A Usability Study for Promoting E-Content Essay Example for Free

A Usability Study for Promoting E-Content Essay Electronic content or e-content is defined by creating, providing, and distributing information as a digitized content. It is produced and stored electronically rather than in printed form. E-contents use in education can be in the form of e-journals, e-books, e-research reports, e-lecture modules, e-lecture notes and e-lecture slides. E-content has a huge potential in future education. Many higher education institutions publish books, research reports, lecture modules, theses and other information for academic purposes, but they are usually in print-form rather than electronic. Although, there are compelling reasons why these printed publication should be in electronic form. E-content use in education benefits from hyperlinking, non linearity, addition of multimedia, portability, and automatic searching. Hyperlinking is where contents can be linked to other pages inside and outside the book. Users can determine the order of accessing information by non-linearity. The addition of multimedia in presentation has been enhanced by the introduction of information types such as, sound and video. The data density has also been reduced where, storage capacity is decreased due to less storage of printed contents, while portability of information has increased. Searching for useful contents is enhanced by the ability of the users to locate any information instantly via e-content. As a whole, the usage of e-content requires less effort, thus making it more easier than printed contents. The outcome of some studies suggest that the involvement with computers through the use of e-content can promote positive attitude towards learning and higher achievement among learners. Studies also show that computer based learning leads to a significant increase in in the learners performance in reading, computer knowledge, mathematics and grammar. There is a huge potential in marketing e-contents to students through the internet. They can take advantage of this technology in which students can get fast access to study materials at a cheaper cost. Promoting, publishing and marketing e-contents are accomplished through electronic bookstores such as, E-campus.com, Amazon.com and e-libraries for instance e-Library.com. It serves as a portal for the e-content community and readers who are seeking information. E-content has a huge potential in increasing the satisfaction of students as well as academics. Many higher education institutions are introducing electronic learning environment through the web to their students. It is believed that,e-content can help promote academics work worldwide and assist students to immediate access to lecture notes, modules, and textbooks.