Boox Readers As Course Platform INF4260 Midterm Report

Boox Readers as Course Platform Midterm Report INF4260 - Fall 2010 Group members Trond Arne Nygaard - trondany Nora Raaum - norara Nora Helgheim Holte - norahho Linda Katrine Andresen - lindakan Table of content Background...................................................................................................................2 E-books, e-readers, e-ink....................................................................................2 E-reader project at UiO......................................................................................2 Problem space...............................................................................................................3 Similar/previous research............................................................................................4 Princeton.............................................................................................................4 Springer..............................................................................................................4 About the e-reader Boox60..........................................................................................5 Technical info.....................................................................................................5 Functionality.......................................................................................................6 Why Boox? ........................................................................................................7 Collecting of Data.........................................................................................................8 Plan for collecting data.......................................................................................8 Observation in the lecture/seminar.....................................................................8 First survey.........................................................................................................8 Workshop...........................................................................................................9 The Users.....................................................................................................................10 Persona.........................................................................................................10 Scenario........................................................................................................10 User needs....................................................................................................11 Usability goals..............................................................................................13 Alternative solutions..................................................................................................14 Initial discussion...............................................................................................14 Prototype..........................................................................................................15 Version one..........................................................................................16 Version two..........................................................................................17 Version three........................................................................................18 References...................................................................................................................19 1 Background E-books, e-readers and e-ink The Oxford US dictionary defines an e-book as “an electronic version of a printed book that can be read on a computer or handheld device designed specifically for this purpose”. [1] These handheld devices are called e-book readers and several different models have been released. The most known one to date is probably Amazon’s Kindle. The popular iPad from Apple has a program installed called iBook making it possible to use it as an e-book reader. E-ink is basically a display technology that mimics the appearance of ink on normal paper. The display does not use a backlight to illuminate the pixels, but rather reflects natural light like normal paper. This allows images to be shown indefinitely without drawing electricity. [2] E-reader project at UiO At the University of Oslo, the library is at the moment using 75% of their procurement budget on electronic litterature such as articles. [3] This semester, fall 2010, the library is doing a project where two groups of students are given handheld electronic devices to use in their studies. The idea is to access the syllabus on these instead of books, regular computers or material that is printed out. The first group is students taking the master course GEO4220 – “Depositional Environments and Biostratigraphy”. They are given an Apple iPad each. The syllabus is downloaded into the iPads and they can also use it to take notes, access the Internet and use applications useful for the course. The other group of students is taking the course ECON2310 – ”Macroeconomic analysis”. A number of the students are given an e-book reader called Boox. Most of the syllabus is downloaded into the Boox and it can also be used to take notes and listen to MP3-files. 2 Problem space We would like to focus on the e-book reader Boox60 and the ECON2310-students, and have come up with this research question: How does Boox60 work as an aid in higher education and how do the students in the project interact with and feel about the Boox e-reader? “The mission of Onyx is to bring exceptional reading experience to the consumers, to enable new business models for the publishers, and to revolutionize the publishing industry, by creating state-of-the-art e-readers and distribution platform with the newest display and communication technologies” this is what Onyx decided to include under their “About” option in the “Settings” menu for their BOOX60 Model. Do they accomplish this mission? Even though one of the main goals for the library project is to see a reduction in the amount of papers the students print, numbers like that will not be the most essential ones for our project. We will try to figure out which advantages and disadvantages the students find by using this e-reader compared to reading paper books, how it works as an educational aid, how they like the e-reader etc. Hopefully we will also be able to compare some of the findings the iPad group comes up with. 3 Similar/previous research Princeton In the Fall of 2009, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) at Princeton conducted a pilot program using electronic readers (e-readers) in a classroom setting. [4] The e-reader used in the pilot was the Amazon Kindle DX. Their three goals was to: 1. Reduce the amount of printing and photocopying done in the three pilot courses. 2. Determine if using this technology in the classroom could equal (or better) the typical classroom experience where more traditional readings were used. 3. Explore the strengths and weakness of current e-reader technology to provide suggestions for future devices. As a result the pilot participants printed just over half the amount of sheets (compared to control groups who did not use e-readers). But the classroom experience was worsened. Several students reported that their retention was worse than usual since lack of flexibility and speed of navigation within readings made it difficult to compare documents and skim for review. They were generally pleased with the reading experience, but the “writing” tools didn’t meet their expectations - things they could easily do on paper couldn’t be done or took a lot of time and effort on the Kindle. Springer Springer, eBooks - The End User Perspective [5] describes other relevant findings. “In 2007, Springer surveyed librarians at six institutions to understand their views on eBook adoption and benefits. In 2008, Springer followed up that study with a survey of end users at five institutions to gauge their usage of and attitudes toward eBooks” They found that what users see as the primary benefits of eBooks is their convenience, accessibility and enhanced functionality. E-book readers do not yet have the same ease and enjoyability of reading as printed books have, yet they believe they will not disappear in the near future. The survey results gave indication towards using e-books mostly in research related purposes. While users do not read e-books from start to finish, but use it as a resource for finding answers to research questions. 4 About the e-reader Boox60 Technical information The e-reader Boox is manufactured by the Chinese company Onyx International and was released in 2010. According to the Boox-website [6] the Boox60 is the only model available, but the Onyx International Website [7] advertises for a new model called BooxM90 with a bigger screen. Boox60 weighs 298 gram and measures 19x12 cm. The 6” screen has a 600 ! 800 5 pixels resolution, 16 grey levels and uses the E-ink technology. The Operating System is based on Linux. Some of the features available on the Boox are: touchscreen, wifi, text-to-speech, integrated dictionary, card reader, user replaceable battery (re-chargeable), web browser. It supports the following file formats: pdf, txt, html, chm, rtf, jpeg, gif, png, bmp. Functionality When switching on the Boox you get access to the main menu, with the icons “Library”, “SD-card”, “Recent Documents”, “Shortcuts”, “Notes”, “Dictionary”, “Scribble”, “Settings” and “Web Sites”. In the top left corner there is a home-button that looks like a little house, this will always

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