EdTech Books is an online publishing platform dedicated to providing access to open educational resources (OER) These resources are more accessible and flexible for students’ needs than traditional print books. This user guide provides simple walkthroughs of the various features available on EdTech Books. With this user guide, you will be able to create, edit, and publish your own OER!
Designing an educational website is much different than other types of website development. Your target audience is coming to your website for a reason - what is that reason? You may be setting up a site for your students to keep track of what is going on day-to-day in the classroom or for students to find online resources and activities that extend learning related to class topics. Whatever the purpose of your website is, keep that purpose in mind at all times and continually check that you are meeting your goal.
The layout of a website defines the location of typical items on a website, including the menu, the banner or logo, the navigation bar, contact information, and social network icons. Your website should have a layout that is consistent from page to page (e.g., menu, header, and search engine can be found in the same spot on every page of the website) When deciding on the layout of your site, consider what information or visuals will be “above the fold” This term originated from the design of newspapers - with only the upper half of the front page of a newspaper (the part above the fold) being visible to passersby.
Keep in mind that the “fold” will be different depending on what device your visitor is using (see Figure 8). You need to be aware of the fold and design your page so that your most important content lies above the fold. The main technique used in all navigation schemes is menus. Search engines are also a popular navigation tool. One other navigation method worth noting is the use of accordions.
The main purpose of your website shouldn’t be lost among cool visual effects. Your visual design should not confuse your visitors while they try to navigate your website. Use larger text size for titles, headings, and subheadings, so that they stand out from the body of content. It is not necessary (or recommended) to fill every square inch on a page. Use white space on your page to reduce visual clutter.
Use standard icons and shapes on your website. Your visitors may be accessing your site using a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile device. The purpose of your website cannot be lost or inhibited because of different screen sizes. Be sure to test that your website responds predictably on all types of devices.
Tips to Make Your Web Design Look More Professional. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). User Interface Design Basics. Sellers, O. (2018). Web Design Best Practices for Greater Business Success. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/-wBn.
Research suggests that only 16% of people read webpages word-for-word. Most people scan. People often spend only a few seconds exploring a site before determining whether to stay or leave. This means writing for the web looks very different than writing for print. Check out our chapter overview video to see an example of how to transform a traditional print paragraph into text that is easy to read on a website.
The way you organize and format a website is the first thing visitors will notice. It’s essential to design your website to be easy on the eyes. If viewers are overwhelmed and can’t figure out what to focus on, how to find information, or where to go on the site, they will make an immediate exit. We will cover how to use language in a way that appeals to your audience. Finally, we will showcase tips for writing subject specific content to engage learners.
White space is the unfilled space on your website. Keeping some space free of images or text helps to break up your page to make it less cluttered. In the example below, the Lings Cars site fails to utilize white space as a means of breaking up the content. In contrast, the Pisaccochronicle site uses a lot of white space, which makes it easy to quickly scan.
Your website can include paragraphs of text. Using bullet points with short sentences: Makes it easy to scan. Creates white space. Take a step back and look at this paragraph again...what captures your attention? The New York Times or Dallas News are known for producing long articles of text, and you’ll see that most often paragraphs are 2-3 sentences with white space or visuals in between.
The bullet points stand out because they create a break in the text and are easy to quickly scan. If you use bullet points, make sure to put a period at the end of each point. This allows screen readers to know that the sentence has ended. Italics can be used to capture attention, but not in the dominant way of bolding. Take a step back and look at this paragraph - what is the first word to capture your attention? Likely one of the bolded words since those stand out in contrast to the rest of the words.
Use bold to draw attention to the most important words and phrases and italics to make any additional information standout. Changing the font color will also draw attention, but be wary of using color only to highlight key information as that may leave out individuals who are colorblind or visually impaired. The more you change style and size, the more overwhelming the text becomes to read. Using the “inverted pyramid” concept is another technique to captivate and capture the attention of website visitors. Readers often scan pages for information, so by putting the big takeaways early on, you will increase the chances the readers learn the information they need.
Subheadings give the reader a roadmap of your website. Using subheadings helps chunk, or compartmentalize, ideas and concepts. For example, if you have a website heading for “atoms,” and subheadments for ‘protons,’ ‘neutrons,�’ and ‘electrons, the subheads reinforce that they are the parts of an atom.
It’s important to consider the size of font when making headings. The most important thing to remember is that writing for the web is different than academic or print writing. Certain web design platforms (such as Wix, Weebly and Google Sites) automatically set the page title to Heading 1, but you will want to check the settings to confirm this. These platforms often also set the size and style of the headings, so all you need to do is use them!
You should be using “half the word count (or less) than conventional writing’ According to the University of Maryland Baltimore Website Manual, 80 percent will skim the page for keywords they already have in mind. It’s important to understand your audience and anticipate what content and keywords they’re trying to find. Are you creating a website for your students? Parents? Colleagues? Administrators? Which words or phrases appeals to each of these groups?
What type of tone and language do you use when communicating with each of these groups? You will want to keep this in mind when selecting the word choice and writing style for your website. Use language that appeals to your audience . For example, if you are designing a website for your students, consider what language you use to capture their attention or give directions, and use this same style of language when creating your website content. Use a readability checker to ensure your content is written at a level that is accessible by your audience. Writing content that is too advanced or takes too long to understand will discourage visitors from exploring your site.
Using plain language that is simple, concise, and concrete “removes barriers between you and your readers” (Loranger, 2017, para. 4). While academic literature is made of long complex sentences and highly specialized vocabulary, studies show that professionals today value content that is “clear and concise”
Keep your vocabulary simple and make your points as plainly as possible. Prioritize nouns and verbs - use adjectives and adverbs only when necessary. Get rid of unnecessary words (once you have written your content, read it again and see how many words you can delete, then repeat this process). Sentences should be short and to the point. Avoid complex sentences.
Make sure your writing is comprehensive, correct, and current. Write in an active voice and maintain a uniform verb tense throughout your work. Use a spell checker ! When readers find spelling or grammatical errors on a website, they’re less likely to trust the content.
Connect your content to the rest of the internet using links, multimedia, and other resources. Cite all of your sources - this is not only essential for legal reasons, it’s also an important technique to role model for students. Avoid acronyms. Avoid passive voice. Aim for a 8th-9th grade reading level. Include relative pronouns (whom, who, which). Not use different words for the same subject.
Limit the amount of information on your website so that your students don’t feel overwhelmed when they visit. Chunk information and resources for sub-topics into separate sub-pages rather trying to feature everything the student needs to learn about a topic on a single page. Keep Your Content Up To Date : Have you ever scrolled to the bottom of a website to see its copyright date (e.g., Copyright 2013) and then question the credibility of the information on the site since it hasn't been updated in many years? Your students will do the same thing! Make sure you spend time at least once every few months modifying your site by revising information, adding or removing resources, and featuring related news.
By presenting new content for your subject area, you can hook students in and have them stay on your site longer. By incorporating interesting new content that appeals to your students, you will be increasing student motivation and engagement. Heath and Heath (2007) developed a set of guiding principles, called the Made to Stick principles, that can be used to create content that is “sticky,” (i.e., hard to forget)
Keep your website simple - use white space and plain language. Use typographical emphasis (e.g., bold, italics, font size/color) to draw readers’ attention to specific words or phrases. Storytelling is one of the most powerful techniques for communicating information since people who are reading or listening to a story mentally put themselves in the story, thus making it more memorable. If you follow the tips from this chapter, you will be able to fill your website with content that your readers will find engaging, interactive, and memorable.
Put the most important information at the top of the page (inverted pyramid) Use subheadings and sub-pages to chunk and organize information. Use language that appeals to your audience. Ensure your content is current, credible, and accurate. Keep your content up-to-date. Employ the Made to Stick principles to engage your website readers.
Learn concepts of copyright, public domain, fair use, and open licensing. Find open educational resources (OER) online; Recognize how to cite and share OER. In the U.S., copyright was written into the original constitution in 1787. Intangibles, such as ideas, concepts, and mathematical equations and works that lack originality cannot be copyrighted.
By default, the author of a work holds the copyright on that work. The main exception to this rule would be if the author was being paid by someone else to create the work and the author had signed a contract. Some educator contracts state that creative works by an educator are owned by the educator, while others state that they areowned by the school or district. You can generally provide a web link to copyrighted material from your own materials without permission from the copyright holder. You must still abide by any copyright restrictions placed on the work, which might determine how and where you use the work.
U.S. copyright law states that copyright ends 70 years after the death of the author. Upon expiration, copyrighted materials move into the public domain. Can I embed copyrighted materials into my presentation or website (e.g., YouTube videos)? That depends on the terms of the license that the copyright holder has released the content under.
Fair use is an exception or limitation to copyright law that allows you to use some copyrighted materials. The four guiding principles that determine if use is fair are: "Fair Use" Guiding Principles: Nature of Use, Type of Work, Amount Used, Commercial Impact. Fair use only applies to uses of works that are transformative in nature.
If it weren't for fair use, you wouldn't even be able to write a paper that quoted a famous author without permission. Fair use becomes problematic in education if you are trying to use educational works in your own creations and/or you are using too much. To determine if a desired use of copyright-restricted material would fall under fair Use, ask yourself four questions: Use: Is the use transformative? (Yes = Fair Use) Type: is the work informational/factual in nature? (yes = Fair use) Amount: IsThe use minimal? ( yes = Fair Uses) Impact: Does the use negatively impact the copyright holder's ability to profit from the work? (No = Fairuse)
Some institutions will allow copyrighted materials to be used up to a certain percent of the work. Parody is one example of fair use in which copyrighted materials may be used to critique the author. In any case, abiding by your institutional rules for fair use helps to ensure that your institution will be on your side if there is any question about your copyright-restricted material use.
Fair use can be very fuzzy, and it may be that educators violate fair use regularly in their classrooms without worrying about legal repercussions. Even if copyright is violated, the risks associated with violation tend to vary by use. In general, there are three groups of works that are in the public domain: Old works for which the copyright has expired; Exempt works that may not be copyrighted or that were created under certain conditions; Any works that have been released to the public Domain by their authors.
Some works may still be in the public domain that were created less than 70 years ago. Works may also be exempt from copyright if they are created under certain conditions of employment. Since they are not subject to copyright protection, public domain works may be used for anything and may even be included in derivative works and may be sold. The terms "open" and "free" colloquially have many meanings. "Free" generally has two that may be best understood by referring to their latin equivalents: gratis and libre.
Openness may mean different things to different people, but when we refer to openness in terms of open licensing, we mean openness that gives us freedom to do the five R's. Open licenses have arisen as a means for openly sharing content while at the same time preserving desired rights to the author. Authors of creative works have the right to release those works under any license they choose (except in cases where they have signed over that right to a publisher, employer, etc.) The table below provides three examples of common open licenses.
The most common Creative Commons license is the CC BY or Creative Commons Attribution license. This means that others are free to reuse, redistribute, revise, and remix the creation as long as they properly cite the author. More information about each license is provided in the following table.
If a work does not have a statement of copyright status attached to it, you should generally assume that it is copyrighted and should seek permission before using it. Open educational resources (OER) are made available from many different sources. Explore these resources to find material that will be useful for you in your classroom, taking note of what licenses resources are released under. Watch this video to learn how to use a search engine to find openly licensed content.
Fish and Wildlife Digital Library - public domain works (mostly) Lumen Learning Wikiversity [http://en.wikiversity.org] These tools are not technically open educational resources, but they can be used to aide you in creating, remixing, and sharing open educationalresources. Google Drive – write and create collaboratively. Rewordify - simplify difficult texts. Text Compactor - summarize and summarize texts. Open Text Summarizer - summarizes nonfiction texts.
As the author of a creative work, you can release your it under an open license or into the public domain. If you want to receive credit (be cited) when others use it, use CC BY 3.0. For a more detailed walkthrough of how you should release your content, follow the steps provided in the table below.
Releasing your work under an open license is easy. Just place a statement somewhere on your work that states what license you are releasing it under. The Creative Commons site provides a wizard to create a statement and image for you. More details about the Creative Commons licenses may be found on the Creative Commons website.
Among UX and LX designers, color is generally approached in a strange give-and-take between technical prescription and intuitive preference. When designing for a corporate client, designers are generally constrained by the preexisting branding requirements of the client. There might be multiple right or useful ways to use color in a particular design project, and inappropriate or ineffective color-use in one project might constitute optimal use in another. For these reasons, clear and reliable guidance on the what, how, when, and why of color- use in UX design is difficult to come by.
In this chapter, I will briefly explore the physics of color and its technical representation in digital formats. I will then address some of the applied aspects of color-use that will influence the craft of UX and ongoing research in this area. I then provide guidance on how to use color schemes to improve harmony by highlighting five dominant types of color schemes. I conclude by providing specific craft guidance on using color for UX projects and comment on how this should connect to ongoing UX research.
Recognizing these two approaches to color mixing is important to understand common notations present in design and authoring software. When creating a website, video game, mobile app, or illustration, RGB notations are used. CMYK notation is commonly used, such as cmyk(0,0,100,0) for yellow. Using any of these notations can generate millions of possible colors, including basic hues of the color wheel and low-saturation tints of hues. These terms will be important moving forward for understanding research on color effects for the affective domain.
The connection between color and learning may not be obvious at first. By influencing learner emotion, attitude, and interest, color can influence learner behaviors and attitudes. For instance, one study found that exposure to red prior to taking an IQ test subconsciously impaired performance. By employing positive emotion cueing, designers can help increase mental effort in the learner, reduce perceived difficulty of the material, and improve learner comprehension.
For a simple example of how this relates to UX and LX design, consider the password prompt interfaces in Figure 3. If you were presented with each of these interfaces, how might your emotional and behavioral reaction to the prompt differ based upon its color? Seeing a red prompt might make you stop and consider “Is this really a secure site?” On the other hand, an orange prompt might get your attention but be somewhat confusing or concerning, a gray prompt might feel bland but also seem secure or professional. A color’s saturation (how little white is mixed in with it) also has an effect.
Brightness and saturation account for two-thirds to three-fourths of the detected variance in users’ feelings toward color. This means that shifting from soft pink to blood red in a design would likely impact users' feelings more than shifting from hard green or blue. In addition, the context of color-use is important, as in the case of otherwise pleasant colors being used in inappropriate or unnatural ways (Valdez & Mehrabian, 1994). Consider the four variations of the same website design in Figure 6. Which of the four color variations is your favorite? For most people, (1) would likely be the preferred variation, because not only are the colors pleasant but the color- use more appropriately aligns with
A study on K-12 school website accessibility across the U.S. found that contrast errors were the most common type of error among all sites. Contrast errors arise because, though two similarly-saturated colors may look quite different to most viewers, when superimposed they can become difficult to decipher from one another. Any variation in color will generally draw the eye of the learner to the variation. UX designers should use this principle to intentionally draw user attention to elements that matter and avoid unnecessary color variation in elements that are less important. As with the pet care mobile app example in Figure 4, improperly using color can subvert intended meaning or set a tone that is either unhelpful, dissonant, or repulsive for learners.
The mark of a skilled designer is knowing both (a) which colors to use and (b) how to use varieties of colors together in harmonious and intentional ways. Even when two products use the exact same colors, how the colors are used in relation to one another will influence the learner’s affective experience. Monochromatic schemes are easy to use in complicated designs to provide a sense of cohesion and uniformity. Each type has its own strengths and weaknesses as well as design considerations to attend to, which I will now explain. For each type, an example image will also be provided, which has the five scheme colors depicted on the right of the image and the color wheel placements of each scheme depicted on
Monochromatic designs can be boring or overbearing if highly-saturated versions of the dominant color are overused. Analogous schemes rely upon two or more nearby colors on the color wheel. Complementary schemes use two dominant colors that are on opposite sides of the color Wheel.
Complementary schemes use two dominant colors on opposite sides of the color wheel. Complex schemes use three or more dominant colors equally situated around the color Wheel. Achromatic schemes use only variations on black, white, and gray. Achromatic schemes may be helpful if secondary elements are complex and rich, but without these secondary elements, the design itself would be visually boring.
Choose dominant colors that will influence emotions aligning with your intended design goals. Use colors in ways that are intentional (e.g., accentuating important content) and natural or appropriate by drawing upon users’ prior experiences. Once you have created a color scheme you are happy with, you can import the color scheme into other applications in a variety of ways. The simplest and most versatile method, however, is to simply take a screenshot and place it into your authoring tool or to manually transfer the hexadecimal codes.
Ensure that color contrast is sufficient and that color is used strategically to allow learners to clearly and readily identify important content. Choose a color scheme that counterbalances the complexity of your content. Use whitespace and white, black, or gray text to increase contrast and to balance color-use. By following these suggestions, UX and LX designers can create designs that increase motivation and persistence by making user experiences more pleasing, more intentional, and less frustrating.
Teens today spend, on average, 8.5 hours every day consuming media. Multimedia can increase the appeal of the website, while also offering visitors different ways to connect with and explore the site content. In Chapter 3 you will find tips, resources, and tools for using media designed by others on your website without infringing on copyright.
Hook your audience - Use humor, surprise, inquiry, a short vignette. Be creative and social - Break away from the traditional mold of educational multimedia. Use media in an ethical and legal manner - If you upload a video to YouTube with a popular song as the background music, it will be flagged and taken down. Use your own original art or Creative Commons works with attribution (explore Chapter 3 for more information about finding and using Creative Commons media)
Don’t Distract - get rid of extraneous information, stories, images, sounds, or content. Use text, arrows, bolding, sound effects, or other tools to signal key information. Keep in Conversational - Speak in a conversational tone. Use plain, easy-to-understand language (review the Writing for the Web chapter for tips on how you can improve your audio or video scripts)
Simply visit Vocaroo.com and select “Click to Record” to start creating an audio file. You can now download your recording as an mp3 or WAV file or share it via a link. Using Audacity, you can export your recording in various formats, including mp3, WAV, and OGG. A properly made video will mesmerize your website visitors. Designing a video can be time consuming, and sometimes frustrating, but with the right tools and design skills, anyone can make captivating videos. The following section features two web-based design tools for creating videos: Adobe Spark and Screencastify.
Screencastify is a screen recording extension for Google Chrome. It is a light-weight, powerful, and easy-to-use screen recorder. Research has shown that images are more powerful and memorable than text. Emotional images can change people's behavior, while similarly charged words do not. Every page on your website should have at least one image to complement and enrich the text.
Pablo is a commonly used tool for creating quick web banners with custom text. Canva offers pre-made templates that you can customize, such as posters, social media graphics, infographics, and flyers. Spark is similar to Canva in regards to the creation of images. You can easily integrate Creative Commons and Public Domain images into your graphic.
Anchor links may be included to jump to any content in the page. The simplest way to do this is to first create some headings. Once done, you can select the text you would like to use as a link, right-click, and choose Insert > Anchor Link in the inline editor. Then, choose the desired heading from the drop-down list.
The Book Cover Tutorial and Template can be used to create book covers for textbooks. Alternatively, if you want to create your own book cover from scratch, the image should have dimensions equivalent to 5.5 x 8.5 and be less than 1MB in size. To create a book cover using our template, begin by opening the Google Slides template.
To insert a callout using the inline editor, place your cursor where you would like it placed, right-click, and choose Insert > Callout. There are a number of alternate callout styles built into the system. You can apply a custom callout style while inserting the callout by selecting the name of the alternate style in the "Custom Class" box. Callouts are designed to start with the H3 class as the highest heading (do not use H1 or H2 tags in your callout).
If you include a H3 element as the first element inside a callout, it will be properly formatted as the callout's title (with the top borders rounded and with no spacing at the top) If you wish to include multiple H3 elements inside a single callout you can fix the rounded corners of subsequent H3 Elements by adding the "no-border-radius" class to them.
Every book in the system has an automated dictionary. To define a term, a reader simply needs to highlight a word. Highlight some of these examples with your mouse to see the dictionary in action: accrue plethora wax and wane Procrustean obfuscation exhortation.
Mathematical equations may be created using LaTeX notation. While editing a chapter, select Insert > LaTeX Equation (Block) In the resulting box, type your equation between the double-dollar signs. You can continue to edit the formula in the editor (provided that you do not remove the double-$ symbols) For multi-line equations, you must encapsulate your equation in a \displaylines{} function and separate each line with a double-slash. All rendering is performed courtesy of MathJax and CodeDogs.
Footnotes may be created in the editor by placing the cursor where you would like the footnote link, right-clicking, and choosing Insert > Footnote. You may edit the visible text of the footnote either in the Ribbon or by editing the element directly. When you add or remove footnotes, the footnote list should be updated appropriately. If not, simply click on an existing footnote, and it will update the numbers appropriately. Footnote numbers will also be updated when the page saves.
Generative AI has revolutionized the field of image creation, enabling computers to autonomously generate realistic and visually appealing images. Generated AI images eliminate the need for copyright and privacy concerns as they are solely produced by the AI system. Generative AI refers to the use of artificial intelligence algorithms to create various outputs, such as text, images, videos, music, code, data, and 3D renderings. These AI models can learn patterns from vast datasets and produce new, unique images that demonstrate remarkable creativity.
Explore user-friendly platforms like Leonardo.ai, Craiyon, and DALL-E that offer tools for creating images with generative AI. Free access is available for the basic features on these platforms, but some may offer paid options for advanced functionality. It's essential to review the platform's terms and guidelines provided by the platform itself. Don't be afraid to experiment and try different styles, algorithms, or combinations. The more you explore, the more you'll discover the creative possibilities that Generative AI offers.
The images should reflect the empowerment of women in educational technology settings and showcase diverse perspectives. Leonardo.ai - Generated images that visually represent feminisms in ED Tech. For instance, you might want to mention the presence of women. in leadership roles, the use of inclusive and diverse educational technologies, or any other relevant details that embody feminisms.
Tutorials on how to Use some Generative AI Platforms. Enjoy the process of creating stunning and imaginative images using the power of generative AI for all your book covers and illustrations. What is generativeAI and why is it so popular? Here's everything you need to know.
Each publication has a built-in glossary, which may be accessed from the top-right dropdown on the cover page and selecting Glossary. You can create glossary pop-up elements within your chapter by highlighting some text, right-clicking, and choosing Insert > Glossary... .
The site uses SVGs for icons, so you will likely need to include a style attribute in your image tag. The nice thing about this is that it means you can scale icons as large as you would like without losing any quality. For a full list of site icons, see the Site Resources page.
There are many ways to include images in your work. Here are some of the more common ones. Each publication has its own media library that all content in the publication share. To upload images to the publication's media library, while editing content, click Insert > Image... and click Upload panel.
By default, all content and publications are converted to PDFs. PDFs must be built by the server in the background and may not be instantly available. Content PDFs generally take several minutes to build (depending on server load), and publication PDFs may take a few hours. This process can be expedited by the administrator upon request if needed.
You can temporarily allow public submissions to your publication by adjusting the Public Submissions setting on your publication's Authorship page. With this feature on, anyone can click the menu button and choose the Submit tab. You can also share this tab as a direct link in a call for proposals, email campaign, etc. Once you are done collecting submissions, you should turn off public submissions on theAuthorship page in order to prevent unwanted submissions.
EdTech Books generally follows APA's recommendations for paper elements and format. Authors should use headings to create hierarchy and structure in the text of their chapters. The editor has automatic formatting for headings and other text styles that makes chapters simple and easy to read. Follow the instructions in the video above to see how to apply styles in EdTech Books.
Videos may be embedded from YouTube, Vimeo, or other sources. There are a few different methods to embed videos. When possible, use this method instead of the embed script provided by YouTube to ensure accessibility. For other video types, you can paste the embed code as an HTML snippet by clicking Insert > HTML Snippet. However, when possible, please use the first method.
The API uses three main data object entity types: Author, Book, and Keyword. Other objects are also sometimes used, such as glossary terms. There are two main endpoints for accessing content: search and get_entity. Note that an API key is required, which may be found in your user settings.
Authentication anad API Keys You can create an ETB API key for your project by logging in and going to the Developer dashboard in the top-right menu. This requires developer access, which you can request by contacting a site administrator .
Artifacts are external resources (links) that you can embed within a chapter. To be properly embedded, any linked resources must be made available to the public on their original site and must also allow for embedding. Table 1 provides a list of available artifact types. By default, artifacts are shown before the chapter contents. You can change this in the chapter's settings by adjusting the Artifact Placement setting.
The LTI-enabled Redirect App within the Canvas interface creates a course navigation link to your book's cover page. Alternatively, you can also use the Simplified View feature to embed a single chapter into a Canvas module. Watch the video to learn how to embed your textbook into Canvas.
EdTech Books does not have a built-in spell- or grammar-checker. You should either do most of this checking as you write your content on another platform before pasting it into the site. If you encounter errors in your work after it has been uploaded to EdTech Books, you can use either the WYSIWYG Editor or the inline editing function in the top right corner of your screen. For more details on editing chapters, see Editing a Chapter.
Code snippets can be displayed on any chapter page by using the "Code" option from the style dropdown. To add new lines to the same block of code, hold down Shift while pressing enter to do a soft line break. Currently, displaying HTML (or any language that uses brackets < >) is not fully supported.
While editing the book's cover page, you can include custom CSS into the Custom CSS field. This is powerful and can have undesired effects because the CSS is applied to the entire page (not just the chapter contents) To prevent CSS from changing site formatting unexpectedly, you should limit your adjustments to only apply to content within the div# chapter-container id.
In addition to the default analytics provided for each chapter, each book author may also set up Google Analytics to track information about page visits and users of the book. To do this, perform the following steps: Create a free user account at Google Analytics. Create an Account and Property for your book. Assign the Property with the URL of your book (e.g., https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations) In your Property settings, find your Tracking ID and paste it into the Google Analytics ID field in your book's Settings.
H5P allows you to create interactive elements that can be embedded in various websites or online tools. Like any HTML-based element that uses an iFrame, you can embed H5P elements into your book chapters. There are a few limitations to be aware of beforehand.
Your account can be given access to include Javascript in publication and/or content headers. Because this poses a potential security risk to readers, you must request access from a site admin. Once access has been granted, you can add custom JS on the Settings tab of the publication or content. To get started, a simple script that you could test and view in the inspector might be the following: console.log("Using custom JS. ");
LilxAPI (or Lil' xAPI) is a simpler, flat version of an xAPI statement. Each statement is required to have only three properties: actor, verb, and object. Each property is limited to a single value. Statements may be represented either as a JSON object with name-value pairs or as an array (using the array keys provided in Table 1).
url required "https://edtechbooks.org/education_research/research" result The outcome of the action. float boolean string null .75 true "success" context Contextual information about the action, such as the time of the interaction. ISO 8601 format current time " 2023-11-10T12:34:56Z"
You can retrieve all LilxAPI statements associated with your API key at this endpoint: https://edtechbooks.org/api.v2.php?action=lilxapi_get&api_key=YOURAPIKEY. You can find your ETB API key by logging in and going to Account > Settings. You may then access the ETB LRS to access and download stored statements.
You can create dashboards or graphs in Google Sheets to display data and import the data directly from a website using the built-in ImportData function. Sheets does not currently have an import feature for JSON, but you can append &format=csv to a LilxAPI call to receive the results as a csv. You can use an automation script in Excel to retrieve or update data from the LRS.
Here is an example automation script using the ETB LRS. The script is written using the following syntax: apiKey = "YOURAPIKEYHERE"; excelRow { statement_id : number; author_id: number; actor: string; verb: verb; result: string, result: result; context: context; timestamp: timestamp; xapi: string. NewWorksheet: getRangeByIndexes: 0; headingRange: headingRange; getRangeRange: headRange; activate: activate; getActiveWorksheet : activate; fetchData: fetchData. Script is written as an example using the EJB LRS syntax.
NewWorksheet.getRangeByIndexes ( dataRange) { dataRange.setValues ( newWorksheet . getRange byIndexes ( DataRange. setValues ()); }); Data. fetchData ( response) { response. fetch (apiUrl, dataData) ; if ( response.status) { throw new Error ( status; }); } Data. setRange ( row) { row. values ( row); }); data. fetch data ( dataData, dataRange); });Data. getRange (row) {Row.values ( row). values ( rows.values; });DataData (range) { Row.value ( row.value; }); dataRange (
Practice quizzes can be created within a chapter by placing the cursor where you would like the quiz question to be. Update any text in the question or answer options, and then to choose which options are correct/incorrect, click on the option and change its style in the Style menu.
This value is intended to help readers and authors to understand how much time it will take a typical adult to read a piece of content. In most calculations, Words per Minute is set to a default value of 300 to match the average reading speed of an adult. However, in some calculations, the textual complexity of the content is also taken into consideration as follows. This adjusts the words per Minute to a range of 200 (for difficult content) to 300 (for easy content)
If you imported a chapter from one book to another, you have the option of keeping the child chapter synchronized to its parent. This means that if the original author of the parent chapter updates it, any changes to the content will be synchronized to your imported chapter. This is useful for boiler plate content or imported content that you do not plan to remix.
URL shortening makes it difficult for readers to retype the URL if they are reading it from a PDF or printed book. To prevent URL shortening, change the displayed text in the link to descriptive text. In the book's settings, you can turn off the "URL Shortening" setting to prevent this feature from being used across the book.
If you already have a DOI for your content or publication, you can add it to the appropriate Settings page to have it appear in citations and views. Site administrators can also register new DOIs for any published works. The cost of this service depends on the type of work and the number of DOIs to register. To request DOI registration, please contact a site administrator.
To improve accessibility and usability of content, we use Amazon's Polly neural network service to convert finished text to a lifelike recording. This is a one-time cost. If the content is updated, then the fee will need to be paid again to update the recording to match the new text. If you would like to remove the text-to-speech file or prevent it from showing on the chapter, delete the content of the "External Audio" field in the chapter Settings.
Voices We use the voices provided by Amazon Translate. Not all Amazon voices may be available at present. If you would like to request a particular language or voice, please let us know. We are happy to provide you with a choice of voices.
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PDF downloads of each book and chapter (mobile- and print-friendly formats) Easy embedding into Canvas (and other LMSs) Analytics. End-of- chapter quality surveys. Reading heat maps. Interactive quizzes and surveys. Cross-site embedding. Open Read API. Multi-site, cloud-based hosting.
