The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem
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THE IMPACT OF OPEN LICENSING ON THE EARLY READER ECOSYSTEM Neil Butcher and Sarah Hoosen, Neil Butcher and Associates Lisbeth Levey, Consultant, ICT for Development Derek Moore, Weblearning The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem can be found at: http://www.nba.co.za/impact-open-licensing-early-reader-ecosystem Funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation http://www.hewlett.org July, 2016 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence. You are free to share and adapt this work, but you must give appropriate credit and indicate if changes are made. The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem Table of contents List of tables .......................................................................................................................................... iii List of figures ......................................................................................................................................... iii Authors .................................................................................................................................................. iv Neil Butcher ....................................................................................................................................... iv Sarah Hoosen .................................................................................................................................... iv Lisbeth Levey ..................................................................................................................................... iv Derek Moore ...................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... vi Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................. vii Glossary of key terms ............................................................................................................................. x The impact of open licensing on the early reader ecosystem ................................................................ 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 The early reader ecosystem ............................................................................................................... 4 Value chains and supply chains ...................................................................................................... 4 Shifting to the concept of a value network: an emerging new model ........................................... 7 What is ‘digital disruption’? ......................................................................................................... 10 Openness and open licensing ....................................................................................................... 14 Emerging innovations that can transform the early literacy reader ecosystem .............................. 17 Transforming content creation models ........................................................................................ 17 Other open licensing content creation models ............................................................................ 19 Grappling with the challenges of open licensing .......................................................................... 20 Storybook management and storage ........................................................................................... 22 Printing and distribution .............................................................................................................. 23 What are the implications for the supply and use of early literacy reading materials in low-income countries? ......................................................................................................................................... 29 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 34 References ............................................................................................................................................ 35 Appendix A: List of interviewees .......................................................................................................... 52 Book production organizations ........................................................................................................ 52 International NGOs and other literacy organizations ...................................................................... 52 Libraries ............................................................................................................................................ 52 Literacy and/or publishing experts ................................................................................................... 52 Publishers ......................................................................................................................................... 53 Organizations/initiatives that publish openly licensed books .......................................................... 53 Appendix B: Key components of early literacy ..................................................................................... 54 What is early literacy? .................................................................................................................. 54 i The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem The significance of reading ........................................................................................................... 56 The challenge of illiteracy ............................................................................................................. 56 Fostering literacy .......................................................................................................................... 57 The significance of access to written text .................................................................................... 58 Appendix C: Unpacking the components of the early literacy reader value network .......................... 60 Appendix D: Structural challenges to early literacy ............................................................................. 66 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 66 Poverty and literacy ......................................................................................................................... 66 ICT and the digital divide .................................................................................................................. 67 Language .......................................................................................................................................... 68 Weak education systems .................................................................................................................. 70 Reading culture ................................................................................................................................ 71 Availability of libraries ...................................................................................................................... 72 Appendix E: Demand and supply of early reading material ................................................................. 73 Appendix F: Changes in the publishing industry .................................................................................. 79 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 79 Going digital ..................................................................................................................................... 79 Reassessing business models ........................................................................................................... 83 Reconfiguration of main actors ........................................................................................................ 84 Marketing and the growth of social media ...................................................................................... 88 Print on demand ............................................................................................................................... 89 Data analytics ................................................................................................................................... 90 Appendix G: Examples of early literacy distribution initiatives ............................................................ 91 Book donation programmes ............................................................................................................. 91 ebook distribution ............................................................................................................................ 93 Libraries: the view from Sub-Saharan Africa .................................................................................... 95 International non-governmental organizations ............................................................................. 102 National NGOs providing literacy support ....................................................................................