Creation_challenges_technology

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Key TECHNOLOGY issues

References to support issues

General

From: JISC TechWatch: Preparing for Effective Adoption and Use of Ebooks in Education, November 2012. [page 17]

With the increased use of ebooks, there has been demand for added interactivity in ebooks, embedded videos, 3D diagrams and quizzes. Publishers are looking at various ways of responding to this demand, and in some cases they are producing ebooks as apps that are limited to a specific platform (and which will not work on other e-readers). Unfortunately, these ebooks as apps would not work within the lending model that HE libraries adopt to manage other ebooks.

From: JISC TechWatch: Preparing for Effective Adoption and Use of Ebooks in Education, November 2012. [page 18-19]

Problems may arise with some Web-based platforms that depend on using a specific Web browser (for example, Internet Explorer) and users for some reason do not have access to the required Web browser. Web-based platforms (and some other ebook applications) also often require Internet access in order to perform most functions including ebook reading, so they are unable to provide off-line access to ebooks.

These delivery platforms are supplied in the main by aggregators who collate collections from publishers and use the platforms to deliver ebooks directly to users.

One criticism of many of these different platforms is that they can be unnecessarily complex and difficult to use.