ebook | It's About Learning

2 New Platforms Offer Alternative to Apple’s Textbook-Authoring Software

Dwayne Harapnuik — February 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

2 New Platforms Offer Alternative to Apple’s Textbook-Authoring Software – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

Shortly after the release of iBooks Author in the iBooks Author – Finally a FREE Platform for Creating Books blog post I stated:

…I look forward to seeing that impact it will have on the book and textbook publishing industry.

We are starting to see this impact and I hope that Booktype a FREE ebook development platform and Inkling’s Habitat are only the beginning of a long list of tools or platforms that provide authors and academia an ever growing lists of tools that they can use to digitally produce, publish and distribute their work.

In ebook digital books, free

iBooks Author – Finally a FREE Platform for Creating Books

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 23, 2012 — 2 Comments

Apple – iBooks Author via kwout

Apple announced its FREE ebook publishing platform iBooks Author on January 19th and since the announcement there have been a flurry of posts in the blogoshere, on twitter and in all other forms of social media commenting on Apples move into ebook publishing. A few of the sites I follow include:

Engaget: Apple’s iBooks Author hands-on provide a general overview of the Author tool.

Macleans: 90,000 have downloaded iBooks Author since Thursday offers straight data on just how much interest there is in the authoring tool.

Chronicle of Higher Education: Apple’s New E-Textbook Platform Enters an Already Crowded Field is relatively negative perspective from the Technology writer Jeffery Young.

Mashable: This Is How Apple Changes Education, Forever provides a glowing review the authoring tool and the impact it will have on education.

Regardless of that the early reviews reveal, through this FREE platform, Apple gives us the ability to create interactive ebooks with rich media, 3D images and a wide range of interactive features. These books can be saved to PDF, epub or can be published to the iBook store so even if you don’t have an iPad or a Mac you can still share the books with just about anyone. There currently isn’t another FREE tool that offers all this. Yes the full features will only be available for viewing on the iPad but all this means is that the Android world will have another tool to copy–which is a good thing.

Over the years I have used Aldus Pagemaker, Macromedia Pagemaker and then Adobe Pagemaker, InDesign and many other programs looking for the ultimate tool to help me build a book and I have always ended up not only hundreds of dollars poorer but also countless hour poorer. Apples iBook Author is a wonderful first offering from Apple and I look forward to seeing that impact it will have on the book and textbook publishing industry.

Review the iBooks Author site…

In ebook author, iPad

Pirated E-Textbooks

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 24, 2011 — Leave a comment

Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

For several years now I have been flippantly suggesting that we need the same level or type of pirating of e-texts as there was with music in order to have a significant change to the publishing industry. Many music labels and executives would disagree with me when I suggest that the pirating of music was one of the best things that happened to the music industry because it fundamentally changed the business and has given the consumer so many more options.

The textbook publishers should be concerned–very concerned about what will ultimately happen to their business. If you look at their current model, they along with journal publishers are unnecessary. The academics that are responsible for the content in these texts no longer need the organizational and distribution resources of the publishers–this can easily be done through the internet through Open Education Resources (OER) like Connexions or Open Textbook publishers like Flatworld Knowledge. Or better still professors can point to a wide assortment of free resources that redially available through other Open Access initiatives.

While I officially do not condone nor encourage pirating I have to admit that I silently applaud these brave individuals and groups who are willing to risk criminal prosecution to “free information” which we all know should be made available to everyone.

In ebook

Amazon to Introduce Library Lending for Kindle

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

Amazon to Introduce Library Lending for Kindle – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

This is a start. It will be interesting to see how preserving the annotations will work out. Lets hope that starts us on the journey of making all books available in a digital format.

In ebook kindle, library, overdrive

Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 23, 2010 — Leave a comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/arts/24peer.html?_r=1

For Scholars, Web Changes Sacred Rite of Peer Review – NYTimes.com via kwout

The following statement is key to the whole New York Times article and to the debate over opening up the peer review process:

…the goal is not necessarily to replace peer review but to use other, more open methods as well.

In opposition to this perspective is the traditional notion that evaluating originality and intellectual significance can be done only by experts in a field.

Yet academics like Mr. Cohen who regularly posts his work online are finding the exact opposite: