Educational Considerations - Vol. 44 - Number 1 - Article 6 - Instructors’ Perceptions and Experiences Re: Creating and Implementing Customized E-Texts in Education Courses

Oct 15, 2026

The article reports findings from a detailed case study conducted during the 2016–2017 academic year to understand the outcomes of a major technology change initiative in a university’s College of Education. Initiated in 2012, the program funded instructors competitively to develop and implement open alternative electronic textbooks for their education courses, building on prior iPad support. It discusses e-texts as digital innovations, outlines formats such as page-fidelity and reflowable texts, and highlights recurring creation and ownership questions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

E-Texts

Educational Considerations | Volume 44
Number 1 Changing Teaching Education | Article 6 | | --- | --- | 4-2018 Instructors’Perceptions and Experiences Re: Creating and Implementing Customized E-Texts in Education Courses Deepak Prem Subramony Kansas State University, [deepak7@ksu.edu](deepak7@ksu.edu) Follow this and additional works at: [http://newprairiepress.org/edconsiderations](http://newprairiepress.org/edconsiderations) Part of the Instructional Media Design Commons Recommended Citation Subramony, Deepak Prem (2018) "Instructors’ Perceptions and Experiences Re: Creating and Implementing Customized E-Texts in Education Courses," Educational Considerations: Vol. 44: No. 1. [https://doi.org/10.4148/0146-9282.1692](https://doi.org/10.4148/0146-9282.1692) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Considerations by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, [please contact](please contact cads@k-state.edu)[ cads@k-state.edu](please contact cads@k-state.edu). Subramony: Creating and Implementing Customized E-Texts Instructors’Perceptions and Experiences Creating and Implementing Customized E-Texts in Education Courses Deepak Prem Subramony Introduction This article presents a key portion of the findings obtained from a detailed case study conducted during the 2016-2017 academic year to develop a holistic understanding of the outcome of a major technological change initiative at a large Midwestern university’s College of Education1. Launched in 2012 by the COE’s Dean, this initiative2 provided funding support to instructors3 on a competitive basis to encourage the development and implementation of open alternative electronic textbooks4 within their respective courses. It was envisaged as logically piggybacking a previous COE initiative that funded the issue of iPad devices to all undergraduate teacher preparation candidates within the College at no cost to them, as it would encourage the development of quality instructional content for delivery via the aforementioned iPads. By the start of the 2016-2017 academic year, the initiative had funded the development and implementation of multiple e-texts across several semesters, to the tune of roughly US$77,000 . E-Texts Applying digital media technologies5 to traditional print textbooks has resulted in the emergence of e-texts (Stone & Baker-Eveleth, 2013a), which can be accessed via the Internet and downloaded onto personal electronic devices such as the laptops, tablets, e-readers, and smartphones that are owned by the vast majority of learners today (Rockinson-Szapkiw, Courduff, Carter, & Bennett, 2013) . In fact, even though e-books have existed in some form or other since the 1970s – starting with Michael Hart launching his Project Gutenberg in 1971 that led to the creation of electronic versions of thousands of print books (Embong, Noor, Hashim, Ali, & Shaari, 2012)– they only started being adopted in significant numbers after the development of the aforementioned devices (Ditmyer, et al., 2012) and their subsequently ubiquitous penetration into human society. Devices such as iPads are increasingly playing a leading role in the educational process within developed/affluent nations, and along with ematerials/e-texts are forming the basis of electronic education in these societies (Laketa & Draculic, 2015) . E-texts represent a technological innovation influencing education that involves the use of digital/electronic books as reusable components providing building blocks for instructional content (Stone & Baker-Eveleth, 2013b) . Rockinson-Szapkiw, et al. (2013, p. 260) described two formats in which e-texts existed at the time their piece was written: (a)“page-fidelity” e-texts 1 Hereinafter referred to within this article as the “COE.” 2 Hereinafter referred to within this article as the “initiative.” 3 The term “instruct

FAQs

What initiative supported instructors in developing customized e-texts?

A 2012 College of Education initiative provided competitive funding to instructors to develop and implement open alternative electronic textbooks within their courses.

How does the article define e-texts in the educational context?

It presents e-texts as a technological innovation that uses digital/electronic books as reusable components for instructional content.

What formats of e-texts does the article describe?

It distinguishes between “page-fidelity” e-texts with no dynamic media or interactive manipulation, and “reflowable” e-texts that allow flexible formats, dynamic media, and user modification of layout and interactive features.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by CatatanPagi