What if I want my text to be available beyond University audience? Can my readers use Faceook or GoogleID to authenticate?

Development to offer OAuth based authentication (both Facebook™ and Google™ use OAuth) are underway.

How does the cost-recovery work? Will I see portion of the revenue?

eText works on a revenue split between the author and/or their department. The split is negotiated based on expected sales and always is very favorable to the author. eText’s revenue share is for cost recovery to support the service.

Who owns the copyright? What about copyright clearance?

Consistent with university policy faculty are understood to hold the copyright in their original work. It is not necessary to register your copyright, though you are welcome to do so. Staff in the University Library can usually help you with this.

The author or authors of original content or the Publisher must own rights to material made available on eText. Copyright clearances and releases must be obtained on all relevant material before making eTexts available.

What about DRM and copyright protection?

eText platform provides protection against digital rights violations. Users also have to sign an End User License Agreement (EULA) wherein they agree to refrain from willfully violating digital rights and copyrights.

Can consumers of my material get offline access?

As an author, you may choose to offer an ePub version of your book available for download by subscribers. The ePub would not have the interactive and communication features of reading while on the web platform. Future versions of eText will offer HTML5 offline local storage and syncing of notes, bookmarks.

How close is the eText experience to a paper book? How are eTexts received by students? By instructors?

While electronic textbooks differ from paper books due to their very nature, eText developers have strived hard to create a hardware reader experience (akin to Kindle™ or nook™) in a web browser. eText has been used by over 7,500 students to date, and has been very well received. Instructors also find its functionality easy to use and adopt.

What sort of multimedia can be included in a book?

Any multimedia supported by HTML5 and javascript standards can be used in an eText. Video, audio, images, scientific and math equations, charts, graphs, tables, and the HTML5 <canvas> tag are all possible. Appropriate accessibility accommodations are made for each media type.

Do all multimedia components need to have alternate descriptive text or captions?

eText’s first goal is a universally accessible reading and media experience that follows the Americans With Disabilities Act Section 508 guidelines. To guarantee this, all images have descriptive alternate text, videos have captions and descriptions, and media players have keyboard controls.

What does eText use for authentication and authorization?

eText currently uses Kerberos-based authentication and will be moving to Shibboleth-based authentication at the end of Spring 2013.

Who translates the works into eText?

The eText team will consult with the author on a deliverable draft format that best captures the author’s intent using standard tools. The eText team then starts with that final draft and converts the book into HTML5 fully accessible files. Each book is proofed and tested with assistive technologies before publishing.

Can I publish my content directly to eText?

We’re experimenting with WYSIWYG systems that will allow creation of semantic and accessible markup which can be imported into an eText book. We plan to offer this as a feature in future to streamline the authoring process.

What if I want to change the content in the book?

An eText book is published and stays unedited during the term it is being used in a class. Additions and modifications can be handled by either the author or the instructor by adding public notes within the book at appropriate spots in context. Often these pieces of “marginalia” are incorporated into the next edition of the book. A common cycle is to publish a book in the summer for use in the fall and spring semester (changes are added as “notes in the margin” as the course is being taught) the notes are then incorporated into an updated book and published the following summer.

I have a lab manual with lots of tables meant for data entry. How will eText handle data entry?

All tables within eTexts are easily printable for offline data entry in a laboratory setting. A future version will allow users to enter observational data right in the book using their computer, tablet or smartphone.

My course content includes a lot of mathematical material, can eText represent math, in an accessible way?

The eText team will work with content creators to convert mathematical/scientific content into MathML. Depending on how the content was created, this process can be straightforward or complicated.