EDUCAUSE | E-Textbooks

Kindle Accessibility Concerns Continue

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:39:14 +0000

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) continues to raise concerns about the accessibility of Amazon's Kindle devices as well as its Kindle apps for other devices (e.g., the iPad) for persons with visual disabilities. On its Kindle Books page, NFB provides a chart comparing the accessibility of Kindle devices/apps against accessible alternatives, the iBook and Blio, along a number of key parameters, such as text highlighting and note-taking features that would be of particular interest to postsecondary students.

E-Text Platform Provider's Accessibility Announcement

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:15:03 +0000

Last week, Courseload, an e-text platform provider that has consistently participated in the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 E-Text Pilot Series, announced that it had achieved major progress in making its platform's collaboration functions (e.g., peer and faculty highlighting and annotation) accessible in line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the technology accessibility guidelines established for federal agencies under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Ten Years Later: Why Open Educational Resources Have Not Noticeably Affected Higher Education, and Why We Should Care

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:58:27 +0000

Key Takeaways

Open educational resources made a dramatic appearance with the 2002 debut of MIT’s Open Courseware initiative.
In the roughly 10 years since, OERs have not noticeably disrupted the traditional business model of higher education or affected daily teaching approaches at most institutions.
Four major hurdles seem the likeliest hindrances to adoption of OERs: discoverability, quality control, bridging the last mile, and acquisition.
OERs could unify and advance the essentially disconnected developments in digital textbooks and MOOCs by establishing a global enterprise learning content management system.

The Cost and Quality of Online Open Textbooks: Perceptions of Community College Faculty and Students

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:24:50 +0000

Proponents of open educational resources (OER) claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the college classroom. We investigated student and faculty perceptions of OER used in a community college context. Over 125 students and 11 faculty from seven colleges responded to an online questionnaire about the cost and quality of the open textbooks used in their classrooms. Results showed that the majority of students and faculty had a positive experience using the open textbooks, appreciated the lower costs, and perceived the texts as being of high quality. The potential implications for OER initiatives at the college level seem large. If primary instructional materials can in fact be made available to students at no or very low cost, without harming learning outcomes, there appears to be a significant opportunity for disruption and innovation in higher education.

Authors: TJ Bliss, John Hilton III, David Wiley, and Kim Thanos

Stanford School of Medicine E-Book Pilots

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:33:36 +0000

To investigate the rapidly growing field of e-books, Stanford School of Medicine piloted the development and use of e-books in two residency programs. The project focused on the authoring and publishing processes as well as the response of the residents who were to be the eventual users. Residents who used the surgery residency e-book found it overall to be useful and would recommend it to other residents, though the authoring process leaves much to be desired and file format standards are fragmented.

Born Digital - and Accessible

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 22:34:01 +0000

Join Malcolm Brown, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative director, and Veronica Diaz, ELI associate director, as they moderate this webinar with Larry Goldberg and Madeleine Rothberg of WGBH NCAM. The digitization of online learning and media, including electronic publishing and textbooks, has brought both great opportunities and unique challenges for colleges and universities with a mission to serve all of their students inclusively. Anywhere, anytime learning in malleable and flexible digital formats can provide students with disabilities timely and equal access as never before. However, old models of retrofitting materials no longer work and can be vastly expensive.

A new approach, building infrastructure and enhancements into content and delivery from conception, enables direct and on-demand access for all: learning materials and processes can be "born digital—and accessible." In the past few years, more than ever before, resources and tools have become available to support this goal. Progress is evident in a variety of sectors: federally funded research and development projects, commercial enterprises large and small, cloud-based services with distributed labor, hardware and software manufacturers, and advocacy and standards organizations.

What We're Learning from eTexts

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 18:29:40 +0000

Presentation given at the CNI fall 2012 membership meeting.

Faculty, students, authors, and publishers all have a stake in the evolution of textbooks. As texts and business models are transformed variously by online interactivity and open-source content, what are the implications for the stakeholders? EDUCAUSE and Internet2 have been collaborating on e-text pilots to explore some of these issues. In addition to assessing how e-texts are best used, the multi-campus pilots seek to test new models for financing, distributing, and using e-texts. This presentation discusses some of the policy issues involved, including licensing vs. sales, accessibility, affordability, rights, and privacy.

Policy Issues for eText Adoption in Higher Education

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:37:54 +0000

EDUCAUSE and Internet2 have initiated an eText Pilot Series in an effort to learn more about the promises of eContent and to influence evolving business models. During a recent presentation at the Coalition for Networked Information Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., the EDUCAUSE Policy staff described "What We're Learning from eTexts" and explored some of the policy issues as we transition from print to digital textbooks. Below are a few highlights:

E-Texts or Bust: Observations from the Internet2/EDUCAUSE E-Text Pilot

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:32:07 +0000

In 2012, Internet2 and EDUCAUSE sponsored an initiative to pilot the use of e-textbooks across multiple universities. Over 25 institutions are participating in the study, with each evaluating the impact of e-textbooks. What have been some of the initial key takeaways from this undertaking? In this session, representatives from six institutions will share their key insights and lessons learned.

E-Textbook Opportunities and Decisions

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:32:27 +0000

Institutions are faced with many options for dealing with e-textbooks. University of Wisconsin–Madison has participated in e-textbook pilots for two semesters and has developed a set of institutional principles related to text availability, accessibility, costs, delivery, and student learning to drive future e-textbook decisions. Facing those same decisions, staff at the University of Illinois developed their own browser-based HTML5 e-textbook implementation called eText@Illinois. They built their system to be device-agnostic, ADA Section 508–compliant, and with class-roster-based communication links between students and instructors. Representatives from each institution will share their experiences and model an evaluation of eText@Illinois based on UW–Madison's criteria.

Next-Generation Learning: How Do We Get There from Here?

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:32:10 +0000

What does tech-enabled next-generation learning mean to you, and what does it look like on your campus? What excites you most about the potential it offers? What is your greatest concern about if the innovations we're seeing today-MOOCs, online degrees, digital texts, mobile learning-were to be widely used? What might be lost? What does an institution that actively supports and accelerates next-generation learning look like? What are some signals coming from your campus that tech-enabled next-generation learning is showing results in terms of student outcomes? In a truly student-centered and learning-focused approach to education, traditional notions of a higher education campus, faculty, credit policies, and other structures need to change. But how do we get there from here?

Technology Enhancement Tools in an Undergraduate Biology Course

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:52:50 +0000

This single-class study sought to evaluate technology-enhanced student engagement by comparing the experiences of students using only an e-textbook with the experiences of those using only a standard textbook.
Students were surveyed throughout the course, and more than 80 percent of the iPad users reported they "loved" using it and wanted to use it in future courses.
Contrary to students' assumptions both before and after iPad use, however, students using the technology did not perform better than those using the standard textbook.

EDUCAUSE/Internet2 eText Pilots and Accessibility

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:36:57 +0000

In 2012, EDUCAUSE and Internet2 began a series of pilots to explore e-text/e-content business models and institutional adoption. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) expressed concerns about the pilots and the accessibility of e-text/e-content for students who have visual disabilities. Executives from our three organizations have since established a basis for collaboration moving forward. These letters articulate the NFB’s concerns, the organizations’ responses, and the commitment to sustained dialogue on the e-texts/e-content efforts as they move forward.

UPDATE

February 12, 2013: EDUCAUSE Policy Specialist Jarret Cumming's blog post, E-Text Platform Provider's Accessibility Announcement
February 5, 2013: Courseload Releases First eText Platform with Accessible Collaborative Features

Free Digital Textbooks, More For-Profit Accountability Coming to California

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:57:01 +0000

As reported by Inside Higher Ed, new laws enacted in California will have significant impacts on higher education in the state. The Los Angeles Times reports that two companion pieces of legislation—Senate Bills 1052 and 1053—will create the infrastructure to support access to free digital textbooks for the top 50 lower division courses offered by the University of California, the California State University, and California community colleges.

ERO Podcast: Cable Green of Creative Commons Talks About Openness

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:49:44 +0000

In this podcast, Cable Green talks about Open Access, Open Resources, and Open Policies. Cable Green is director of global learning for Creative Commons.

E-Content: Opportunity and Risk

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:38:49 +0000

The sooner a campus establishes a process for supporting its community’s exploration of different models of e-content, the sooner it will be able to help positively influence the e-content marketplace and also address the largest priorities of higher education today.

Podcast: Wake Forest University's BioBook

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:21:34 +0000

In this podcast we interview the creators of BioBook, a scalable e-text embodying six central principles of learning. It is organized into self-contained "nodes" that can be revised or reorganized for different courses and learners' needs. In addition to this interview, you can read an also read an EDUCAUSE Review article about BioBook.

This conversation features:

Case Study 21: Shaping the Path to Digital: The Indiana University eTexts Initiative

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:37:31 +0000

This case study focuses on the use of digital textbooks for cheaper and better access to content. This case study describes a pilot study to full implementation at Indiana University (IU) , which is now in a trial phase at five peer institutions.

New ELI 7 Things... Explores the Evolution of the Textbook

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:25:25 +0000

Tablet devices and the publishing they enable are leading us to reconsider what constitutes a textbook, and they certainly change the landscape of what it has traditionally meant to write and publish one. A new breed of rich-media publishing tools offers an evolving set of opportunities both for the creation process and for the kinds of resources that can be produced. These resources could include 3D charts and tables, interactive maps, continual updates, and quizzes with instant feedback.

7 Things You Should Know About the Evolution of the Textbook

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:35:05 +0000

Tablet devices and the publishing they enable are leading us to reconsider what constitutes a textbook, and they certainly change the landscape of what it has traditionally meant to write and publish one. A new breed of rich-media publishing tools offers an evolving set of opportunities both for the creation process and for the kinds of resources that can be produced. These resources could include 3D charts and tables, interactive maps, continual updates, and quizzes with instant feedback. The integration of text with various kinds of media, coupled with broad access to new creation tools, could result in these resources becoming valuable parts of students’ digital learning landscapes.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know About…" briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.

FCC/U.S. Dept. of Ed. Highlight Drive for K-12 E-Textbooks

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:33:56 +0000

In his latest "DC News" post, my EDUCAUSE Policy colleague, Greg Haledjian, provided information about a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and U.S. Department of Education (ED) forum in which K-12, educational publishing, educational technology, and telecommunications leaders were convened to brainstorm strategies to "move all K-12 schools to interactive digital textbooks in the next five years." The event included a review of findings from a research report indicating that such a transition could save schools $250 per student annually.

DC News: US Education Secretary and FCC Chairman and Discuss Digital Textbooks with EdTech Leaders

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:57:00 +0000

On March 29, 2012, at a digital learning summit in Washington, DC, US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski led a discussion about integrating tablet computers into schools. They pointed to a study that said switching to “digital textbooks” would save schools about $250 per student per year.

Sources:

Fact Sheet: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0329/DOC-313315A1.pdf

Genachowski Remarks: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0329/DOC-313314A1.pdf

Cost Models: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0329/DOC-313315A2.pdf

LEAD Commission Presentation: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0329/DOC-313315A3.pdf

Open Education Week Starts Today

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:33:15 +0000

The first-ever “Open Education Week” starts today and runs through Friday, March 10. Launched by the Open Courseware Consortium with the participation of nearly 100 colleges, universities, foundations, and other organizations from around the world, the purpose of the event is to raise awareness about the current and potential impact of open educational resources to advance educational access and achievement globally. U.S. Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter will hold a conference call at 1:00 PM, EST, to highlight the U.S.

The Promise of Accessible Technology, Part 3 - Colleges and Universities

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:56:34 +0000

At the recent U.S. Senate hearing on technology accessibility that focused largely on higher education, “The Promise of Accessible Technology: Challenges and Opportunities,” Mark Turner, Director of the Center for Accessible Media at the California State University (CSU), presented his perspective on “the issues faced by postsecondary institutions as they work to ensure that technology used to deliver educational programs and services are usable by all students, staff, faculty, and members of the public—irrespective of disability status.” In doing so, he noted that the size and scope of the CSU, with 23 campuses serving 427,000 students a year, meant that the university system as a whole served enough students with disabilities (approximately 11,000) to populate a mid-sized university in their own right.

Adoption of E-Book Readers among College Students: A Survey

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:56:37 +0000

Author Nancy Foasberg, looks into the use of E-Readers on a college campus. This article was published in the September 2011 issue of Information Technology and Libraries. To learn whether e-book readers have become widely popular among college students, this study surveys students at one large, urban, four-year public college. The survey asked whether the students owned e-book readers and if so, how often they used them and for what purposes. Thus far, uptake is slow; a very small proportion of students use e-readers. These students use them primarily for leisure reading and continue to rely on print for much of their reading. Students reported that price is the greatest barrier to e-reader adoption and had little interest in borrowing e-reader compatible e-books from the library.