School, and it has to work without fail. (Not always as easy as it sounds.)  We also authenticate directly, against a list provided by the School. In both LMS and direct authentication methods, we are governed by stringent privacy agreements.  Having managed access, we can begin to collect revenue in one of two ways: e-commerce or central invoicing.

Two access methods and two billing methods leads to four flavours of Liquid Textbook delivery: SSO e-com, direct invoice, etc.  We have at least one course in each of the four variants. (See above re: busy.)

With this context, it’s now possible to appreciate the findings a bit more:

• we’re at 77% of our total revenue potential
• our most expensive e-com, SSO Liquid Textbook has an 88% adoption rate
• our largest e-com courses (one SSO, one direct) will both pass target today — weeks** ahead of schedule — and appear to be heading toward significantly higher adoption than we expected
• one of the publishers private labeling Liquid Textbooks has gained nearly 100% adoption in a course from which they previously gained negligible adoption.

Of course, the ultimate measure is student satisfaction.  Adoption rates are one thing, but what do students think of Liquid Textbooks?  We’ll be surveying them in the very near future to quantify their feedback, but we’re hearing that students are enjoying the annotations (creating their own, and reading their professor’s), and that in at least one case a professor is seeing more prepared and engaged students.  Also telling is that during class introductions to Liquid Textbooks, the general reaction to the technology is one of nonchalance, as though this sort of thing is to be expected. And that, frankly, may be the most telling statement of all.

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** I thought we’d see an initial level of skepticism, followed by waves of purchasing around mid-term and final exams, once the value of annotations and commentary as factors in understanding — and grades — sunk in.

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You can reach Ian at ian @ symtext . com

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