Presentation by Dr. Frank Müller, GM Bildung Online GmbH&Co

Bildung Online is a joint venture of 4 German educational publishers:

Cornelsen, Klett, Schroedel and Westermann

It operates an eCommerce portal for the educational sector in Germany.

The internet service consists of three parts:

i.) A free website covering educational content

ii.) A catalogue system offering a qualified search for educational products covering 40.000 items. The search offers hyperlinks to the internet shops of the publishers to initiate direct sales

iii.) An online sales platform offering pay-download of educational material.

Abstract:

The presentation mostly covers the online sales platform.

The platforms targets mainly teachers, though first products also for pupils are under development.

Today the content offered for download includes book-chapters and all kinds of papers for preparation and presentation of lessons.

The material is sold at prices ranging between 1 and 10 DM.

For the future also interactive applications like telelearning are envisioned.

The talk will present some of the problems encountered by building-up and running such a system.

It will especially focus on questions of content, payment and customer care.