Providing ebook learning materials for distance learners to use on any handheld device

Creating an ebook with iBooks Author: .pdf and .ibooks

On 5 March 2013, the Handheld Learning Group met to hear from Jeremy Turner of the Centre for Labour Market Studies and Management. Jeremy has been involved in the production of materials for distance learners from these departments, and consequently he has seen a lot of paper being printed and shipped out ---- perhaps too much paper. It has recently been decided, therefore, to produce the learning materials in ebook formats -- both pdf and epub --- and next to totally discontinue the production and shipping of paper materials to distance students. The idea here is that students will probably already own some sort of mobile device, be it smartphone or tablet. Providing reading material in these two formats will ensure that students can read the ebooks on pretty much whatever mobile device they own. Hence, this is a BYOD or Bring Your Own Device solution for distance learners.

Jeremy uses inDesign to set up and create the ebooks. inDesign can be purchased for either Macs or PCs (I saw an educational price of about £120 but I am not sure it was the latest version of the software). Jeremy and his colleagues have been using inDesign for a long time since that was how they had been producing paper materials. inDesign is a professional tool, and it creates books in both pdf and epub formats. epub is the format used in all mobile ebook readers *except* the Kindle, which uses the mobi format. Jeremy stated that Kindle users know how to convert epub files into mobi -- this is part of the email service Amazon provides to Kindle owners.

Jeremy found that creating ebooks in these two formats was no more difficult than the format-for-print he had been doing already. One issue arising is that while pdf files preserve the pages and hence the page numbers, epub files do not preserve pages. An epub file resizes its pages to fit the size of the mobile device screen, whatever it is, and so page numbers become irrelevant, possibly causing confusion for referencing. This is the situation with ebook readers generally. One way I have seen this dealt with, has been to cite chapter, paragraph, and line, rather than page number. I imagine as ebooks make their way deeper into the academic experience, new conventions for citing ebooks will develop.

I have never used inDesign so cannot comment on its ease of use or otherwise. My impression is that because it is a professional tool, it is at least somewhat complicated. I have used iBooks Author, and it is easy to use. I've included a screenshot of an ebook file open in iBooks Author as I was creating the ebook. It's a small picture, but you might be able to make out the different templates along the top. I find this a bonus, enabling me to make the ebook look really nice even though I have no talent in graphic design. iBooks Author is Mac-only and it is free, and ebooks created with it can be saved in pdf and .ibooks which is the proprietary Apple iBooks format. But it does not save as epub, which is a bit of a problem. For a couple of ebooks I worked on, I created them first in iBooks Author, then I copied and pasted the text into Pages, which does save as epub. Pages, again Mac-only, costs about £20 and is easy to use.

The meeting was attended by many people from across campus who were interested to see how these departments have decided to handle distance learning materials. Jeremy promised to come back in a year and report how things are going. I for one would love to see student evaluation of their courses with learning materials provided in this way.

Since the meeting, I have been thinking about the trend, if there is a trend, to create learning materials in mobile-friendly formats. In a sense, pdf is the lowest-common-denominator mobile-friendly text format, but one needs to be aware of its limitations. With pdf, the page size is staunchly fixed. Is it a nice experience to read a pdf on a smartphone? Personally, I would say it is not a nice experience, but at least it can be done. In fact, one person attending our meeting said her department decided to create pdf documents in smaller page sizes, to fit mobile devices better. This is not a bad idea and I wondered who else might be experimenting with this. Epub should be a better reading experience on smartphones because the text is shaped to the screen. The Apple-only .ibooks is great for iPhones, but doesn't work on Androids. At the moment, my conclusion is that it is best to try and create both pdf and epub. Using inDesign sounds like a pretty tidy solution but I wonder how many academics would be happy to try using it themselves. iBooks Author is a more likely candidate for a busy academic to use, but it doesn't do epub.

Publishing for mobile is not really that new, but it does not seem to be settling down into tidy, easy solutions very quickly.

Terese Bird, Learning Technologist and SCORE Research Fellow, University of Leicester

Leicester App and Blackboard Mobile Learn

On Friday 14th December, our newly-renamed Handheld Learning Group met around cookies and brownies to discuss the recent launch of the Leicester app and Blackboard Mobile Learn. I had been thinking of these two as separate things, but they are connected and they are both ultimately made available by Blackboard.

On the Apple store, you can find the Leicester app by searching for LeicesterUni (I don't know if it is titled the same in the Android store). It is free. When you download it, you can see a gateway into Blackboard. You need your university login for that part; it is an applet called Blackboard Mobile Learn (which can actually be downloaded as a separate app). Blackboard Mobile Learn offers users most functions of Blackboard in a custom-made environment for their mobile device -- even Blackberry.

The LeicesterUni app was launched rather quietly after autumn term started, and since then, even with not much publicity, it has been downloaded over 3000 times. 2500 of these have been to iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch). Besides the Blackboard section, the app offers campus maps, a way to quickly find a free campus PC, and a portal into the library search system, plus more. The ITS and Marketing joint project team responsible for the app have been meeting with students to keep up on student opinion and wishes for further development. I asked how staff could register a request for something to be added to the app, and the answer is that there is a feedback button on the app (it's kind of hard to see and it looks like a lightning flash), where email addresses are listed to register such requests.

LeicesterUni app on iOS

As for Blackboard Mobile Learn itself, ITS have written some guidelines about what definitely does not work and what definitely does work:

• Blackboard Mobile Learn help page – overview of what will work and links to documents from Blackboard with more details
• Best practice for mobile – how can you make your Blackboard course sites work better from a mobile device?

And Catherine Leyland of ITS says "This information is a starting point but needs to be developed as we use Blackboard mobile more within the University and get more idea of what works and how best to use it.  If anyone does come across anything else they want to share, useful tips etc. then could you let me know and I’ll update these pages?" So there is our invitation!

As for me, I have been encouraging instructors to solicit feedback from their students regarding Blackboard Mobile Learn, so that we can be aware of issues and how the students are using it.

Terese Bird, Learning Technologist, University of Leicester

Mobile Google+ Communities

On Friday, Google launched Google+ Communities. What are these good for? We don't know yet, but they are broadly equivalent to Facebook groups and as those have lots of applications, Communities look like they might be interesting.

An initial frustration was the inability to access Communities on mobile devices, specifically tablets, as they don't appear on the Google+ app or the mobile version of the site Google (wrongly) forces on tablet users. Thankfully, George Station came up with a workaround. Use the Chrome browser and at the Google+ login page, select Request Desktop Site from the dropdown menu under the Settings cog:

That should work, although you may need to log out and back in again a couple of times, then you should have access to Communities:

See you there!

Alan Cann

Biological Sciences

Harnessing Smartphones for Ecological Education, Research, and Outreach

"Mobile phones equipped with PC-like operating systems, GPS, internet connectivity, cameras, and video capabilities (e.g. smartphones) are used by 49% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24. Immersed in digital technology from early childhood, members of this “Millennial Generation” are often frustrated with the passivity and isolation inherent in traditional forms of teaching. To meet the pedagogical challenges these students present, faculty are increasingly encouraged to emphasize group-based learning and incorporate technology in the classroom to better engage students and enhance learning."


Harnessing Smartphones for Ecological Education, Research, and Outreach. (2012) Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 93(4), 390-393.

University of Leicester Mobile App: A Review

The University of Leicester released the first version of its mobile app for iOS and Android devices this week.

So, what do you think?

Here are a few of my thoughts (iOS version) on first impression:

• Maps - Excellent way for new students to find their way around campus, except that the North Campus is not available. If you are on campus you can click the location arrow and it'll direct you to where it is (thankfully using Google maps and not iOS6 maps).
• Blackboard - full integration to the Blackboard Mobile App ... more on this later.
• Find a PC - Brilliant feature - you have to first select a room to see how many PCs are currently free, but it is quite easy to switch room to another if the one you first try is full. My tip is to change it from 'list view' to 'map view' so you can see where the rooms are - you may not always know what a room is called, but you can easily see what rooms are close to where you are, or want to be. My idea for the next version would be to have this facility join up with the 'book a PC' function (if it exists?) to reserve a PC (for a limited time until you can login of course).
• News - News feed from the main University website. Nice feature and, if students use the app as their first port of call, will be a good resource to keep students up to date. I think this would be better suited to a news feed, or series of news feeds, from different areas of the University, namely the Student Union and IT Services - this is, after all, what kind of news will affect the students most.
• YouTube / Videos - Nice to see integration for University YouTube video but it is limited to only the 10 shown and available (not sure which 10 these are, or if it's a dynamic list loaded from YouTube). Those that are available are clearly aimed at prospective students - the question is will prospective students go to the trouble of downloading the app? If anyone has research on this I'd like to read it please (whichever direction it supports, for or against). Could this not somehow link to all the videos available through the University's YouTube channel and playlists?
• Gallery / Images - Again, some nice additions showcasing the University, its location, and its student body, but are 14 images really enough? Could this not link to the University's Flickr account and let the user browse through more images?
• Social - A nice list of the University's social networks - each one opens a browser instances to view.
• Get Help - Excellent list of resources and phone numbers for students if they need help. Whether it's IT Services, the Student Health Centre, or local Police, the phone numbers are here and, if you touch the list item you can start the call. What I'd like to see are more details for some of the items here though - e.g.email, address, map, etc for each item, certainly the campus based ones which could then link through to the 'map' section to help direct the person to the door rather than a phone number.
• Open Days - I'm not sure what I was expecting to get in this section, but some text and an email/phone link wasn't it. If the app is (partly) directed at prospective students then this area could/should be far more populated and dynamic with dates, locations, links, videos, etc.

Campus Map & Search Facility

Find a PC (Map view)

University YouTube videos

University News

Images

Get Help


The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed I've left out possibly the two biggest areas - Blackboard and Library. These are big efforts and could make a big difference to how students interact with the University, so I wanted to give them space in their own right.

• Library - Excellent, love this - trying to use the Library through the normal Safari web interface on a phone screen is difficult, and this addition to the app will prove (I hope) very useful and very well used. It took a little getting used to but the results are good. The only downside, for the kind of searches I did, is the link to online or eBook resources, but I think that's more down to the web system provided by the publisher than a fault of the app itself. Please correct me if I'm wrong?

• Blackboard - Potentially a lot of traffic in the app could be coming this way, depending on (a) how the University pushes it, (b) how well the Blackboard materials render in the app environment, and (c) whether the students want to use their smartphone to access Blackboard. I have found varying levels of accuracy in the app, and it's more down to the materials available, and how they have been presented in Blackboard, than anything: most of the "issues" can be sorted by loading the files in a way outlined in the app support.
  
  If you think your students will make use of this feature of the app then I suggest you take some time to either investigate your Blackboard course and how it works or, if you don't have a compatible phone to do so, ask a very nice person you know if they'd help you out - it could make a huge difference in how you work with your students, and how they work with you.
  
  In the app teams defence it is not intended to be a first port-of-call for Blackboard materials and interactions, but I am interested to see any results of any studies on how students will (and do) use the app to see where the development is needed to increase its use, improve its functions and facilities, and improve the student satisfaction on whether the app is worth having.

BlackBoard Files and Folders

Blackboard Files and Folders

BlackBoard Content

BlackBoard Discussion posts (threads)

Are you using the app, have to found something about it that I've not covered and think it's worth mentioning? Please feel free to leave a comment, or contact IT Services directly via the project webpage.