This document discusses EPUB and the Open Web Platform as the foundation for education publishing. It provides an overview of the International Digital Publishing Forum and the EPUB standard. It then outlines the EDUPUB Alliance's efforts to develop specifications integrating EPUB 3, IMS standards, and other emerging standards to create a comprehensive model for exchanging and deploying educational content using open web standards. Public drafts of the EDUPUB profile and related specifications are now available for review and implementation.

1. EPUB and the Open Web Platform
as the
Fundament for Education
Publishing
EDUPUB Tokyo 2014
September 18, 2014
Bill McCoy and Markus Gylling
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

2. International Digital Publishing Forum
non-profit trade association, formed in 1999
• 350+ member organizations from 45 countries
(40% North America, 34% Asia, 21% Europe, 5% ROW)
• Member organizations include publishers, service
providers, e-retailers, reading system developers,
libraries, educational institutions, government
agencies, national and global industry bodies
• Develop the EPUB standard

3. “Desktop Publishing” Was the First Step
Towards “Digital Publishing”
•The traditional publishing industry has progressively adopted digital
technologies since the 1980s
•PostScript, PDF, and XML
•These technologies were adopted primarily to optimize print output, with
digital distribution and especially digital consumption as afterthoughts
•Even now with eBooks widely adopted in some geographies, the majority of
revenue still comes from print for almost all titles, and most publishers are
still operating in a “print first, digital later” mindset

13. EPUB makes the Web Platform
work for portable documents
• Structured
• Navigable
• Packaged
• Metadata
• Reliable

14. <.epub File Structure>
• .ZIP-compatible archive containing:
14
mimetype
META-INF/
container.xml
[manifest.xml]
[metadata.xml]
[signatures.xml]
[encryption.xml]
[rights.xml]
content/
Great_Expectations.opf
cover.html
chapters/
chapter01.html
chapter02.html
…
assets/
style.css
image1.jpg
…

15. EPUB 3 and Accessibility
•EPUB 3 designed to fully meet all requirements for accessibility to people
with blindness and other print disabilities
•IDPF has actively partnered with DAISY Consortium on EPUB accessibility
•DAISY DTBook format being superseded in favor of EPUB 3 in order to
“mainstream” accessibility features
•EPUB 3 is a superset of DAISY functionality
•Governments and stakeholders around the world in the process of
mandating use of EPUB 3 to meet accessibility mandates

16. XML first in novels
from books to ebooks
Page
layout on
XML
Light Semantics
Content driven
Author
word
files
XML conversion
and editing
Manuscript
corrections
Hachette Livre
start in 2001
Printer
DAM
Images
XML to EPUBs
conversion
PDF print file
XML file
EPUB file
Content
proofing
25/03/2013 16

17. Fixed Layout production
Layout driven
InDesign to Fixed Layout
• InDesign Scripting and IDML export
• Conversion to HTML5 with absolute positioning
25/03/2013 17

18. Fixed Layout production
Layout driven
PDF to Fixed Layout
• SVG export with appropriate tools
• Use SVG directly in spine
25/03/2013 18

19. Fixed Layout production
Layout driven
PDF to Fixed Layout Images
• High quality image export form PDF
• Embed images in HTML5 files
25/03/2013 19

20. Innovation in Digital Publishing and Putting the User First
New Publishing
Models:
Reference
Modules
新出版模式
• Trustworthy
• Current & e-first
• Discoverable
• Hosted on ScienceDirect
Adding Value
to Content:
Enhanced
e-books
富媒体电子书
• Data manipulation
• Calculations & formulae
• Virtual micriscopes
• ePub3 today
Digitizing
Important
Historical
Content:
Legacy
历史资源数字化
• Foundational Science
• Easy to find and access
• Save shelf space
• Archival rights
Understanding Researcher
User Needs:
了解用户需求
• User Centered Design
• Integrated Content
• Enriched Content
• Tools

21. Practical Benefits of Adopting EPUB
•Lower costs of developing content that can flow to multiple devices and be
distributed via multiple channels
•Leverage Web Standards without the complexity of full-stack web app development
•Utilize off-the-shelf authoring tools and distribution options
•Utilize free, open source technologies
•Enable content to conveniently flow into and out of your organization/territory as
dictated by the business case
•Deliver on accessibility mandates
•Support evolution from “digitization” to native-digital storytelling with interactivity,
rich media, etc.
•Leverage continued stream of community-driven innovation around EPUB

22. EPUB Global Adoption
•EPUB 2 (previous version, pre-HTML5) widely proliferated for eBooks
•Reading System support for EPUB 3 rapidly increasing
•Apple iBooks, Google Play Books, Kobo, Sony, VitalSource
•Open Source development: Readium.org
•IDPF collaborating w/ BISG on epubtest.org test suite and reporting
•EPUB 3 authoring tool options increasing
•Apps from high-end (Adobe InDesign supports fixed-layout and
reflowable EPUB 3) to mass-market (Apple Pages exports EPUB 3)
•Specialized workflow tools (Aerbook, Metrodigi Chaucer, Aquafadas, …)
•Japan has holistically adopted EPUB 3
•EPUB adopted for both trade eBooks and e-Manga
•Education industry rapidly converging on EPUB 3 for e-textbooks (EDUPUB)

23. What is the EDUPUB Alliance?
• A global community for focused coordination of ongoing
work among multiple standards organizations and their
stakeholders (currently IDPF, IMS Global, W3C)
• Not YASO (Yet Another Standards Organization)
creating EMFF (Even More File Formats)
• A lightweight superstructure to help ensure that
existing widely-adopted standards mesh and meet
requirements of next-generation learning content
• EDUPUB = Open Web Standards (inc. next-gen
Portable Documents) + Educational Connectivity

24. The EDUPUB 2014 deliverable
a comprehensive model for the interchange and deployment
of educational content
based on the Open Web Platform
expressed as an integrated set of specifications including
EPUB 3 (IDPF), LTI, QTI, Caliper (IMS) and other emerging
standards

25. EPUB-centric Lens on EDUPUB
Equip EPUB 3 with everything needed for EDU content:
• Integrate existing IMS standards (QTI, LTI, Caliper)
• Deliver general EPUB capabilities needed for EDU (annotations,
widget API, discrete entities)
• Develop EDU-semantic-enhanced profile of EPUB 3
• Facilitate rapid implementation (Readium open source)
EPUB adopters in general benefit:
• EDU content pushes the envelope of required capabilities
o Interactivity
o Connectivity
o Complex information design,
o A11Y requirements

26. EDUPUB Alliance 2014 Deliverables:
cheat sheet
Content Context
Structured profile of HTML5
Assessments
(Reflowable & Fixed Layout)
Package-level metadata
(edu, a11y)
Outcomes services
EDU structural semantics vocabulary Analytics services
Discrete Entities (Markup & Packaging)
Widgets (Markup, API & Packaging)
Annotations (W3C OA adaption)
Multiple Renditions (Dependency)
26
Implementation
Open Source PoC based on Readium JS

27. Public Drafts Available Now:
• EPUB 3 EDUPUB Profile public draft 2 released Sep 8
http://idpf.org/epub/profiles/edu/spec/
● “Satellite Specs” referenced in EDUPUB Profile:
● Open Annotation in EPUB http://idpf.org/epub/oa/
● EPUB Discrete Objects http://idpf.org/epub/do/
● EPUB Widgets Packaging and Integration
● http://idpf.org/epub/widgets/
● And from IMS: Using Caliper Analytics, QTI and LTI
with EPUB 3: EDUPUB Best
Practices:http://www.imsglobal.org/edupub/index.
html
● http://idpf.org/ongoing

28. Notes on EDUPUB Accessibility support
omnipresent
Well-tempered, semantically rich markup/structure (HTML5 profile)
Logical Reading Order
ARIA
Package-level schema.org a11y metadata
optionally/conditionally present
Media Overlays (synced hybrid text/audio, full or partial)
TTS enhancements (PLS, SSML)
Multiple Renditions (forthcoming)
http://www.idpf.org/accessibility/guidelines/

29. EDUPUB Alliance: Roadmap ahead
EDUPUB 2014
Finalize current specification deliverables
Work on OSS implementations (Readium, other)
EDUPUB 2015…
Gather input from community on EDUPUB 2014 feature set
Identify critical next steps & who needs to be involved
Planning EDUPUB Implementation Workshop: Phoenix Feb 26-28 2015

31. The Platform Game
• The ICT landscape can be viewed as a set of specialized
ecosystems, each comprising a “platform”
• Tech firms often seek to establish their own platform(s)
• Platforms generally exhibit “lock-in”
• Switching costs
• Network effects
• Barriers to entry by competitors

32. Open Standards Encourage
Interoperable Platforms
• Lower barriers to entry
• Lower switching costs between providers of
platform components
• Same tools, skills applicable across platforms
• Promotes competition among multiple
implementations of a given architecture
• Network effects accrue across all adopters not
solely a single platform provider
• Open platforms as generative architectures

33. Adopting EPUB as your EDU content platform
will increase your operational efficiency, and
maximize your distribution opportunities
EPUB and the overall Open Web Platform are
fundamental to preventing lock-in to
proprietary platforms
We’re still just at the beginning of EDU
publishing beyond paper: HTML5/EPUB will
enable you to evolve from digitization of
print to creating native digital content

34. Getting Involved
http://epubzone.org
http://idpf.org
http://readium.org
@idpf.org
@billmccoy