Project Report (M.Pub.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Project Report (Master of Publishing Program) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Project Report (M.Pub.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Project Report (Master of Publishing Program) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.(Publishing)(Information Science)--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Title from opening screen (viewed 10 March, 2005). includes summary. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

This work is concerned with research in the field of electronic publishing and, more particularly, of electronic books. It concentrates on an analysis of the stages of development of an electronic book from the acquisition of the source material to the actual use of electronic books, with particular attention to the interface design issues. The main objective of this research is to demonstrate the appropriateness of adopting the paper book metaphor for representing electronic books, which are specifically designed to be parts of an electronic library. In addition, these electronic books are produced semi-automatically using a flexible publishing environment. A model for an electronic book (hyper-book) and an environment which supplies tools for generating electronic books (hyper-book builder) have been defined and successively developed. Hyper-books are produced by importing electronic texts (in SGML or ASCII format) into an empty template, and by applying a number of tools in order to provide appropriate layout and reader services. Hyper-books incorporate hypertext features (e.g. history facilities and links), paper book features, and some other computer facilities (e.g. search functions). Design principles for hyper-books have been partially deduced from paper publishing and from experiments with electronic books. An application in the environmental domain (in particular, in the area of Global Change) was developed and used in order to evaluate the hyper-book system. The objectives of the evaluation were mainly to assess system usability and utility. An evaluation conducted by assigning a number of tasks to two different groups of subjects (computer experts and computer non-experts) has demonstrated that both groups achieved a good performance; therefore, computer expertise does not represent a significant aid in order to perform better or execute tasks quickly. These results lead to the conclusion that the system is easy to learn and use by everyone, therefore it is appropriate to employ the book metaphor.

Inaug.-diss.--Freiburg i. Br. / Lebenslauf. "Quellenangabe": p. [126]-127.

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 1-4.

Inaug.-diss.--Göttingen. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [5]-11.

Inaug.-diss.--Tübingen. / Lebens- und bildungsgang. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. xiii-xv.

This research started from the observation that the appearance of information contributes to its overall value and that because there is an almost infinite number of possible ways to represent various kinds of information, it is very important to find the one which is going to be the most effective and which conveys as much of the value of the original information. In philosophical terms this concept could be seen as a particular instance of the Platonic vision of the universe, in his latter period, where the real world, the one we share, is only a pale and imperfect imitation of the world of ideas, the perfect one, to which every intellectual should aspire. Images as representations of ideas can help to access or at least get closer to ideas which otherwise would be too difficult to reach for human beings. Appearance has always played a key role in the learning process, as it facilitates the discovery of new concepts by allowing visual association with already familiar ones. This is why metaphors are so important in learning in general, and have therefore proved to be a valuable tool for designing new paradigms when adapting traditional tasks to changed environments. This research has focused on paper books as traditional repositories of information and on the art of paper book design as an effective technique for presenting information that has proven its worth over centuries of use. The next step was to consider if and how to apply the positive experiences from paper book publishing to the production of electronic books. The Visual Book is the result of the translation into electronic terms of the paper book metaphor when applied to scientific publications, with particular emphasis on the visual components of the metaphor. Where possible, the design of the Visual Book has followed the steps of the paper book production process, but it has also employed a technological component to take the new medium into account and has added additional functionalities which the computer can provide to the reader. The evaluation of the Visual Book has shown that the book metaphor has a very high impact on readers, which is particularly due to the firmly established tradition of reading information presented in that form. In this sense the Visual Book experiment has demonstrated both the importance of presentation issues when delivering information, and the value of traditional forms of publishing when defining new ones for an electronic context.