Scroll - Essays on the Design of Electronic Text (FIS2309)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/43803
Scroll was a practice journal created by the class of FIS 2309, Design of Electronic Text, at Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. The students were challenged to create an open-access electronic journal to publish their major papers for the course.
Under the direction of Professor Joan Cherry, the journal was published as an exercise through which the students gain knowledge of electronic text: its design principles, uses and methods for evaluating usability.
Content came from the students themselves, as they submitted original papers on topics revolving around the issues and challenges of creating electronic text.
The archived journal website is available via Wayback Machine.
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Creating a Prize for the Best Digital Editions / Online Archives(2008) Yates, KimberlyAlthough the web has had a profound impact upon scholarly editing in the humanities, the profession has been slow to recognize digital editions. This paper proposes a prize for an online edition, and then tackles the issues of selecting and judging, including criteria for inclusion, usability, and assessing the work in its critical context. The article provides a useful contribution because no such prize exists, and because discussions about how to critically assess digital editions are sparse. References are drawn from a range of sources including reviews and inside accounts of current projects, studies of scholarly editing, colloquia about digital editions, and studies of usability guidelines.Item Academic Libraries Redefined: Old Mission with a New Face(2008) Thachill, GeetaDigital technology has created new models of education and learning; revolutionized the publishing industry and provided new ways to access, select and produce information. Universities have seen a growth in e-learning and distance learning students. Academic libraries have seen a stronger demand for electronic resources. This has impacted on the role of library services. This paper reviews scholarly and professional literature on the role of academic libraries in supporting the new models of education by procuring electronic resources and providing access to them using proper technical infrastructure and expertise. The paper also describes the continuing need for a physical space for intellectual and interactive work in an electronic environment.Item The e-reader industry: Replacing the book or enhancing the reader experience?(2008) Stone, NathanielDespite considerable media attention, portable electronic readers (e-readers) have not yet had a significant consumer impact. They offer several features unavailable in print media, such as easily accessible content and potential for interactive capacity similar to what can be found on the Internet. Flawed design and high cost, however, may inhibit wide end-user adoption. Using a mix of scholarly, electronic, and popular news media sources, this paper will analyze the impact of these factors on consumer acceptance of these devices.Item Towards Barrier-free Reading in the Digital Age: Electronic Texts for the Visually Impaired(2008) Ree, RobertDespite human-centered approaches to the development of electronic text, the visually impaired remain particularly susceptible to oversight. The digital realm has a strong bias toward visually-oriented representation, and is generally unaware of accessibility issues. To overcome this potential digital divide, efforts are underway in the development of both assistive reading technologies and accessible design practices. In examining this work and surrounding issues, it is revealed that rethinking the ‘mental model’ of reading holds much promise in enabling visually impaired users to explore, in nonlinear fashion, the rich ‘spatial structures’ possible in electronic texts.Item Digital Reading Theory and its Relationship to Academic Reading Practices(2008) Nowak, LisaAs students and scholars increase their use of digital texts, digital reading theorists consider how electronic text affects reading practices, learning, and scholarship. This essay examines the development of digital reading theory and its relationship to academic reading practice. Hypertext theory and the phenomenology of reading are evaluated as methods of understanding the digital reading process and as starting points for the development of new online reading tools. Empirical studies of academic reading and conceptions of appropriate reading tools are considered alongside theoretical developments to determine the impact of digital reading on scholarly practices.Item The Race to Create a Digital Library: Google Books vs. the Open Content Alliance(2008) Maidenberg, KlaraIn recent years, a number of organizations have begun the task of digitizing great numbers of books and making them accessible via the Internet. The two largest and best publicized initiatives are the Google Books and Open Content Alliance (OCA) projects. While they both aim to make large numbers of books accessible to users online, the two initiatives have several important differences, such as the motives of the parties involved, the transparency of the digitization process, and the way in which copyright issues are handled. This paper provides readers with an overview of the history and current issues surrounding these two consortia projects, and proposes some potential implications that they might have on libraries and their users.Item Dedicated E-reading Devices: the State of the Art and the Challenges(2008) Li, YuDedicated electronic text reading (e-reading) devices hold the potential to drastically improve e-reading experiences. Nevertheless, up to now they remain in a niche market. This paper surveys existing dedicated e-reading devices and related research to examine the state of the art and the challenges. Firstly, it briefly recounts the evolution of e-reading devices; secondly, it examines the development and issues regarding several critical aspects of this type of device, including form factor, display, interaction methods, connectivity, and e-text distribution methods; finally, it analyzes the reasons why these devices have not become mainstream, and speculates on their future.Item Students’ experience of using electronic textbooks in different levels of education(2008) Lau, JennyElectronic textbooks are not new; however, they have not been widely used in the public education system. Although many have predicted the popularity of electronic textbooks, the uptake has been less than anticipated. This essay reviews research literature to uncover the use and the acceptance of electronic textbooks in different levels of education. It discusses research studies which have shown an effect on students’ learning and concludes with a discussion based on the studies and provides suggestions for further development.Item Nurses and the Use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) at the Point of Care(2008) Johnson, CathyNurses are knowledge workers who require access to evidence-based resources to provide safe clinical care and improve patient outcomes. Nurses face heavy workloads, staff shortages, and limited technological resources, factors that inhibit their ability to access electronic healthcare resources where they need them most at the point of care. Although there is extensive research about nursing students using hardware devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) to access electronic resources, there are few studies about nurses who follow or continue this practice in the clinical setting. This paper discusses the use of PDAs to provide access to electronic educational resources for nurses at the point of care in a hospital setting. Although the use of wireless PDAs in nursing would facilitate access to an array of evidence-based resources, PDAs are not commonly used by nurses.Item What is Inhibiting the Proliferation of E-books in the Academic Library?(2008) Jenkins, AlannaIn the mid 1990’s many academic libraries began the transition to electronic holdings, specifically e-serials and e-books. Since this time services such as JSTOR and OVID have come to play an integral role in the dissemination of journal articles. E-book platforms such as Springer and MyiLibrary have also made an appearance in the academic library however not to the extent that e-serials have. This has left many wondering if and when e-books will achieve what their serial counterpart has. What is inhibiting the expansion of academic e-books collections will be examined, including issues surrounding their lack luster history, Digital Rights Management, reading tools and advertisement.Item The Effects of Electronic Books Designed for Children in Education(2008) Chau, MichelleElectronic books are quickly becoming more prominent in the field of education because of their advantages over traditional printed textbooks. As more electronic textbooks are being produced and utilized in classrooms, we must investigate just how useful and effective they are in teaching young children the important skills they need for higher learning. This paper reviews some of the current views on the topic for teaching and learning and discusses how electronic books can be integrated into the classroom learning environment. Research has shown that when used as a teaching supplement, electronic books have a positive impact on learning. They can be valuable in helping children with their early literacy development, reading comprehension, and language development.Item Electronic text and visually impaired users: standards & the move toward Universal Accessibility(2008) Camisso, JamonVisually impaired users of electronic texts face a number of barriers to accessibility, from the degree of vision or learning disability to their familiarity with braille or ability to use hardware and software. Screen readers, braille embossers, OCR technology, and standard data formats like DAISY can all be used to make electronic text accessible for almost all visually impaired users. Ultimately by standardizing accessible formats, sighted and non-sighted users will all be able to read the same texts via the modality (vision, hearing, touch) of their choice.Item E-newspapers: Revolution or Evolution?(2008) Bokesoy, DenizAbstract This paper reviews the ongoing discussion regarding the impact of e-newspapers in modern life. New technologies allow e-newspapers to offer interactive elements to their readers that were not possible in the print medium. For some people, these innovations are revolutionary, transforming the news industry. However, during their short history, the role and the design of e-newspapers have followed closely the traditions built over the centuries by print newspapers. The paper concludes that e-newspapers have yet to define their identity, which will possibly be an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary process.