The world is changing, and so are the education paradigms. Both teaching and learning are taking huge leaps into the future and technology is supporting this change with the kind of indulgence we never saw before. The only requirement now is to make teaching more effective and learning more exhaustive.
Many techniques have evolved lately, surrounding the content that allows students to leverage the capabilities of a digital textbook to the maximum by accessing it online as well as offline through eBook readers. Also, teachers are introduced to a new style of teaching, based on quizzes, videos, assessments and other interactivities included in an eBook. In the past couple of years, ePub3 has contributed a lot in continuously evolving teaching and learning methodologies.
Allowing HTML5 support in eBooks was a great step towards promoting interactive learning, however it lacked in defining standards. By enabling HTML5 support in ePub3, majority of interactive commodities present in the eBook were put to the disposal of HTML5 standards, and the purpose of defining the standard was somewhat lost.
There are numerous ways one can create rich interactive content incorporating video, widgets, audio, interactivities and assessments, etc., but are there any standards? Defining standards is always crucial to allow end-to-end learning ecosystem to move forward into the future.
Through this post, let’s explore a new ePub3 profile, EDUPUB / ePub for education. A collective effort amongst organizations accountable for development, maintenance and implementation of standards crucial for advancement of educational content.
Why EDUPUB/ePub for Educational Publishing?
Well, EDUPUB is certainly not a separate file format. It was created to augment learning and teaching experience by adding few specifications to ePub3 content for improved interoperability as well as optimization.
Due to the absence of standards for interactive content creation, the readers were also not able to display the content appropriately. The logic behind coming up with EDUPUB profile was not to create a separate file format like ePub3, but to outline certain guidelines that include:
- Making the most of web standards including CSS3 and HTML5
- Creating semantically structured and appropriate educational content
- Optimizing and focusing more on metadata
- Creating accessible and shareable content
- Supporting authoring structure having useful educational data
Let’s Understand EDUPUB / ePub for Education Profile
EDUPUB is a not a separate format but a part of ePub, as discussed earlier. It is an ePub3 file that has the same file extension .epub. EPUB is designed to largely accommodate all types of content. It adds some specifications and recommendations for optimizing an EPUB for education.
Publishers have the option to choose different sections, such as developing configurations over scriptable objects concerning the profile that best suits their content requirements. EDUPUB is ePub3 that has been validated in accordance with IDPF standards.
The best thing about EDUPUB is that it allows for creation of copies of the content for both teachers as well as students, which can be differentiated on the basis of annotations and tagging.
This makes it possible for teachers to have their own copies having tags, marks, etc., providing instructions and inputs on the curriculum. Essentially, the teachers’ copy is a superset of the work used by students.
The aim of EDUPUB is to help in creation of rich, quality content that can be scaled, accessed, discovered, managed, reproduced and can be made available across multiple platforms.
The EDUPUB profile also provides guidelines for the key missing parts of the standards: Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) and Question and Test Interoperability (QTI).
EDUPUB has definitely taken eBook publishing to a whole new level by defining crucial guidelines and standards for educational content. The only thing that is left to be seen is how quickly this profile will get adopted, not only for content creation but for rendering as well.
EDUPUB: The Changing Face of Education Paradigms
Write to us at info@suntecindia.com if you need any assistance with EDUPUB/ ePub for Education services. SunTec India has years of experience of working with leading publishers across the globe and have helped them create EDUPUB complaint publications that effectively meets their business requirements.
