Devendra Potnis, University of TennesseeXiaopeng Bao, University of TennesseeSarah Schroeder, University of Chicago

e-Book Adoption by Students Across the World: A DoI Perspective

November 7, 2015

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1. Motivation for the Study

2. Research Questions

3. Diffusion of Innovation (DoI) Theory

4. Research Methods

5. Study Findings

6. Limitations and Future Research

Agenda

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• e-Books: An IT innovation in the academia

• Supply Side– Fierce competition among Amazon’s Kindle (Pioneer), Apple’s iBooks (25% of market

share), and Barnes and Noble’s Nook (New Player), among others

• Demand Side– Over 80% of American students with access to tablets had used e-Books by 2014

– More than 50% of tablet owners find e-Books easier than reading a printed text

– Untapped market for e-Books in the developing world

– Over 25 million e-Book users in India by 2014, which is only 2% of total potential e-Book users

– Over 20 million e-Book users in Brazil by 2014

• As a result,– While sales of printed books continue to decline, the e-Book market is growing rapidly

– As of 2014, over 30% of books sold in the US were e-Books(Source: Wien, 2014)

1. Motivation for the Study

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• What are the factors affecting the adoption of e-Books by students worldwide?1. What are the advantages experienced by the students when using e-

Books over printed books?

2. In what ways e-Books are compatible with the beliefs, experiences, and needs of diverse student populations across the world?

3. Is e-Book adoption by students optional, mandatory, or collective?

4. What is the role of communication channels in shaping students’ decision to adopt e-Books?

5. What is the role of academic settings in shaping their adoption of e-Books?

6. How do change agents influence the adoption of e-Books by students?

2. Research Questions

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• Diffusion of Innovation– Definition: “The process by which an innovation is communicated through certain

channels over time among the members of a social system" (Rogers, 2003, p. 5).

• Acceptance, adoption, and usage are three stages of diffusion (Rogers, 2003)– Our study focuses on the adoption of e-Books, an IT innovation in the academia

• Five variables influence the rate of adoption which indicates the relative speed with which members of a social system adopt an innovation1. Perceived attributes of innovation

2. Type of innovation-decision

3. Communication channels

4. Nature of the social system

5. Extent of promotion efforts

3. Diffusion of Innovation (DoI)Theory

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Five Factors Affecting theRate of Adoption of Innovations

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• Content analysis of 25 empirical studies published by top-tier LIS journals like JASIST, Aslib Proceedings, Journal of Academic Librarianship, IT and Libraries, The Electronic Library, Library Hi Tech, Online Information Review, and New Media & Society

• Publications focused on the e-Book adoption of students in Canada, China, Iran, Ireland, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, UK, and USA – This study provides a worldwide perspective on e-Book adoption by students

• Duration of publications: 2007 – 2014

• 25 publications were analyzed against the five variables of DoI since these five variables account for “half of the variance in innovations’ rates of adoption” (Rogers, 2003)

4. Research Methods

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1. Advantages of e-Books over printed books

– Convenience: convenient to access and search e-books from library portal (Martin and Quan-Haase, 2013)

– “e-Books are searchable and can be loaded up on mobile devices” (D’Ambra et al., 2013)

– “No need to take long notes with printed books anymore” – easy to take notes and highlight text using e-Books (Muir and Hawes, 2013)

– Cost benefit: e-Books save students some money (Martin and Quan-Haase, 2013)

– e-Books have hyperlink functionality, search tools, multimedia capability, accessibility, high storage volume, and easy portability (Ghaebi and Fahimifar, 2011)

5. Study Findings in Brief

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2. Compatibility of e-Books with the beliefs, experiences, and needs of diverse student populations across the world

– e-Books compatible with environmental consciousness of undergraduate students in Malaysia (Letchumanan and Tarmizi, 2011)

– e-Books give more study time to the students who need to travel for a significant amount of time to reach libraries or schools in UK (Nicholas et al., 2010)

– e-Books are compatible with the Irish students’ need to browse, search, and scan (Mulholland and Bates, 2014)

– British students prefer to use print materials only if they that have a close, emotional relationship with the documents (Jamali et al., 2009)

– American students believe that e-Books should be accessible irrespective of devices or operating systems (Cassidy et al., 2012)

– Inability of e-Books to play multiple file formats could deteriorate user experience in Nigeria (Posigha, 2012)

– e-Book display that resembles with printed books makes Taiwanese students feel better (Lai and Chang, 2010)

Findings in brief…contd.

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3. e-Book adoption: Optional, mandatory, or collective?

– In Asian countries, students’ choice to adopt e-Books was mainly collective for improving the efficiency and quality of learning (ChanLin, 2013; Chaudhry, 2014)

– In the West, the choice to adopt e-Books was mainly optional (Nicholas et al., 2010; Rowlands et al., 2007)

– Students adopted e-Books out of personal choice

– Students used e-Books for multiple reasons

Contd.

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4. Communication channels shaping students’ decision to adopt e-Books

– School media centers in Kuwait make students aware about technology innovations like e-Books and their utility (Chaudhry, 2014)

– Library websites and catalog encouraged students to adopt e-Books in UK (Rowlands et al., 2007)

– e-Reader Lending Programs allow American students to try e-Books for free, helping them decide to adopt e-Books (Kemp et al., 2012)

– Library staff and library service serve as a communication channel (Foasberg, 2011) for small public university in the US

– Circulation-related issues, the ease of ordering e-Books, and the acquisition process influence the decision of students to adopt e-Books

– In some cases, British students adopt e-Books in the absence of any promotional efforts or even in case of poor promotion by libraries (Jamali et al., 2009; Schomisch et al., 2013)

Contd.

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5. Academic settings shaping the adoption of e-Books

– Close relationship with print resources, archives, and libraries make some students hesitant to use e-Books (Martin and Quan-Haase, 2013)

– Close relationship with teaching and research activities encourage participants to adopt e-Books (D’Ambra et al., 2013)

– Libraries' efforts for promoting e-collections make a huge impact on graduate students at San Jose State University (Cassidy et al., 2012)

– Course instructors and library staff play a key role in encouraging undergraduate students at a small US college to adopt e-Books (Hemon et al., 2007)

– Efforts of publishers and distributors to promote e-Books on campus affect the rate of e-Book adoption in South Korea (Hwang et al., 2014)

– Characteristics of academic settings in Iran (e.g., size, public vs. private, location, etc.) influence the ability of the settings to invest in the efforts to promote e-Books (Ghaebi and Fahimifar, 2011)

– Most libraries in South Korea make e-Books available via subscription to consortia (Hwang et al., 2014)

Contd.

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6. Change agents & e-Book adoption by students

– e-Book publishers and aggregators in Iran reduce the cost of electronic content available via e-Books (Ghaebi and Fahimifar, 2011)

– School media center specialists train Kuwaiti students for using e-Books (Chaudhry, 2014)

– Publishers, vendors, and university library authorities collaborate to facilitate the process of e-Book adoption in Nigeria (Posigha, 2012)

– e-Book designers (ChanLin, 2013)

– Better features of e-Books attract more students

– Policies of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education encourage libraries and academics to incorporate e-Books in curricula (Letchumanan and Tarmizi, 2011)

Contd.

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• Limitations– Due to small, heterogeneous sample of respondents in the 25 studies, results

are not conclusive enough or representative of any specific student population

– Experiences of students from the developing and developed world with diverse settings (e.g., cultural factors influencing IT adoption), resources (e.g., cost for accessing the Internet, etc.), and constraints (e.g., connectivity, speed of the Internet) were analyzed simultaneously, which is one of the major drawbacks of this study

• Future Research – We plan to conduct an empirical study with students at the University of

Tennessee to confirm findings of this secondary analysis

– We plan to undertake a cross-cultural study of e-Book adoption

– Comparing e-Book adoption in the US against Asian countries like China, Japan, and Taiwan

6. Limitations & Future Research

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•Andy, R., Kevin, M., Aaron, S., & Susan, H. (2012). Book lovers, technophiles, pragmatists, and printers: The social and demographic structure of user attitudes toward e-books. College & Research Libraries, 73(5), 420-429.

•Cassidy, E. D., Martinez, M., & Shen, L. (2012). Not in love, or not in the know? Graduate student and faculty use (and non-use) of e-books. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 38(6), 326-332.

•ChanLin, L. (2013). Reading strategy and the need of e-book features. The Electronic Library, 31(3), 329-344.

•Chaudhry, A. S. (2014). Student response to e-books: Study of attitude toward reading among elementary school children in Kuwait. The Electronic Library, 32(4), 458-472.

•Chiang, H., & Chen, C. (2014). Exploring switch intention of users’ reading behavior: An e-book reader case study. The Electronic Library, 32(4), 434-457.

•D’Ambra, J., Wilson, C. S., & Akter, S. (2013). Application of the task-technology fit model to structure and evaluate the adoption of e-books by academics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), 64(1), 48-64.

•Elaine Mulholland, Jessica Bates, (2014). Use and perceptions of e-books by academic staff in further education. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 40(5), 492-499.

•Foasberg, N. M. (2011). Adoption of e-book readers among college students: A survey. Information Technology and Libraries, 30(3), 108-128.

•Ghaebi, A., & Fahimifar, S. (2011). E-book acquisition features: Attitude of Iranian information professionals. The Electronic Library, 29(6), 777-791.

•Gunter, B. (2005). Electronic books: A survey of users in the UK. Aslib Proceedings, 57(6), 513-522.

•Hemon, P., Hopper, R., Leach, M. R., Saunders, L. L., & Zhang, J. (2007). E-book use by students: Undergraduates in economics, literature, and nursing. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(1), 3-13.

•Hwang, J., Kim, J., Lee, B., & Kim, J. H. (2014). Usage patterns and perception toward e-books: experiences from academic libraries in South Korea. The Electronic Library, 32(4), 522-541.

•Jamali, H. R., Nicholas, D., & Rowlands, I. (2008). Scholarly e-books: The views of 16,000 academics: Results from the JISC National E- Book Observatory. Aslib Proceedings, 61(1), 33-47.

•Jung, J., Chan-Olmsted, S., Park, B., & Kim, Y. (2011). Factors affecting e-book reader awareness, interest, and intention to use. New Media & Society, 14, 204-224.

References

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•Kemp, J., Lutz, E., & Nurnberger, A. L. (2012). E-Readers on trial: Qualitative results from an academic library pilot project. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 24(3), 189-203.

•Landoni, M., & Hanlon, G. (2007). E-book reading groups: Interacting with e-books in public libraries. The Electronic Library, 25(5), 599-612.

•Lai, J., & Chang, C. (2011). User attitudes toward dedicated e-book readers for reading: The effects of convenience, compatibility and media richness. Online Information Review, 35(4), 558-580.

•Letchumanan, M., & Tarmizi, R. (2011). Assessing the intention to use e-book among engineering undergraduates in Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia. Library Hi Tech, 29(3), 512-528.

•Martin, K., & Quan-Haase, A. (2013). Are e-books replacing print books? Tradition, serendipity, and opportunity in the adoption and use of e-books for historical research and teaching.•Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), 64(5), 1016-1028.

•Muir, L., & Hawes, G. (2013). The case for e-book literacy: Undergraduate students' experience with e-books for course work. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 39(3), 260-274.

•Nicholas, D., Rowlands, I., Clark, D., Huntington, P., Jamali, H. R., & Olle, C. (2008).•UK scholarly e-book usage: A landmark survey. Aslib Proceedings, 60(4), 311-334.

•Nicholas, D., Rowlands, I., & Jamali, H. R. (2010). E-textbook use, information seeking behaviour and its impact: Case study business and management. Journal of Information Science, 36(2), 263-280.

•Pattuelli, M. C., & Rabina, D. (2010). Forms, effects, function: LIS students' attitudes towards portable e-book readers. Aslib Proceedings, 62(3), 228-244.

•Pinto, M., Pouliot, C., Antonio, J., & Jose, C. (2014). E-book reading among Spanish university students. The Electronic Library, 32(4), 473-492.

•Posigha, B. E. (2012). The use and future of electronic books in academic institutions in Nigeria. The Electronic Library, 30(6), 796-808.

•Rowlands, I., Nicholas, D., Jamali, H. R., & Huntington, P. (2007). What do faculty and students really think about e-books? Aslib Proceedings, 59(6), 489-511.

•Schomisch, S., Zens, M., & Mayr, P. (2013). Are e-readers suitable tools for scholarly work? Results from a user test. Online Information Review, 37(3), 388-404.

References Contd.

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• Questions?

Thank You!

Devendra Potnis

Sarah Schroeder

Xiaopeng Bao