Educational Publishers Trying to Adapt to Free Online Content

Market at work

Commercial publishers are accustomed to battling with one another for control of state and local markets for textbooks and other academic materials. Now they face a more complicated task: how to cope with what's being offered to schools for free.

The menu of products available to educators today includes not only textbooks and digital products offered at a cost, but also a growing number of "open educational resources" developed or supported by nonprofit groups, universities, philanthropies, individual teachers, and entire states.