Seminar presentation from the CDE’s Research and Innovation in Distance Education and eLearning conference, held at Senate House London on 19 October 2012. Conducted by Patricia McKellar (UOL Undergraduate Laws Programme) and Steven Warburton (Uni of Surrey).

1. eReaders and ePublishing:
developing a model for flexible
and open distance learning
Patricia McKellar and Steven Warburton
RIDE Conference
October 19th 2012, London

2. • 20,000+ Undergraduate Laws
• Global market (1o0 countries)
• 50 recognised teaching institutions
• LLB degrees anddiplomas
• Academic quality and direction maintained by ‘lead
colleges’
• Two student ‘study types’ from self study to
teaching institution supported.

3. why?
eReaders and ePublishing

4. institutional context: print-based text

5. student context: digital and mobile

6. • 10 billion
• 1.4 per person
• 25 billion
• 24.9 billion
• 10 billion
• 1 billion per month
• 50%
• 70%

7. emerging technologies and adoption horizons (2010)
Gesture Based Computing 4 to 5 years
Visual data analysis
Electronic Books
2 to 3 years
Simple augmented reality
Mobile Computing 1 year or less
Open content

8. emerging technologies and adoption horizons (2011)
Gesture Based Computing 4 to 5 years
Learning analytics
Game based learning
2 to 3 years
Augmented reality
Electronic books 1 year or less
Mobile

9. emerging technologies and adoption horizons (2012)
Gesture Based Computing 4 to 5 years
Internet of things
Game based learning
2 to 3 years
Learning analytics
Mobile apps 1 year or less
Tablet computing

10. problem space
Print driven publishing model that effects:
• Sustainability (learning technologies);
• Costs;
• Logistics (global dispatch/delivery; timeliness);
• Leanness (warehouse stacked with books/study guides not ‘doing
anything’);
• Waste (over publish; out of date).
Lack of flexibility in outputs
Impact on responsiveness and scalability
Lack of flexibility for students

11. explore ePublishing and eReaders - what impact on:
student study environment; business models

12. other projects, other studies
• University of Leicester ’Duckling’ project
• Kindle US Universities project
• California Lutheran University pilot project
• University of Manchester JL Library
• Loughborough University e-reader project
• World reader project (http://www.worldreader.org/)

13. how?

14. action
• consideration of ePublishing formats (.epub /.mobi /
DRM)
• end device/s
• designed activity/s
• identification of pilot groups
• success criteria for the stakeholder groups
• evaluation (UAT) and data gathering methodology via
survey and focus group

15. five pilot groups: Pilot groups
Germany; Kenya; Singapore; two in UK.

16. stakeholder impact
Primary Secondary
• For students (study) • For tutors
• For the UoLIP (business) • For provider teaching
• For publishers institutions
• For device manufacturer • For content authors
• For HEA (funding body) and • For publishing teams
wider research community • For DRM managers

17. our project
Kobo and
eBookStore
(distribution)
Publishers
and ePubs
(access)
Students
(learning and
teaching)

18. results

20. What were the best aspects of this approach?
• Convenience and portability, light and handy (1);
• A large amount of study material to be stored and accessed on the go (1,
3);
• Able to study in more bite size chunks because I had the option of using
‘dead time’; (2, 4)
• I can optimise the amount of time I spend studying (4)
• The ability to have the subject guide, the study pack, the textbook and
access to the online resources and case databases on the 06:19 to
Waterloo (2)
• Functionality: annotations, bookmarking, highlighting, definition tool,
translation tool, return to a section, battery life, search facility (1, 3)

21. What did students not like about this approach?
• Functionality: sufficient light, annotations, bookmarking, highlighting,
battery life, search facility, slow loading, speed of changes, no
hyperlinks, touch screen not always effective, lack of colour (1, 3);
• Not having all the subjects on the eReader and having to go back and
forth with hard copy (3);
• A bit too one dimensional [hyperlinks] (3);
• Sometimes its hard to concentrate as it feels like staring at a PC (1);
• Impossible to look at two books at once (1, 4);
• If it was just supplied like this and said do the UoL course you’d struggle
but in conjunction with the VLE or hard copy it’s perfect (4)

22. Note taking and Highlighting
• Some issues of functionality
• Feedback overall positive: very useful, easy to create and easy to find,
easy to identify information to link to legal arguments, easy to tag for
further investigation, makes notes in the one place
• Being a more paper based person I usually prefer to make notes on
paper. However the convenience of the entire function when I am on the
move allows me to highlight and take notes when paper is unavailable.
Thus I have resorted to first making notes in the ereader and later if
necessary write it out separately
• Sharing with other students
Learning Analytics

23. is the approach working?
• I can read the materials in situations where I would
never have brought and read the hard copy versions
• In my prior classes I often did not do the ‘further
reading’since the books were so heavy
• Overall I was able to increase my reading hours for a
topic
• Attention and retention reported as improved
• Easier to carry around hence inclined to finish activities
• Unintended consequences -> life-styling; power user
• digital vs. paper divide
• Paper = flexible note-taking
• Digital = organisational advantages

24. Increase in further Lack of ability to
reading; time efficient see more than one
document
Lightweight and portable
Highlighting and
Flexible, adaptive notetaking limited
Limited interactivity
Suits different learning styles
More guidance needed
Use of ‘dead’ time
Device functionality
Device functionality –ve views
+ve views
ROI: cost benefit analysis based on educational and/or
business processes. What is your context?

25. Phase 2: scalability and business process
distribution
distribution
DRM and
DRM and
Publishers eReader manufacturer
eReader manufacturer
Student
Student
eTexts; rich Preloaded
Preloaded
eTexts; rich
media; eActivities eReader
eReader
media; eActivities
html5/CSS3/e
Pub3
Educational institution
Educational institution
Repository; xml;
editorial cycle;
LD; DRM; book Flexible
Flexible
store; library Mobile
Mobile Identify: capacity building issues
Connected
Connected

26. where next?

27. thank you