Wileyplus Newsletter 10 09

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WELCOME to the second installment of our (internal) WileyPLUS newsletter. This is where you can get the scoop on all things

FEATURED FRIEND OF WileyPLUS

WileyPLUS and where you’ll digitally transform with us! We’re here to share the goings on of marketing WileyPLUS and some of the latest happenings on 5.0. This month is especially momentous for us as we’ve exceeded one million validated student users of WileyPLUS! That means that 880,000 students understood the material better thanks to WileyPLUS! So take a byte of our newsletter and let us know what you’d like to hear about in the next issue.  Until then, Make It Yours!

Clay on Nutrition: What does 5.0 mean for Nutrition?

CONTENTS MARKETING BUZZ

SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH

page 2 PRODUCT UPDATE

page 5 FROM THE ACCOUNT MANAGER’S DESK

page 3 GET TO KNOW YOUR 5.0

page 8 PEOPLE ARE TALKING

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It’s nothing new that Nutrition professors experience unique challenges. WileyPLUS 5.0 addresses these challenges and more... (Read more on page 3)

FRIEND US. FOLLOW US. JOIN US.

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CONNECT. Discover WileyPLUS online.

MARKETING BUZZ Info for upcoming WileyPLUS conference in 2010 WileyPLUS – March 6th, Atlanta, GA:  Are you looking for renewable revenue?  Looking for a way to move a current Wiley text user into WileyPLUS?  If so, this is a perfect opportunity for you to invite your customers to our upcoming WileyPLUS Workshop!  In an effort to demonstrate the power of WileyPLUS to our existing customers and grow our digital business, the focus of this workshop is on current Wiley text adopters, allowing us to unveil 5.0 and demonstrate how integrating WileyPLUS into their course can improve learning and engagement.  In the past, our workshops have brought together our WileyPLUS power users to share best practices. Although some mentors will be in attendance, this is not a WileyPLUS Power Users Conference.  Look out for more information on how to get your customers registered. We’re looking forward to turning your existing business into WileyPLUS renewable revenue!

First Day of Class Success! New First Day of Class (FDOC) Kits are now available! The WileyPLUS team launched this initiative at the August GSM and we are excited at the rate that these have taken off. Over 1,000 FDOC kits were sent within the first week – that’s impressive! These kits are a great resource to send to all WileyPLUS users, especially those where you cannot be there to present in person, as they contain everything from student registration flyers and coupons, FAQs, QuickStart, Assignment Zero and Student Partner Program flyers, to contact info sheets and much more! Reps can complete a FDOC Kit Request Form (found on InSite) and send directly to their Sales Support Coordinator for distribution. “One of my professors loved the kit so much he requested that we send more for each of his adjuncts. Not only is it great for reps who can’t be on campus but also for professors to have all the info they need about WileyPLUS in one place. We do all the work for them, including providing registration URLs which lessens confusion for both professors and students.” – Erin Brown, SSC. Giving an FDOC presentation in person is also highly effective. It gives you the opportunity to show the

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power of WileyPLUS while setting expectations up front. Using the updated tools, sales rep Vicki Kakounis gave an FDOC presentation at Bergen Community College for Accounting. One student emailed Vicki and said, “When you left the classroom, all students said, “man….we are excited, and she was cool!” so thank you for helping us learn, that is what we are in college for right? Now I’m not going to be that lost in class because of you.” Go Vicki! For the first time, SSC’s had the opportunity to get their hands dirty this semester by participating in FDOC activities across the Metro District. This included giving FDOC presentations and offering office hours to help with purchasing and registration. “We actually saw the fruits of our labor which made it a positive learning experience. I think the classes were receptive to us because we were close in age. I took the approach of – I’m here to save you money, because hey, I get it,”– Laurie Dusko, SSC. Just another reason why you should incorporate a Student Partner at your large WileyPLUS adoptions, students want to hear from people they can relate to, other students. If you have any suggestions to be included in the Spring FDOC kits, contact [email protected]

Student Partner Program growth! The Student Partner Program is growing! Thank you to all the reps and WileyPLUS Account Managers who have contributed to the program’s growing success. For Fall 09 we currently have 24 Student Partners at 22 different schools. This is >100% growth over the spring where we had 11 Student Partners but only at 8 schools. Almost half are connected with each other on Facebook and many reps relied on them to help with FDOCs and selling across courses. Start approaching your profs now for Spring Student Partners!

Dates to be available in CPR When will the demo course be live? What about the full course? We hear these questions often and understand the need to provide accurate and timely dates. WileyPLUS dates will now be included in the monthly CPR which is posted on the Portal and also distributed in rep mail and Hoboken mailboxes for

marketing and editorial. The Media Editors strive to keep the WileyPLUS release dates up to date in the Tech Solutions Database (TSDB) and the Marketing Assistants will use that to pull the dates. Keep in mind,

these dates are estimates and can change. If you have any questions regarding a specific date, double check the TSDB or contact your Marketing Manager.

PRODUCT UPDATE What WileyPLUS 5.0 Means for Nutrition (continued from page 1) The much anticipated WileyPLUS 5.0 will be critical to providing a solution for nutrition faculty. Below are some of the key challenges nutrition professors face. You will begin to see a pattern here; WileyPLUS 5.0 will be the long awaited promise faculty need to address their student and administration concerns to enable a better teaching and learning experience. Remediation – A large problem in nutrition is that many students take this course for a University or Institutional Science Credit. Unfortunately, many of the students taking the course have no science background and do not particularly like science. Often students think nutrition is about food and cultures, void of science, this is why they take the course. When students take the course, they are often shocked at the level of science. This is where 5.0 comes in. Faculty can assign certain learning objectives that students must achieve. This can be content from other courses, which students will be required to have mastered. With 5.0, faculty can require these objectives which cover prerequisites as a gate to the course. Once students master these objectives, they can then proceed to the rest of the course objectives. WileyPLUS 5.0 will allow faculty to organize content by learning objectives; this can assist with student science remediation. Outcomes – A number of nutrition and dietetics programs require certain qualifications before receiving accreditation from organizations such as CADE (Commission on Accreditation for Dietetics Education). Some of these qualifications include the successful outcomes to teaching particular objectives within courses. Many of the qualifications are aimed at the upper level/graduate courses, but some pertain to the introductory courses. In 5.0, faculty will be able to provide reports on the outcomes of teaching specific learning objectives in nutrition. Currently faculty have to collate, compile, and compare results.

WileyPLUS 5.0 will allow them to report outcomes and graphically present their findings not only on the course, but also specific learning objectives. Validation – We have all experienced the situation where students and some customers are asking for multimedia resources but gatekeepers feel that these assets are unnecessary. In 5.0, students can choose to interact with these resources without needing a faculty member to open a class section for them. Think about the many times we hear that students in certain sections are being deprived of help because their faculty “do not use” technology. WileyPLUS 5.0 eliminates that obstacle to student validation and usage. WileyPLUS 5.0 will be available Fall 2010 for Smolin, Nutrition: Science & Applications 2e and Grosvenor, Visualizing Nutrition. For more info, contact cstone@ wiley.com

Flex Pricing Changes Beginning in November, new Flex Pricing will go into effect. This includes a change in direct-to-student pricing from WileyPLUS.com on WileyPLUS standalone registration codes.  As communicated at the GSM, the new pricing continues to emphasize the value of WileyPLUS and provides a margin for those booksellers who are interested in selling WileyPLUS stand-alone. The new pricing is also in line with our competitor pricing relative to print. The price will now be stated “Up to 50% off the price of a new textbook”. All fall collateral that currently states Up to 60% pricing will be updated to reflect the pricing change.   

Tech Support Update In order to meet the expected surge in our customer base, we’d like to introduce important new developments to our Tech Support team.  To give you some context, the growth rate of WileyPLUS adoptions is much faster than last year: at this point

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PRODUCT UPDATE continued last year, we were 16% over prior year in terms of units sold, and this year we are up 30% over prior year. Additional Tier I Tech Support resources All student inquiries are initially directed to Tier I Tech Support.  Our Indianapolis-based Tech Support group added 10 temporary Tier I representatives whose primary focus is helping students who contact us with registration-related issues during the 6-week fall rush period.  These representatives will be scheduled to ensure support for all US time zones, as well as to increase available hours globally. As a reminder, students should go to www.wileyplus.com/support for help.  From the website, they can connect with a specialist via chat or by completing a web-based form.   The phone line is reserved for faculty use only, to ensure that any wait time is kept to a minimum.   Additional Tier III resources Tickets that cannot be resolved at Tier I & II in Indianapolis get escalated to Tier III (Derek Petrucci), who is based out of Hoboken.  These incidents often involve issues relating to the software or to discipline content.  We also added an additional person to Tier III Tech Support for the fall rush.  This person’s primary focus is logging reported content errors and working with product teams to ensure prompt review and correction.  Tier III will also provide updates to instructors who report issues to tech support.  New Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Tech Support Standards We believe that these steps will position us to provide our customers with a positive experience when contacting our Tech Support Department.  We have worked with our colleagues in Indianapolis to update the standards to which we will collectively be holding ourselves.  These standards specify maximum wait time, resolution time, and customer satisfaction metrics for each tech support channel (chat, phone, web form).  The metrics we use are based on our review of industry standards and third party data to ensure that we are more than competitive.  The

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weekly WileyPLUS report now includes a section on how well we are performing against these metrics. We know that a positive Technical Support experience is an important factor in customer satisfaction and retention. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected]

Clicker Update Not sure what clicker to offer your customer? WileyClicks has a variety of options for nearly every need. From the simple and easy-to-use iClicker, to the more feature-rich Interwrite, to $15 rebate coupons with Turning Point, and our very own unique and free technology with clickOn--look to Insite or watch this quick Brainshark for more details. Wiley clickOn content is currently available with selected titles. Remember – any major frontlist title that has clicker content can be converted for clickOn use. Currently, turnaround time for a new clickOn title is about 3 weeks (this will be a lot faster come Spring) and only a day for a course that already exists. This is a great value-add for customers who desire increased student engagement but don’t need major clicker requirements like grading or attendance taking. For more information contact lvecchio@wiley. com Existing clickOn courses are: • Black, Business Statistics, 5e • Brady, Chemistry, 5e • de Blij, Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 13e • de Blij, The World Today: Concepts and Regions in • Geography, 4e • Hein, Foundations of College Chemistry, 12e • Kieso, Intermediate Accounting, 13e • Kieso, Intermediate Accounting, Canadian 8e • Kimmel, Accounting, 3e • Kimmel, Financial Accounting, 5e • Kimmel, Financial Accounting, Canadian 4e • Tortora, Principles of Human Anatomy, 11e • Weygandt, Managerial Accounting, Canadian 2e

GET TO KNOW YOUR 5.0 It was great to see all of you at the Global Sales Meeting and share with you the exciting new release we have planned for WileyPLUS (5.0!) As you know, WileyPLUS adopters this fall will all be using our latest release – 4.7.1. This includes all of the usability improvements and new features from 4.6 that we released for the spring selling season, such as: easier editing and creation of assignments, the Show Work whiteboard, and expanded use of study objectives in some disciplines. As we gear up for seeding the market for SS10 5.0 course releases we’d like to give you a quick rundown of what’s in store for this fall through January 2010. But first, let’s quickly review the materials you received at the GSM in August so that you can continue to message the value of WiIeyPLUS regardless of what release we are positioning: • WileyPLUS brochure: customize this per discipline or title by adding WileyPLUS one-pagers to the folder in the back. • WileyPLUS FDOC kits: contact your Sales Support Coordinator for custom FDOC kits based on the check list of contents that can be included. • Telling the WileyPLUS Story document: this document enables you to present our value proposition in light of all the research Wiley has done to both inform product development as well as validate WileyPLUS’ usefulness to our user base. Use it to let customers know we’re listening and working hard to provide solutions that best address their biggest pain points. See InSite for this document. Customer pilots are underway this fall for Comer and Halliday to continue our longstanding commitment

of collecting customer input on our development in-progress. Activities with these customers began in September and will continue through October with the intent of collecting and analyzing feedback for the January release. Usability testing that we have done so far has already yielded some important results, namely confirmation on many important enhancements 5.0 contains as well as suggestions for additional enhancements that we have been able to funnel back into development in time for the January release. Stay tuned for more results from our customer development efforts in the next issue of our WileyPLUS Newsletter. Also, be on the lookout for a far more marketing deliverables this fall, including a WileyPLUS whitepaper that will provide an overview of how WileyPLUS helps to address issues of low student engagement and learning effectiveness (as supported by research), a standardized PowerPoint deck that can be used for customer presentations (currently found on Insite), a Brainshark on the student research we recently completed, and a detailed competitive review of McGraw Hill’s “Connect”, which according to one new WileyPLUS adopter: “…can’t hold a candle to WileyPLUS”. Remember that with WileyPLUS 5.0 courses users will have an easy to use interface and more control over their teaching and learning experience. Users can expect to see all of the course functionality they rely on in 4.7 plus: • Customized course & student learning plans • Course set-up & syllabus wizards • A new calendar view of assignments • More powerful administration controls • Filtered search (section, study objective, text) • Student use without an instructor

SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH And the Survey says…. As promised in our first issue of the WileyPLUS (Internal) Newsletter, we have some exciting research findings to share based on the latest Instructor and Student surveys conducted at the end of the spring semester. The available summary report represents the top-line findings from the student study and selected instructor findings.

Email invitations were sent to students who used WileyPLUS during the spring 2009 term and 2,609 students responded-- 79% from the U.S., 15% from Canada, and 6% from other global locations—telling us how they really feel about WileyPLUS. 61% of participants were male and 39% were female with 81% of students attending school full time. The majority of the respondents (60%) were freshman or sophomore, and (72%) A or B Students. As might be

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SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH, continued expected, students’ primary goals in college are getting a degree, getting good grades and passing their classes. However, other goals relating to getting broad-based knowledge and experience and having fun also are important. For the course in which students used WileyPLUS, the majority took it in a classroom with an instructor (69%); 16% took it online with a mix of self-paced and instructorled sessions; and 13% took it completely self-paced online. As far as disciplines, this graph shows how the respondents broke out: OK—now to the good stuff. • “Seeing is believing” – after using WileyPLUS, the majority of students given a future choice would not purchase the hardcover text but instead purchase WileyPLUS with or without some alternative format for text content.

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• 88% of students rated WileyPLUS as valuable. • 75% of students said that WileyPLUS had a highly positive impact on their course grade.

• 67% of students indicated WileyPLUS is easy to use. Almost two-thirds of students believed that WileyPLUS helped them better prepare for tests and/or quizzes. Similarly, students believe that WileyPLUS helped them develop a better understanding of the concepts for the course and helped them to retain the material. Instructors are also very enthusiastic about the impact that WileyPLUS has on their students’ performance. Like students, they believe that WileyPLUS helps students to better prepare for tests and helps them better understand course concepts. Note on the survey results as compared to past results: This spring, we launched our newly redesigned student and instructor surveys to assess customer satisfaction with WileyPLUS. The new survey versions allowed for more rigorous measurement and produced more reliable results that can be examined across time periods to identify trends. The change in measurement has also reset our scale from yes/ no to a five-point scale. WileyPLUS is not getting less popular. You’ll see a consistent positive response on what our customers have liked as compared to

previous results, but the percentage values will now be distributed differently. This study is part of an ongoing research program in which we are measuring student and instructor perceptions of the impact that WileyPLUS has on performance and grades. A forthcoming report will contain complete instructor findings and more detailed sub-group analysis for both students and instructors. From the looks of it, WileyPLUS students and instructors are really making it theirs!

And the DOE Research Says…. Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a recent meta-analysis released in June by the U.S. Department of Education. The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-toface instruction. Further, those who took “blended” courses—those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction—appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment.

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SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH, continued Stay on the lookout for a new Whitepaper (available in November) we are authoring that correlates academic research findings of effectiveness with the features of WileyPLUS. Additionally, stay on the lookout for a summary of the recent Student Workflow Research that has been conducted by Wiley. Petra Steriti has been making the rounds presenting the findings here in Hoboken but we are also planning a virtual presentation to update the field. The purpose of this research was to try to understand student buying and studying behavior and

implications for us as solutions providers. 70 onehour telephone interviews, conducted by experienced interviewers who explored students’ current studying and learning practices, including use of materials, study venues, emotions, and attitudes. There are many implications for WileyPLUS and opportunities for us to highlight to professors how WileyPLUS can help those students who get stuck and give up. All of this good stuff will be highlighted in the new WileyPLUS PowerPoint deck for customer presentations now available on InSite.

FROM THE ACCOUNT MANAGER’S DESK An online class of 80 students using WileyPLUS with Bajtelsmit, Personal Finance 1e at CSUN is having great success with question pools. The ability to randomly pull from a large bank of questions and allow students an unlimited number of attempts, combined with algorithmic generation of values is really testing their mastery of the material. Each student gets different questions and different values, so no ‘collaboration’ is possible in chat rooms or via IM. An optional mid-term and final are also available and help further maximize the question pool capability for our users. If you have instructors who want to use question pools this extensively, they should create assignments that require no more than 50 questions to be pulled at a time, and then break a comprehensive test down into 2 or 3 segments. This will greatly speed up the rate at which the questions are pulled from the pool into the assignment. If you have questions on how to create question pools or how to position the functionality best in your sales presentations, contact your account manager! AND, just in case you are planning to contact him or her, there has been a realignment of the districts and account managers as of October 1st. An email was generated to all instructors affected by the change and everything went very smoothly. If you are wondering –Do I have a new Account Manager?—please check the list below: • Alison Stanley is now the Account Manager for the Dixie and New England districts • Kelly Boyle is now the Account Manager for the Metro and Northeast districts • Nicole Rome is now the Account Manager for the MidAtlantic and Southeast districts • Natalia Hucul is now the Account Manager for the Great Plains and Great Lakes districts, as well as the Business Solutions Group • Nate Wiley is now the Account Manager for the Mountain and In-House districts • Renee Legatt is now the Account Manager for the Northwest, Southwest, and Western districts

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PEOPLE ARE TALKING What’s the deal with Textbook rentals anyway?

Buyer—or renter—beware! Yes, it sounds like all the rage: rent a book and return it at the end of semester and shave a bunch off of what you’d spend for your course materials. But is this a good value for students? Well, let’s do the math and look at all the benefits for students. Just what are students getting? Let’s take a real world example: Young, College Algebra, 2nd ed. Students can rent a book for $73.42 on Chegg.com (it’s not available on BookRenter.com) or they can buy WileyPLUS standalone for $58. From Chegg.com they will get: a used book. Read that: someone else’s highlighting (and drool from when they fell asleep on their book while studying) in a secondhand book that they need to return after the semester’s end. No Digital Video Series showing the author working through upwards of 300 problems, no video quizzes, no graphic tips, no audio clips for auditory learners, no link-to-text feature linking students to the section of the text for immediate, contextual help as they are working (and that actually leads to students reading more content from the text than they otherwise would), no homework questions that provide automatic feedback, no tutorials to provide interactive learning support… get the idea?

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Students can get free drool with their used book for $73 per semester or an online learning solution with a complete, integrated version of the digital textbook, with numerous study and learning tools to help them prepare for and succeed in Algebra for only $58.

REASONS

Not to mention, savings touted by rental companies may not be as great as they seem. If a student rents a book at a discounted price, the savings would be minimal considering he or she could have sold a bought-new copy back to the bookstore to make up the difference. And, don’t forget the fact that if students don’t return a book on time, they are charged full price, and in some cases, penalty fees on top of that! Does it pay to rent? You don’t need college algebra do that price/value equation!

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Look for these Wiley posters on campus near you (or call your SSC to get some that you can post in the Student Lounge and around campus): Click on this link to view our previous issue: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/share. asp?m=sr741lw5t3dkijljpwsk

REASONS t n e R r o k y o u o B B o d t e Not a Us 10 Drool. Not yours. 9

Answers to odd-numbered problems missing. 8 Hand-written notes with little hearts over the i’s. Extensive highlighting in five neon colors.

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Bite marks. Also not yours.

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Large purple stains. Unidentified.

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Pages with information you need for the test torn out.

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Bran muffin crumbs in between the pages.

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Two words: swine flu. Just sayin’.

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WileyPLUS includes the entire text, tons of resources, and none of the above!

WileyPLUS includes the entire text online with the most effective study resources for about the same price of used or rental. See your instructor for more details, or go to

www.wileyplus.com.

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MAKE IT YOURS!