Course Requirements
EDUC 439/639: eBook Authoring
This course teaches you how to write and publish eBooks. You begin by learning about the international EPUB standard and the different forms eBooks can take. Then you decide upon the format most appropriate for your needs, and you create a small eBook using tools your professor will recommend for authoring eBooks in your chosen format. On project night, you will make a brief presentation in which you take your fellow students on a tour of the eBook you created. Because your fellow classmates will have chosen a wide range of formats in which to author and publish their books, project night enables you to share experiences publishing eBooks across a broad range of audiences and dissemination strategies.
In the sidebar is a list of the specific assignments and how much they count toward your grade in the course. You can think of these assignments as consisting of three major parts, each of which counts for a third of your grade. The design and implementation of an eBook project will constitute one-third of the final grade; online class participation will count another third; and your checkpoint logs will constitute the final third. All students must make effective use of the course discussion forum to communicate with your fellow classmates and your professor. Students will keep track of their projects by logging their progress in three reflective logs that the instructor will visit periodically to review and comment.
Assignment #1: Goal Statement
Your first assignment is to state the reasons why you enrolled in this course and what you hope to accomplish by taking it. If you have only a general idea of why you chose to enroll in this course, go ahead and describe your goals in general terms. If you have more specific goals in mind, please enumerate them. I will use this information to help advise you and guide you through the appropriate course materials.
Assignment #2: E-mail Registration
In response to the e-mail registration assignment in your online course environment, you tell your course instructor what is your e-mail address. Yes, there is an e-mail address on file for you here at the University of Delaware, but just in case I need to contact you about something related to this course, I want to make sure I have a good working e-mail address. Being able to reach you when I need to is so important that I am giving you 5 points for telling me: What is your e-mail address?
Assignment #3: Weekly Discussion Forum
Every student in this class is required to participate actively in the course discussion forum. To enter the discussion forum, log on to the course and follow the link to the Discussions. One of the first messages you write in the forum should inform your fellow classmates about the nature of the project you are hoping to create. The forum is an excellent place to network with your fellow students and form teams in which you can work together to create your projects. To earn all your discussion points, write a thoughtful message at least once per week during the course. Creating a new discussion post counts the same as responding thoughtfully to an existing post. Use the discussions to share knowledge with each other during the course. You can write about emerging technologies, societal issues, multimedia tools, instructional design, or any topic related to helping your fellow classmates become effective eBook authors.
Assignment #4: Cool Tool Wiki
This course has a wiki that you can enter by following the link to Assignments-->Cool Tool Wiki after logging on to your online course. In this wiki, we want you to write a message in which you share with your fellow classmates the coolest tool you discovered while taking this course. On your page in the wiki, tell us the Web address of your cool tool, and describe the reasons why you think this tool is cool. In addition to creating new pages, the wiki also enables you to modify or add to submissions made by your classmates. If you have more information about a tool submitted by one of your classmates, for example, you can select the option to edit that page and add your own thoughts. Through this process of having every member of this course contributing to the wiki, we develop a shared knowledge base of cool tools and best practices for using them.
Assignment #5: Checkpoint #1
This is your first checkpoint for submitting project logs to be reviewed by your instructor. In your log, please write about the contributions you made so far toward accomplishing your project's goals. You may also write about problems your project encountered and tell how you plan to solve them. The deadline for submitting this log is flexible, but in general, you should try to submit it about one third of the way through the course.
Assignment #6: Checkpoint #2
This is your second checkpoint for submitting project logs to be reviewed by your instructor. In your log, write about the contributions you made toward accomplishing your project's goals, and describe any problems your project encountered and tell how you plan to solve them. The deadline for submitting this log is flexible, but in general, you should try to submit it about two thirds of the way through the course.
Assignment #7: Checkpoint #3
This is your third and final checkpoint for submitting project logs to be reviewed by your instructor. In your log, write about the contributions you made toward accomplishing your project's goals, and describe any problems your project encountered and tell how you plan to solve them. The deadline for submitting this log is flexible, but in general, you should try to submit it during the final third of the course.
Assignment #8: eBook Project
Final versions of eBook projects must be published via one of the eBook distribution methods taught in the course. As mentioned in the course preamble, the purpose of your project is to demonstrate the manner in which you have decided to use the various eBook authoring and publishing tools. Your submission does not need to be long or extensive. It is better to write a short eBook demonstrating the techniques you have learned rather than to publish something more extensive but not so well edited. Your professor grades for quality, not quantity.
Assignment #9: Course Evaluation
Your final assignment in this course is to evaluate it. Toward the end of the course, you will receive an email from the School of Education sent to your udel.edu email address. This email tells you when the course evaluation window is open. You must log on to the course evaluation system within this window of time. The Web address of the course evaluation system is www.udel.edu/course-evals. After you complete the course evaluation, your instructor will give you credit for completing it. The responses you give are completely anonymous. While your instructor will be able to see the ratings and comments, it is impossible for your instructor to identify the person who gave a certain rating or made a given comment. Once you complete the evaluation, your grade on this assignment will be an automatic A.
