TY - GEN
T1 - A review on the development of an online platform for open textbooks
AU - Cheung, Simon K.S.
AU - Lee, Kelvin K.W.
AU - Chan, Kelvin K.L.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Open textbooks are typical open education resources that are freely and openly available for anyone to use and re-use, usually through an online platform which serves at least four purposes. First, it provides a repository for hosting the open textbooks. Second, it provides functions for users to access the open textbooks, both online and offline. Third, it also provides functions for users to contribute, revise, remix and redistribute the textbook contents. Forth, it allows users to rate and comment on the textbook contents. This paper shares our experience in developing an experimental platform for open textbooks, especially on the technical limitations and problems. The key functions of an open textbook platform are identified. It is learnt that user friendliness and easiness for use are the design objectives so a simple and concise user interface is required. It is however revealed that a right balance between user friendliness and functional comprehensiveness is important but difficult to achieve.
AB - Open textbooks are typical open education resources that are freely and openly available for anyone to use and re-use, usually through an online platform which serves at least four purposes. First, it provides a repository for hosting the open textbooks. Second, it provides functions for users to access the open textbooks, both online and offline. Third, it also provides functions for users to contribute, revise, remix and redistribute the textbook contents. Forth, it allows users to rate and comment on the textbook contents. This paper shares our experience in developing an experimental platform for open textbooks, especially on the technical limitations and problems. The key functions of an open textbook platform are identified. It is learnt that user friendliness and easiness for use are the design objectives so a simple and concise user interface is required. It is however revealed that a right balance between user friendliness and functional comprehensiveness is important but difficult to achieve.
KW - Open textbook
KW - online textbook platform
KW - open education resource
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84905842626&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-08961-4_19
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-08961-4_19
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84905842626
SN - 9783319089607
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 196
EP - 207
BT - Hybrid Learning
T2 - 7th International Conference on Hybrid Learning, ICHL 2014
Y2 - 8 August 2014 through 10 August 2014
ER -