A "prototype" for the Web-based electronic textbook

by Spyros Reveliotis

Research Objectives

Regarding the "electronic text" concept, the primary issues addressed in this research have been:

• the ability to organize the text material effectively and efficiently in a non-linear modular structure, reflecting the underlying logical structure of the involved concepts,
• the degree of text reconfigurability, maintainability and re-usability, resulting from the aforementioned systematic structuring, and the versatility of the electronic medium,
• the ability to integrate multi-media features like sound, video, graphics and animation, and the exploration of the ways in which these new capabilities enhance the material presentation, and
• the ability to integrate platforms supporting the on-line execution of customized interactive examples.

Research Methods and Findings

1. The text notes were initially developed in (LaTex), and subsequently converted to HTML by the latex2html converter. This conversion software is quite robust; some complications can arise from the presence of figures and mathematical text (which is treated as figures). The conversion provides automatic text structuring and hyperlinking, which maps directly to the structure established by the sectioning and cross-referencing in the original text. Hence, good structuring of the electronic text requires careful structuring of the original, more traditional version of the material.

2. The maintainability and reconfigurability of the text material is determined by the latex2html conversion. Specifically, the modularized structure of the HTML text facilitates the local editing of the material, but the same structure, combined with the extensive hyperlinking, render any major editing/restructuring effort rather cumbersome. Additional editing complications can result from the fact that mathematical text is treated as gif figures. All these problems can be overcome, however, if all editing is carried out on the original LaTex document, and the resulting text is subsequently re-converted to HTML.

3. The topic of the developed text - Linear Programming - did not lend itself to very fancy multi-media applications. However, we have provided the ability to the reader to run her own interactive examples, by integrating appropriate software modules at the end of key sections. Some of this software was developed "in house" as JAVA applets, and some was "imported" by establishing appropriate links to other relevant Web sites.

4. In fact, as Web-based technologies become increasingly popular, a large number of very interesting applications, covering a broad spectrum of science and technology has been developed and offered for immediate (remote) use. A primary role of the "electronic text synthesis", is to effectively and efficiently integrate existing and new multimodal material, structuring it to serve the needs of the target course audience.

The Research Result...