SPARC Landscape Analysis

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary

  2 mins read

  Academic publishing is undergoing a major transition. Some of its leaders are moving from a content-provision to a data analytics business. This shift is still in its early days. There are actions and strategies that institutions can consider adopting to limit the potential harms, and leverage potential benefits.

• The Academic Publishing Industry In 2018

  4 mins read

  Elsevier, Pearson, and Cengage in particular are transforming themselves into data analytics companies built atop their content, effectively adding ways to monetize it.

• Research Companies: Background

  1 min read

  The paradox of the STM publishing industry is that because of multi-year contracts there is very high visibility over its revenues for the next two to three years, but very little beyond this time frame.

• Research Companies: Elsevier

  22 mins read

  We see three major threats to Elsevier’s performance going forward.

• Research Companies: Springer Nature

  9 mins read

  Springer’s reluctance to enter the data analytics business may be driven by the $3.47 billion debt. The board and management team of are now in a tight spot.

• Research Companies: Wiley

  2 mins read

  Wiley is the smaller of the three main journal publishers. It publishes about 2,300 journals, so – in terms of titles – it is very close in size to Elsevier.

• Research Companies: Clarivate

  4 mins read

  Clarivate is the name the new private equity owners gave to the assets previously owned by Thomson Reuters. The company’s strategy is to be a neutral data analytics supplier to researchers and librarians.

• Research Companies: Other publishers

  1 min read

  We view any publisher below the size of Wiley as unlikely to have the financial resources to mount a major challenge to the research data analytics businesses of Elsevier and Clarivate.

• Research Companies: The Products

  3 mins read

  Compiling a map of all the products and services that the three leading research data analytics vendors (Clarivate, Digital Science, Elsevier) market outside libraries is inherently a best effort exercise.

• Education Companies: Background

  11 mins read

  The continued decline of the higher education courseware business in the U.S. is driven by the interplay of three factors; student enrollment, pricing, and participation rates.

• Education Companies: Pearson

  5 mins read

  Pearson is the only leading textbook publisher that is publicly listed. The company aims at education sectors that it expects to transition to full digital delivery, positioning itself to add data analytics products on top of content.

• Education Companies: McGraw-Hill Education

  1 min read

  McGraw-Hill is owned by Apollo, a private equity company. Apollo has hoped for a long time to IPO the business to exit the investment. The company exited the assessment business in 2015, effectively going in the opposite direction of Pearson.

• Education Companies: Cengage

  2 mins read

  Cengage is a pioneer in inclusive access and Cengage Unlimited, its full catalog subscription, was the first full offering of this kind. Cengage was also the first major publisher to offer a product branded as open educational resources (OER), although the content is still purchased by students enrolled in a course.

• Education Companies: Other Publishers

  1 min read

  Estimating market share among publishers has been difficult. However, there are other, smaller publishers in the Courseware business.

• Education Companies: The Products

  7 mins read

  Anecdotal evidence suggests that these systems built and maintained by publishers capture massive amounts of data about student and faculty behavior that go beyond what is necessary for accomplishing their core objectives (i.e. improving student outcomes). Institutions, faculty and students should think about the accumulation and use of data collected and retained by schools and commercial vendors.

• Preliminary Recommendations

  3 mins read

  Actively formulating and implementing solutions to these problems is complex but critically important, and something SPARC intends to work closely with the community on. It is worthwhile to recap of some of the options for action.

• About the Report

  2 mins read

  Commissioned in response to the growing trend of commercial acquisition of critical infrastructure in our institutions this report provides a comprehensive look at the current players in this arena, their strategies and potential actions, and the implications of these on the operations of our libraries and home institutions.