Development of digital textbooks 'to cost millions'

Non-profit organisations will have to spend millions of dollars before they can qualify for a new government scheme to develop high-quality digital textbooks, an expert on electronic learning said yesterday.

The government has announced a push to promote e-books as a way to break the stranglehold of textbook publishers, who have been accused of pushing up prices.

Wilton Fok, head of the e-learning technology development laboratory at the University of Hong Kong, said he welcomed the government's announcement on Tuesday of a HK$50 million subsidy for registered charities and universities to publish e-textbooks, but had reservations about its chances of success.

Fok's warning on the cost of e-book development echoes comments earlier this week by Erwin Huang, chief executive of WebOrganic, which provides subsidised computing devices to cash-strapped students. He said the HK$50 million was just 'a drop in a bucket'.

Fok said: 'There will be many issues - copyright is one. You cannot expect people to contribute content to [the publisher] voluntarily.'

Producing e-textbooks would require technological expertise as well as content, he said, and bringing the two sides together would take effort.

Fok says the maximum HK$4 million grant for each subject area - which the developer must match - is 'barely enough'.