Assessment of K--12 educators' awareness and need for online self-publishing services in the classroom

This thesis surveyed K-12 educators to gauge their comfort level and awareness with online self-publishing services along with required skill sets, testing whether K-12 educators are taking advantage of online self-publishing within the classroom. If educators were to adopt online self-publishing to create material for the students, there is a potential new market for the Print-On-Demand industry.;The experimental design involved the creation of an online survey taken by K-12 educators across the United States. The survey was used to gauge respondent comfort level with online self-publishing skills for personal and school use. Their opinions on collaboration with other educators to produce material for the students benefit were also addressed.;The main findings of this research were that, 15% of respondents have had personal online self-publishing experience, 61% were aware of popular online self-publishing websites, and editing was viewed as the most helpful skill to have when producing self-published book online. With school use, 44% of respondents reported their school had a student publishing assignment with yearbooks being the most commonly published item in schools. Teacher use in the classroom revealed that 58% of respondents were interested in using self-publishing, 54% of respondents had already produced material for the students benefit. Moreover 90% believed that providing the students with a more targeted and customized learning experience was a main benefit of self-publishing. However, respondents did not understand how online self-publishing could save costs in textbook orders. If educators better understood there is a potential cost savings, it would generate a greater interest in pursuing some form of online self-publishing...