Developing enhanced ebooks


Project summary

The study “Developing enhanced e-books” is trying to respond to some of the challenges following the increasing use of e-books, both as learning tools and sources of knowledge. The project wants to collect, develop and share information and knowledge within this field. The main outcome will be an online course, with open resources and dissemination of experience to others interested in the use of e-books in teaching and learning.
The project will particularly focus on nonfiction genres. Partly because we consider nonfiction particularly relevant in teaching and partly because these genres have a special potential associated with enhanced / media-rich books.
The project can be seen as three connected parts, which reflect the most significant objectives:
  1. Developing a web-based course, 15 credits
  2. Developing open content resources that will both serve as curriculum in the web-based program, and as supplemental material to existing courses, which are currently given by the institutions involved. All partners have courses that can benefit form increased knowledge about the development and analysis of this type of texts, as a supplement to the current curriculums.
  3. The project will actively involve in knowledge transfer, both during the project (eg, in the form of project wiki, a project blog) and through articles, conference papers etc.
“Developing enhanced e-books” will be developed at Bergen University College  (Centre for New Media and the Centre for Arts, Culture and Communication) in collaboration with University of Bergen (Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies ) and Volda University College (Department of Media Studies). The project involves researchers and staff with complementary competencies in literature, art didactics, media production, web development, application development and graphic design.
Material will be developed on the following topics:
Media History
This will contribute to the understanding of ebooks as a medium, between several textual traditions: manuscript, book printing, photography, web texts, moving images and sound.
Storytelling
The digital book opens up new ways of navigating and representing media content. There are many experiences we can get from other media forms, especially the development of multi-media hypertexts online.
Media technology
Enhanced ebooks can include all types of media. Students must therefore be introduced to the various media’s properties and become able to handle various media in combination. This can of course be connected to content production in other, more traditional media.
Production
Students will be given an introduction to the use of tools for producing ebooks. It is too early to say specifically what tools that will de used, but we will focus on and encourage the use of open standards.
Publication
A number of commercial vendors offer ebook publishing via various web-based solutions. There are also significant opportunities related to self publishing. Opportunities related to publishing via channels other than the traditional publishers will be presented and discussed.
Social use
Ebooks become connected through the various reading devices, and potentially new ways of “reading” occur, where the “authors” get more opportunities to keep in touch with their audiences. Ebooks thus becomes a social medium, either directly - through the features of the software - or through various forms of contact and content sharing in existing social media.
Media Economics
Ebooks are products that have other economic constraints and opportunities, compared to books and other media that require physical distribution. Although this will not be a central part of the course, these issues di influence on how one become able to develop enhanced e books in commercial settings.
The students will do a number of exercises related to the analysis and production of enhanced media ebooks. This will particularly focus on how ebooks allow interactivity, by giving them more tactile interfaces, and more audiovisual content. This poses special, interdisciplinary design challenges.
The students will be able to develop basic knowledge and a theoretical foundation as well as basic practical skills. The curriculum will be published on an open platform, as well as on various ebook formats. Specific experience of how content is remediated for various platforms will be an essential part of the course.
Planned progress


2013
2014
Specification, concept development, curricula, syllabi
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Preparation of material
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Technical Development
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Testing / pilot
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Revision etc
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First implementation of web based course
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Knowledge transfer
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Final evaluation / reporting
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