Back in September 2018, the Exact Editions team decided to turn our focus towards schools. We knew that the content on the platform was desirable as we already sell resources to a number of schools, in particular, those in the UK and international schools, but we wanted to explore this market further. I suppose a key question for us was — how digitally-minded are schools?

We came up with the idea of working alongside a few publishers (in the field of politics) to gift schools free access to a collection of magazines for six months. The plan was intended to give librarians plenty of time to test the popularity of the resources amongst staff and students, both in terms of content but also to see if users enjoyed reading digitally.

The geographical spread of participants

To start, we conducted a campaign to raise awareness of the offer and sign up any schools who were interested. There was a positive response to the idea and we managed to sign up close to 100 schools in a couple of months. Once the schools were up and running, we maintained regular contact with the librarians and recommended articles.

As the trials have now ended, we have compiled a report that covers some of the interesting findings from the project. We have also spoken with the majority of our partner publishers to negotiate special pricing for schools.

To request the full report, please contact us via institutions@exacteditions.com