UniKL, Kota Buku moving textbooks into the digital world
IN today’s digital world, a book can actually be transformed and converted into various mediums. The new emerging trend is said to reduce the reading habit among undergraduates, but this only applies to printed books and not to other reading platforms.
Book publishers, need to be more creative to increase content availability in alternative reading mediums which young readers are more attracted to.
Perbadanan Kota Buku chief executive officer Sayed Munawar Sayed Mohd Mustar said undergraduates were not reading less.
He said the younger generation has switched their reading habits from thick printed books to shorter and more compact writing styles.
“Students are still reading, mostly contents that have been re-branded into other mediums, such as Wattpad, blogs and many other social reading platforms,” he said at the launch of Universiti Kuala Lumpur’s (UniKL) e-book and letter of intent signing ceremony held recently.
He said with the launch of the e-book, Kota Buku were aiming for UniKL to create a new culture of content publishing as part of the campus lifestyle, thus motivating lecturers as writers and authors, as well as students as users and readers.
“We also envision that this collaboration will pave the way for many future content collaborations with other universities and colleges.
“This is a way that we could modernise the current delivery platform of learning contents by providing this smart alternative solution to overcome the issue of high book price, as well as book piracy in higher education institutions.
“It is a good value for money for students because of the cheaper cost. And e-books also provide convenience in terms of mobility.”
He said Kota Buku was at the frontier of establishing an academic e-book platform in Malaysia.
“We are the official platform for the National Digital Textbook with the Education Ministry for school textbooks.
“We believe our expertise in e-books should be expanded into higher education markets.
“UniKL on the other hand is looking for better ways to deliver its learning contents to its students in the most efficient and cheapest way.
“In regard to this, both parties had a consensus that e-books would be the best solution as they require no printing cost. Any update or amendment could be done at the author’s convenience rather than keeping physical book stocks, which definitely is not a smart cost-saving method for UniKL.”
He said UniKL had a pool of talented students, which would be assembled according to their expertise.
“Acknowledging this technical background of the university, Kota Buku will strive to tap the potential of digital illustrations and augmented reality models into commercial aspects in the future.”
UniKL is the first university to produce “Born Digital” textbooks for its students in digital format without having to go through the physical publication process.
‘Born Digital’ refers to materials that originate in a digital form into an eBook format by using an authoring tool systems, E-Studio, developed by Kota Buku.
The whole process of an e-book production using E-Studio is done completely digitally.
First, the author who acts as a subject matter expert produces the manuscript.
Once the manuscript is uploaded to E-Studio, the editors will then conduct editing process in the software itself. After the editorial process is finished, the e-book will be uploaded to Kota Buku’s e-book platform, Bookcapital.
“In other words, an e-book that is published using E-Studio as its authoring platform, unlike physical book, does not have to go through conventional printing process,” said Sayed Munawar.
“The students then will be able to download the book through Bookcapital reader’s app into their own devices and they will be able to access the e-book via the Bookcapital reader later at their own conveniences.”
UniKL Tunku Azizah Knowledge Centre senior manager (head) Pazilah Hamzah said e-books are more handy as it saves the university 30 per cent from the cost of normal printing.
“Editing a book’s next edition very easy. With the character of the latest generation of students, their usage of online materials supersede the usage of printed books.
“Our library statistics show that the students are more likely to use online materials (e-books) rather than printed book.
“Physical visits to our library are about 80,000 per year while online visits are more than 200,000.”
Pazilah said the main objective to capture tacit knowledge resided in the university’s expertise mind.
“We have a lot of materials, but it will be a waste if it is lost to other party outside. The launch is needed as an awareness programme so to make everybody in the book industry aware that we have the capability of starting our own e-book collection.”
Sayed Munawar said they have planned to add more e-textbooks in the future and to ensure their availabilities throughout the UniKL system of campuses.
“As for now, UNIKL owns 12 campuses in Malaysia, comprising of 25,000 students. Therefore, they require a better way to distribute textbooks among their students.
“By doing so, it will also fulfils their commitment to the Malaysian Qualification Agency, as well as being able to deliver standardised contents to all.
“We hope that our proposal to create bespoke libraries for the undergraduates will be considered well by the university authorities.”
Students are still reading, mostly contents that have been rebranded into other mediums.