Title of research: eInfoC n' eMPay: Collaborative eSolution for Scholarly Publications
Researchers:
Associate Professor Dr Norshuhada Shiratuddin (Contact details available to registered journalists)
Associate Professor Dr. Shahizan Hassan
Syamsul Bahrin Zaibon
Sobihatun Nur Abd Salam
As in any higher education insitution, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) publishes books, research reports, lecture modules. theses and other academic information. However, all these publications are in printed and bound forms which pose some disadvantages. In addition, the publications have not been widely promoted and as a result their accessibility had been very limited, they are not noticed locally and more importantly, internationally. Furthermore, so far in Malaysia, although there is a strong policy and infrastructure support by the Malaysian government, only 2 companies have ventured into the electronic publication business.
To overcome the disadvantages identified above, UUM researchers have created an environment known as "electronic information Centre (eInfoC)" which was developed for Web (available at http://www.e-infoc.uum.edu.my/) and WAP (available at http://www.e-infoc.uum.edu.my/wap/) users. The aim is to provide for academics and the public, a platform to publish, promote and market their knowledge, skills, ideas and talents (in the form of eContents such as eBooks, eReports, eModules, eStorybooks, etc). This is turn will help establish organisation or home based business opportunities.
A number of payment methods are made available at eInfoC including credit card, bank draft, forwarded-by-lecturer, cash and cheque. In addition, mobile payment through SMS with an electronic receipt system was also developed based on their market survey. Once a buyer pays for the eContent, a password and instructions to download the content are emailed or SMSed to him/her. A number of pricing strategies are also suggested for prospective authors. The pricing structure is based on type of content, purchasing power and publishing costs.
Sales and buyers' views were recorded for market demand analysis purposes. As a test, when one of the eContents was put on sale as lecture modules, more than 90% of the prospect buyers bought the eModule. Although most (70.5%) preferred to print the eModule, only a mere 5.8% of the buyers were unsatisfied with it in electronic format. Overall purchase satisfaction of electronic publications was on the high side (about 70%). However, roughly 16% were unsatisfied giving reasons such as they had to print to read and this would double their costs. Although this was the case, overall, almost 79% stated that they were interested in buying electronic publications.
