Syllabus

Week 1 – September 3:  Introduction to EBooks (and this course)

Topics

  • A brief history of the ebook
  • Types/genres of books, types of reading
  • Demos of EBooks (textbooks, scholarly publication, hypertext novels, knowledge bases, magazines, technical documentation, ebooks for kids, etc.)
  • A Tour of the Syllabus
  • Course Administrivia:  Assignments, Grading, the Ebook Cookbook, Mutual Expectations…

Required Readings

  • Marshall Chapter 1, Chapter 2 through 2.1
  • Rockley, A., Cooper, C.  eBooks 101.  Link to eBooks101
  • Rabinowitz, D. Living through the Evolution of Etextbooks. 5 April 2013. http://tidbits.com/e/13685
  • Rainie, L., Zickuhr, K., Purcell, K., Madden, M. and Brenner, J. The rise of e-reading, Per Internet and American Life Project, 4 April 2012. http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-reading/

Reading Pool

  • Lee, E.  Death of the textbook – and the 50-pound bookbag.  USA Today. 6 July 2013.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2013/07/06/death-of-the-textbook/2456621/
  • Rabinowitz, D. Living through the Evolution of Etextbooks. 5 April 2013. http://tidbits.com/e/13685
  • Godin, Seth. An end of books. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/08/an-end-of-books.html
  • Stein, Bob.  The future of the book is the future of society. http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2013/03/the_future_of_the_book_is_the.html
  • Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think”The Atlantic. 1945  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/
  • Halasz, Frank. “Reflections on NoteCards: seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems.” Communications of the ACM 31, no. 7 (1988): 836-852.  http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=48514
  • Bolter, Jay David, and Michael Joyce. “Hypertext and creative writing.” In Proceedings of the ACM conference on Hypertext, pp. 41-50. (1987).  http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=317431
  • Glushko, Robert J., Mark D. Weaver, Thomas A. Coonan, and Janet E. Lincoln. “Hypertext engineering: practical methods for creating a compact disk encyclopedia.” In Proceedings of the ACM conference on Document processing systems, pp. 11-19. (1988)  http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=62506.62508  (also at http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is290-4/s02/readings/glushko_hypertext_engineering.pdf )
  • Halasz, Frank. “Reflections on Seven Issues: hypertext in the era of the web.” ACM Journal of Computer Documentation (JCD) 25, no. 3 (2001): 109-114.  http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=48514

Week 2 – September 10:  The Design Space for EBooks – Overview

Topics

  • ebooks {and,or,vs} design of print books and design of “apps” – issues and decision points
  • navigation and orientation mechanisms;  skeuomorphism?
  • interactivity; how much and what kind?
  • non-text components; images, audio, animation, data visualization, etc…
  • the “wrapper” and annotations (individual vs collaborative)
  • the boundary or lack thereof between the book and supplemental content
  • making books “smart” with intelligent content: semantic markup, context awareness, real time and aggregated analytics, etc..
  • accessibility (text to speech, etc)

Required Readings

  • Marshall Chapter 3, Interaction.

In McGuire and O’Leary:

  • Daly, Liza.  What we can do with “books” (Chapter 3)
  • Mod, Craig.  Designing books in the digital age (Chapter 7)
  • McGuire, Hugh.  Why the book and the Internet will merge (Chapter 9)

Reading Pool

  • http://toc.oreilly.com/2013/02/a-publishers-job-is-to-provide-a-good-api-for-books.html
  • Aptara List of Interactivity Examples http://www.aptaracorp.com/ebook-production/interactive-ebooks
  • Apple iBooks Author Support http://www.apple.com/support/ibooksauthor/media/
  • Getting Started with Inkling https://www.inkling.com/gettingstarted/
  • Vook Services http://vook.com/services/
  • Chegg.com
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyBwz1-AiE

Week 3 – September 17:  The Process Space for Creating EBooks – Overview

Topics

  • conversion of existing books – digitization
  • single source automation vs. hand-crafting continuum
  • individual authors vs. collaborative authoring
  • continuous update (wiki model) vs. editions vs. disciplinary extensions
  • working effectively with publishers, vendors, consultants

Required Readings

  • Maxwell, John W. “Using wiki as a multi-mode publishing platform.” In Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication, pp. 196-200. 2007. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1297185
  • Maxwell, John W., Meghan MacDonald, Travis Nicholson, Jan Halpape, Sarah Taggart, and Heiko Binder. “XML production workflows? start with the web.” Journal of Electronic Publishing 13, no. 1 (2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0013.106
  • Eppelin, Anita, and Richarda Böttcher. “Development of a publishing framework for living open access textbooks.” Information Services and Use 31, no. 3 (2011): 243-248.  http://iospress.metapress.com/content/k13820x672m22658/

In McGuire and O’Leary:

  • O’Leary, Brian.  Tools of the digital workflow (Chapter 6)
  • Jones, Terry.  Why digital books will become writable (Chapter 11)

Reading Pool

  • Pontin, Jason. Why publishers don’t like apps. Technology Review, 7 May 2012.   http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427785/why-publishers-dont-like-apps/
  • Rechsteiner, C.  The ebook platform landscape. August 2012.  http://blueloopconcepts.com/reports/The-eBook-Platform-Landscape-BlueLoop-Concepts-August-2012.pdf

Week 4 – September 24:  Technology Demos using TDO as Case Study

Topics

  • Technology Demos using TDO as a case study
  • authoring formats
  • conversion to XML
  • how much markup?
  • build environment
  • transclusion
  • accessibility

Required Tasks

Please Install Oxygen XML Editor and build HelloWorld pdf and epub formats:

  • For ISchool Students, please follow the instructions here:  https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/intranet/computing/software/oxygen
  • For everyone else, Oxygen will give you a 30 day trial period:  http://www.oxygenxml.com/download_oxygenxml_editor.html
  • Download HelloWorld:  (Note:  In the book.xml file, please update <book xml:base=”/path/to/HelloWorld”> with the path to where your HelloWorld is downloaded before validating/buildiing book.xml)
  • Download HelloWorldFormats

Required Readings

  • Walsh, Norman., Muellner, Leonard.  Docbook:  The Definitive Guide (Chapters 1 and 2)
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Information_Typing_Architecture
  • Garrish, Matt., What is EPUB 3? (skim)

In Glushko, Robert J.  The Discipline of Organizing, Academic EBook Edition:

  • Preface
  • Section 10.7.4.  (Case Study of how TDO was designed and produced)

Week 5 – October 1:  EBook Business Models

Topics

  • From the perspective of book publishers
  • From the perspective of corporate content producers
  • From the perspective of ebook production houses (Inkling, Aptara, etc.)
  • From the perspective of platform makers (Amazon, Apple, etc.)
  • From the perspective of libraries
  • From the perspective of schools and teachers

Required Readings

  • Lynch, Clifford. “Ebooks in 2013: Promises Broken, Promises Kept, and Faustian Bargains.”  http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/7d9e3366#/7d9e3366/1
  • Lynch, Clifford. “The battle to define the future of the book in the digital world.” First monday 6, no. 6 (2001).  http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/864  (Selections… this is a long article)

Reading Pool

  • Brown, Laura, Rebecca Griffiths, Matthew Rascoff, and Kevin Guthrie. “University publishing in a digital age.” Journal of Electronic Publishing 10, no. 3 (2007).  http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/idx/j/jep/3336451.0010.301/–university-publishing-in-a-digital-age?rgn=main;view=fulltext  (Selections… this is a long article)
  • Elkin-Koren, Niva. “The Changing Nature of Books and the Uneasy Case for Copyright.” George Washington University Law Review 79 (2011): 101.
  • http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/antitrust-apple-plot-publishers-ebook
  • http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324425204578597453053469898.html
  • http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/58166-apple-loses-judge-finds-price-fixing-in-e-book-case.html