Mark Dorman is president of McGraw Hill Education International and Professional, a division of McGraw Hill Education, the well-known multinational teaching development and learning solutions company based in New York (successor to The McGraw Publishing Company, estb.1888). As divisional president, Dorman manages the company’s international operations and professional reference business, which includes a 6,000-titles ebooks programme and online content for medical, engineering and science education.

Newspeg. Last October in Pune, Dorman was the keynote speaker at the Vice Chancellors Retreat 2015 sponsored by McGraw Hill Education India. The august assembly discussed and debated ways and means to enable institutions of higher education to improve teaching-learning and research outcomes through innovative new technologies.

History. An alum of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Dorman resigned his commission in the Corps of Royal Military Police and began his corporate career in 2000 with LexisNexis UK, a unit of Reed Elsevier, as head of strategy. Subsequently, he served with Gartner Inc. as head of global product management (2004-2005) and as president and CEO of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, a multinational information technology solutions company, where he was appointed vice president of the Legal Markets Group in 2008.

McGraw Hill Education (India) Pvt. Ltd, the company’s Indian arm, began operations in 1970 as Tata McGraw Hill and was rechristened in 2013 after the parent completed acquisition of the Tata Group’s equity in the company.

Since then, McGraw Hill has been transitioning from a publisher of textbooks to a multimedia learning sciences company. From its print-based business model, the company is gradually switching to delivery of customised digital content sold through subscription. “We are leveraging our experience in creating education content to deliver digital solutions that are personalised and adaptive. A unique feature of our digital platforms is that the instructor receives constant feedback from the learner which helps him to enable the learner to progress at her own pace,” says Mark Dorman.

According to Dorman, market response in India to the company/division’s digital learning programmes is “very encouraging”. Currently, subscriber institutions include the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Banaras Hindu University, NIT-Uttarakhand, IIT-Mandi and IIT-Roorkee, MNIT Jaipur, NIT-Agartala, IIM-Udaipur, IIT-Madras, IIT-Kozhikode, and National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai.

Future plans. McGraw Hill plans to launch its Digital Learning Ecosystem (DLE) this year. “DLE will enable educators, students and developers to personalise and enhance McGraw-Hill Education’s courseware by creating new content that leverages the power of the company’s adaptive and analytics platforms. This will be a step forward in instructional technology that will support the demands of educators and students to combine learning elements from multiple sources to create distinctive and personalised learning experiences,” says Mark Dorman.

The company’s strategy for India is not to entirely replace textbooks with digital platforms, but to grow the share of its digital business. By 2020, digital products will account for 20 percent of the company’s business, he says.

Jeswant J. M (Bangalore)