Lets Take the Vanity out of Vanity Press

Well folks, much is changing in higher education as a result of the disruptive technology -  readers and tablets.  We are going to have to adjust our thinking and the way we do things in higher education.  This is going to be hard when the entire workforce came in expecting tradition and "the way we do things here" to never end.

Much has been published about graduate faculty molding graduate students into academic clones of themselves.  This complaint happened when we found that graduate students, fresh out of grad school, had little ability to teach.  Many new hires in college were deer in the headlights stunned the first time they were put before a group of students.

We have already fought the battles to get graduate students more exposure to teaching while in graduate school and support with the centers for teaching and learning once they get their job. Now the publishing process is changing.

Do you all remember when we were taking bets on how long Amazon could stay in business?  "Who would buy a book on line?"  Well like - e v e r y o n e! Now Amazon is going one step further and going into self-publishing.  This is going to create more changes.

Who is self publishing for?

1.  Faculty that use 1/4 of a textbook and the rest original materials.
2.  New authors with innovative ideas - OMG we need them!
3.  Publishing timely articles and books that need to be out quickly.  (Try and get a tech book out before it is obsolete.)
4.  Faculty that want to cut the cost of textbooks by publishing their own or choosing a cheaper one.
5.  Authors that haven't gotten published because publishers didn't want competition to their best selling authors.

This is going to be an interesting change for education as we watch and participate.  This is a great time for innovation and new minds.