Comparing Digital Apples and Oranges: A Comparative Analysis of e-Books Across Multiple Platforms

Abstract

This session reported the findings of a comparative analysis of how e-books are represented across multiple platforms. In this session, the presenters shared the results of a study that examined how a sample of academic e-books are represented across different platforms. Topics of analysis included: the inclusion of various metadata, the visual presentation of e-book content, and variations in search results. This presentation also focused on the similarities and differences between e-book representation and what impact these various representations might have on users of academic e-books.

Where’s the EASY Button? Uncovering E-Book Usability

“…These provide valuable assessments from the expert's perspective concerning what functions and features a platform includes or omits, how well essential tools work in a given environment, and treatment of aspects such as ADA accessibility. One key example is a work by Tovstiadi and Wiersma (2016), who conducted a rubric-based evaluation of 20 publisher and aggregator platforms to gauge and compare usability. 8 Their rubric used the CRL (Center for Research Libraries) Academic Database Assessment tool 9 as a foundation and incorporated additional evaluation from the e-book Accessibility Project.…”

“…One key example is a work by Tovstiadi and Wiersma (2016), who conducted a rubric-based evaluation of 20 publisher and aggregator platforms to gauge and compare usability. 8 Their rubric used the CRL (Center for Research Libraries) Academic Database Assessment tool 9 as a foundation and incorporated additional evaluation from the e-book Accessibility Project. Using the rubric, the researchers assessed each platform in regards to 34 elements important to usability and user experience, such as pagination, table of contents, native citation tool, search functionality, zoom, annotation, and more.…”

Livro didático digital no formato Epub: potenciais e desafios para uso na educação

“…Pela leitura das pesquisas e os resultados apresentados, ficou evidente que a necessidade de conhecimentos mais avançados para produzir e implementar recursos de interatividade, de acessibilidade, metadados e DRM foi considerada a dificuldade mais relevante para produzir livros didáticos digitais interativos, o que dificulta um processo mais simplificado. Entretanto, encontramos um único estudo voltado a essa questão e que, após a pesquisa, propôs uma solução intermediária que possibilita criar livros digitais sem a necessidade de profundos conhecimentos de programação (ARAÚJO, 2019;KNOLSEISEN, 2016;SARASA-CABEZUELO;2020;TOVSTIADI;WIERSMA, 2016;TURCIC;PAP, 2018;WU;SU, 2020).…”

The Global Book Publishing Market as an Interdisciplinary Research Field

“…David Emblidge suggested "a publishing studies online academic database available by subscription from a major academic publisher, reflecting publishing practices worldwide", containing "variety of teaching and learning tools" (2015,178). Papers on e-books analyzed definitions, preservations activities and methods of (re)presentation of content on platforms of various types (Machovec, 2018;Tovstiadi & Wiersma, 2016), facilitating library purchases (Forzetting et al, 2012;Vasileiou et al, 2012), as well as the readers' attitudes and behaviors, the influence of screen-based technologies (Mangen & van der Weel, 2016) and cultural differences, of education systems specific to each country, and of the level of socio-economic development, on the preferences regarding the format of the book and reading habits (Kovač & van der Weel, 2018;Shimray et al, 2015). The research subjects were usually students at a university, or a number of universities (Mizrachi et al, 2018).…”