Group items tagged

"eCub is a cross-platform tool for creating EPUB and MobiPocket books. EPUB is become a popular e-book standard and is open and free for all to implement. EPUB files can be read by MobiPocket, Adobe Digital Editions, FBReader, Stanza, the Sony Reader, and many other readers and applications. MobiPocket books can be read on desktop platforms, mobile platforms and the Amazon Kindle e-book reader."

As virtually every form of media from newspapers to television shows becomes more socially aware, the book remains stubbornly anti-social. Despite the rapid growth in e-books and the launch of a number of services designed to add social features to books, the act of reading is still a fairly solitary thing.

"VSU partnered with Flat World Knowledge, a start-up publisher that produces exclusively written e-books with "open" content that can be modified by professors. In a trial with 14 business courses, students would be required to pay $20 and receive a Flat World e-book and digital learning supplements. (The university and a local grant have been covering the cost, so far.)"

Academic libraries are increasingly collecting e-books, but little research has investigated how students use e-books compared to print texts. This study used a prompted think-aloud method to gain an understanding of the information retrieval behavior of students in both formats. Qualitative analysis identified themes that will inform instruction and collection practices.

But now Ms. Finnegan is working to get the book digitally back in circulation, by collaborating with Unglue.it, a Kickstarter-inspired publishing start-up that opened last month. Oral Literature is featured as one of the site's five inaugural campaigns, which ask users to pledge money toward "ungluing" each previously published work. If the campaign is successful, Oral Literature will be available as a free, legal e-book, downloadable from anywhere in the world. Ungluing "is not really buying the rights, and it's not really buying the license," said Eric Hellman, Unglue.it's founder. "It's compensating the rights-holder in exchange for them releasing something with Creative Commons."

According to the report, students said e-textbooks "somewhat" became part of their learning routine but didn't help them interact more with classmates or the professor, largely because most people didn't use the collaborative features. Mr. Wheeler noted that the students of professors who did annotate their e-textbooks reported having a better experience, since "these capabilities make the electronic text much more than just an alternative to a physical book."

Making an e-book can be easy-almost trivially easy-using Pandoc, a tool I've written about earlier on ProfHacker. Of course, Pandoc isn't the only way to do this. Mark has used Sigil and written about it, and another good option is Anthologize, which Julie wrote about.

In this project, McGraw-Hill will provide e-books and access to software, such as McGraw-Hill's adaptive learning system, LearnSmart, and the university will pay a "significantly discounted flat fee" for the materials. In addition, Western Governors will also pay the company a premium for each student who uses the materials and receives a B or better grade in the course.

The partnership will expand the reach of the McGraw-Hill Campus service, which was first rolled out last July as a means of offering universal, single sign-on access to McGraw-Hill offerings to students and educators from within a school's existing LMS at no cost. With the service, the entire library of McGraw-Hill resources can be accessed with the service with a single click for browsing of test banks, e-books, PowerPoint slides and other offerings.

"We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway,'" Mr. Jobs was quoted as saying by his biographer, Walter Isaacson. The publishers were then able to impose the same model across the industry, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson. "They went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books,' " Mr. Jobs said. The Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws, the people familiar with the matter said.

"The project is designed to help CSU campuses evaluate, select, and implement eTextbook products that are as accessible as possible for students, staff, and faculty. Emphasis will be placed on developing and disseminating authoritative guidance, information, and resources (e.g. templates, evaluations) so that campuses can successfully tackle the rapidly-growing accessibility challenges associated with eTextbooks. "

"The problem is the idea that the price of digital books will be 50 percent of the new price. That's not holding. We're seeing anywhere from 35 to 42 percent off."

Robin is a new faculty at UD, from Penn State.

"Given an expectation of digital literacy among students, why should we worry about student perceptions of CMS tools? For the same reason exemplary instructors stay aware of their students' general learning style preferences-to evolve their teaching styles to meet diverse preferences and maximize learning while also attempting to develop and enhance students' abilities to learn in different ways. Likewise, knowing the CMS tools that students find most effective establishes an important baseline for understanding student needs that can be addressed not only in a CMS but also through other online systems and services. The University of Florida (UF) conducted a survey investigating that question in spring 2009, during the university's most recent CMS evaluation and adoption decision to replace the existing CMS. This research bulletin presents the survey results to help inform other institutions with their own evaluation and adoption processes. The information will also benefit instructors looking to maximize their own use of a local CMS and/or to choose tools that enable personal learning environments, as well as specific tools for learning. "

Insights on student perceptions of the LMS.

"Of the 1,140 respondents, 92% reported they found the system very useful, useful, or somewhat useful, providing further evidence of the mission-critical nature of CMSs. [...] Responses identified their top choices as the ability to see their grades, course announcements, syllabus, assignment submission, online quizzes and tests, discussions, and calendar." (p. 4) "Students most frequently cited the need for a better user interface." (p. 5) "The most repeated suggestions fell into the areas of: - Improving ease of use of the e-learning system - Requesting specific tools or features - Requesting --perhaps requiring-- instructors to use the CMS" (p. 6) "Students most value tools that support self-monitoring: tracking progress, self-assessment, grade book views, and the like." (p. 8)