UW eText Pilot
IT Connect > Teaching and Learning > eText Pilot
- On This Page
- About the eText Pilot
- eText Assessment
- How to Participate
- Helpful links
- The eText Pilot Team
About the UW-IT eText Pilot
What Is eText?
eText has come to mean many things, from text delivered on dedicated platforms, to html files, to iPad apps. In this pilot, UW-IT is exploring online textbooks and their effects on student satisfaction and learning outcomes. Delivering textbooks online allows the textbooks to remain hardware agnostic - available on any computer or device with a modern browser, including tablets and phones.
UW-IT is partnering with two vendors to deliver textbooks online, CourseLoad and CourseSmart. Both provide a variety of tools, including full text search, digital highlighting, and annotation. Students and faculty have shown particular excitement around the possibilities of single-page aggregations of notes and highlights, social highlighting and note-taking tools. Comparing two delivery systems allows us to refine our assessment of eText, and evaluate tools for faculty and student use, while understanding the support necessary to provide these tools.
Additional information on these vendors is available on
their websites:
eText Assessment
This pilot is focused on assessing student and faculty experiences around eText across a number of fields and class sizes. Students will participate in surveys, and faculty will be interviewed about their experience with eTexts. Assessment questions have been developed with participation from our Teaching and Learning Technology Oversight Committee, and results of the pilot will be released in Fall 2013.
In order to better assess the capabilities of eText, access to the online textbooks will be free to participating students and faculty.
When Is the Pilot?
The eText pilot runs Spring 2012 through Spring 2013 with increasing numbers of courses each quarter.
Our goal is to reach a total of 30 courses and 3,000 students.
How to Participate
Participation is open to all UW courses. Faculty interested in participating may send email to help@uw.edu
We are happy to assist you in selecting between vendors. Local technical support will be available for students and faculty participating in the pilot.
Commitment to Assessment
If you choose to participate in the UW-IT eText pilot, you are agreeing to participate in the assessment of the eText tools, through surveys and interviews. We will share assessment findings with the broader academic community. You will also be asked to encourage your students to use the eText, and to respond to the survey(s) sent to them.
Helpful Links
Other eText Projects
Articles
- eTexts in the Classroom (educause)
- "Mix and Match" e-Texts (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Western Governor's eText project (Campus Technology)
- YouTube videos embedded in eTexts (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- eTexts and (library) accessibility
The eText Pilot Team
UW Information Technology
- Jacob Morris — Sponsor
- Peter Wallis — Project Management
- Cara Giacomini — Research Manager
- Dan Comden
- Keesha Davis
- Wren Haaland
- Henry Lyle
- Nathan Dors
- Michael Brogan
- Virginia Balsley
- Fred McWhirter
Project Partners
- UW Bookstore
- UW Purchasing
- Office of the Registrar
- Teaching & Learning Technology Oversight Committee
