Academic Pricing

IBS 2.7 > Group Administrator: Academic Functions

As an Academic Group, you determine the price you will charge for each item you sell. The Academic price (or “retail” price) is associated with the product, not with the course itself. For example, if you offer the same course as both a downloadable pdf file and a facilitated class, you will probably want to charge more for the facilitated format.

When you sell an item to a student, you are obligated to pay the “wholesale” price of the item. This “wholesale” price is made up of two components:

·         The adjusted Publisher price, which is set by the Publisher and helps cover the cost of developing and maintaining the course. It is the Publisher base price, multiplied by applicable Publisher pricing factors. See article on Publisher Pricing.

·         The adjusted IBS Surcharge, which is set by IBS and helps cover the cost of hosting the course on the IBS site. It is the IBS base surcharge, multiplied by applicable IBS surcharge factors. See article on Viewing Cost Elements.

The price you charge can help you cover this wholesale cost plus your academic administrative and faculty costs. However, you are free to set your price at any level you choose. Perhaps your ministry has other sources of funding, and you want to make biblical courses available at low or no cost to students. You can sell your materials at the wholesale price or even below it. Remember, however, that for each item sold, you, the Academic Group, will still have to pay the wholesale price.

Academic Pricing Factors (Country factors)

Just as Publishers can choose to reduce the price of their materials for certain students by setting Group factors, Academic Groups can grant reductions from their base prices by setting Academic country factors. (Academic Groups can also grant reductions to individual students in the form of financial aid. See article on Admissions and Financial Aid.)

Pricing factors are expressed as a percentage which is multiplied by the base price. They can range from 0% to 100%. A factor of 0% would reduce the price to $0, while a factor of 100% has no effect on the price. The same pricing factors apply to all of your materials; you cannot set different factors for different courses or package types.

You can set two types of factors:

Default factors tell IBS what factors to apply to your base price if you have not set a specific factor for a particular country. Most Academic Groups will probably set their default factors to 100%.

Country factors apply to all students from a particular country. Perhaps your ministry is focused on training students in India; you want your courses to be available to them at low cost, but you want to charge full price for students in the United States. You could set a country factor for India of 10%; this means that an Indian student could purchase your course for much less than a US-based student buying the same course.

To set academic pricing factors, select Group Administrators > Academic > Set Academic Pricing Factors.

Your default country factor will appear. To change it, type the desired value and click Update.

If you wish to set a country factor (that is, to make a particular country’s pricing different from the default), click Country Factors at the top of the screen. Locate the country whose factor you want to change and click Edit, then enter the new factor. Click Update; the new factor will now appear in the table of countries.

Once you have set a country factor, a Reset button appears in the Action column for that country. Clicking Reset will restore that country to the default country factor. 

IBS Share Factors

Both Publishing and Academic Groups are asked to help support IBS by sharing a small portion of their net earnings from each sale with IBS. IBS sets share factors indicating the percentage of each Group’s earnings that will be shared. (Shares are separate from, and in addition to, the IBS surcharge.) For Academic Groups, the share factor is applied to the difference between the item’s final sale price and its “wholesale” cost. (If the final sale price is equal to or below cost, there are no net earnings, so the Academic share would be zero.)

You may view your share factor by selecting Group Administrators > General Administration > Group Cost Elements. If you have questions about your IBS share factor, please contact your Partner Relationship Manager (PRM) or the IBS System Administrator.