eTextbook lifecycle - a simple model to structure the discussion on requirements for a new standard

A simple lifecycle model of eTextbook authoring and use

Requirements for a new interoperability standard for digital textbooks should be elicited from all the processes taking part in the lifecycle of the learning resource. To help structure the  discussion we have identified seven key processes, which in turn could be factored out in a number of sub-processes defined and managed by different stakeholders, described in the figure above.

Authoring & publishing

• Main stakeholders: Publishers, Teachers, School authorities
• Issues:
  • Authoring tools
  • Pedagogical design, e.g. pathways, adaptivity, input from learner analytics (informing use of eTextbooks)
  • Maps / Navigation / Semantic metadata inclusion
  • Rich media / interactivity
  • Packaging (what is optimal unit?)
  • Licencing / DRM / IPR issues
  • Tools interoperability / relationship to “eSchoolbag” / external services
  • Technical formats
  • Publication channels

Aggregation & Searching

• Main stakeholders: Publishers, Curators (organisations/businesses that collate and run aggregation services) and Educational Agencies (e.g. national school authorities, universities, etc.)
• Issues:
  • Sharing of metadata on the eTextbook
  • Aggregation of eTextbooks according to curricula, reading lists
  • “Visibility issues” - eTextbook vs. OER
  • IPR, eg. orphaned works, works with unclear digital use IPR
  • Preview options / Subscription / Sales

Learning with eTextbooks (Use of eTextbooks)

• Main stakeholders: Learners, schools, universities
• Issues:
  • What are basic learning activities (use patterns) of an eTextbook?
    • Navigation
    • Annotation, sharing annotations
    • Tagging
    • Saving excerpts
    • Sharing (what are sharable units?)
  • What are educational (e.g., teacher directed) use of an eTextbook?
    • How to interact with the eTextbook (content) from outside (by whom?)
    • How to interact with services from inside the eTextbook (guided by use of the content)?
    • Simple Quiz (given by the eTextbok author / publisher)
    • Questions and tests directed by teacher / schools (bidirectional); Exams / complex assessment based in curricula /
    • registered courses
    • Progress report to LMS or other support services
    • Interaction with ePortfolio and systems for “self representation”
    • Disaggregation and reassembling
    • Scaffolding by teachers (learners contact teacher about issues in the ebook. Or teachers to provide more information about a given subject/ task / annotation in the ebook based on the learner’s progression)
    • Personalisation of the eTextbook?

Remixing

• Main stakeholder: Learners, teachers
• Issues:
  • Remixing is closely related to learning and teaching activities.
  • Teacher: Curation of optimal mix of learning material for the class.
  • Mixing eTextbooks, OER and own material
  • Pedagogical, economic and licencing issues influencing the mix
  • Learners’ motives for remixing may be more ambivalent
  • Active learning style buy in, eg. active annotation
  • Sharing
  • Maintenance of participation in community of learners
  • IPR and DRM
  • Quality issues: The remix may lead to a new resource of higher quality, or to quite the contrary

Republishing

• Main stakeholders: Teachers, learners and publishers
• Issues:
  • Channels for republishing
  • Local, e.g., school or school district
  • Regional or National, e.g., behind a SSO wall (in Norway FEIDE)
  • International, e.g., indexed by search engines
  • IPR and remuneration
  • Lifecycle issues: when is a remixed and republished resource “expired”?

Community

• Main stakeholders: Learners, teachers, publishers
• Issues:
  • Learning communities
  • Teacher Communities of Practice
  • Communities as marketing channels for publishers

The eTernity project workshop on the 16^th of January and the CEN WS-LT meeting the following day will come up with a plan for how the requirement analysis will take place.

Tore Hoel, vice-chair CEN WS-LT