Re: [school-discuss] Digital textbooks

[Les R <openadmin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Evan,

A few questions about epub:

a) What kind of authoring environments are available?

b) What kind of media embedding (if any) and linking does it support?

c) Can it be used as part of a 'single source, multiple output
formats' where we have a single source code for documents, but can
have multiple output (object) formats .... pdf, html,  epub?

Thanks,

Les Richardson
Open Admin for Schools



2009/7/12 Evan Leibovitch <evan@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Silverio Carugo wrote:
>
> Italy is the first nation in the world to have switched from paper
> to digital textbooks.
>
> I am pleased to inform you that the first digital textbook entirely
> written by teachers (and their students)  is titled 'DIDASknol' and  can be
> seen here.
>
> http://www.DIDASknol.it
>
> DIDASknol is based  on the Google Knol  technology and is considered an
> outstanding example  of knowledge sharing
>
> I have been doing substantial research on the issue of e-books and ebook
> readers, especially the standards-based answer to the Amazon Kindle.
>
> The Kindle is technologically a good step forward, but it is should not and
> cannot be used for a number of reasons:
>
> 1) It's a proprietary format
> 2) DRM is mandatory
> 3) Only available in the US
> 4) All book distribution must flow through Amazon
>
> I have been working for many months on the "epub" format, which is an open
> standards-based alternative to the Kindle that is supported by a number of
> companies including Sony, Google, Adobe and others. The most popular Kindle
> alternative is the Sony ebook reader but there are alternatives.
>
> Why use the epub format instead of PDFs?
>
> Ever tried to read a PDF on a smartphone? PDFs have a fixed format that only
> allows you to zoom and scroll. Epub documents reformat and optimize
> themselves for your reading device.
>
> Anyway.... I have invested a large amount of time on epub documents, and I
> have already started to produce some academic texts in this format for a
> homelessness research project at my university. I would love to talk to
> anyone else here who may have an interest in this method of book production
> and distribution.
>
> Evan Leibovitch
> Open Source Architect
> York University
> Toronto
>
>