Croatian electronic textbook for teaching English as a foreign language in Croatian higher education

Pešut, Darija. (2017). Croatian electronic textbook for teaching English as a foreign language in Croatian higher education. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Information Science.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij informacijskih i komunikacijskih znanosti) [mentor Živković, Daniela].

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Abstract

The integration of computer technology and education has been ongoing for decades but the Internet has significantly improved and influenced this integration. The availability of everything from any place on earth has become almost a rule in all fields as well as education. Technological progress has brought upon the existence of a large number of different standards, protocols and devices. For this reason, the future needs to uniformize these differences so that technology can serve its purpose and not limit the user. Great progress has been achieved in the field of e-learning which enables different uses of ICT in teaching and learning. The modernization of education and the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) in the teaching process is part of many development strategies, from international, national to institutional. The increase in the number of people with tertiary education is highlighted as one of the targets in the European strategy "Europe 2020". In the Croatian Strategy for Education, Science and Technology this is to be achieved through measures of promoting the application of ICT in education, and by improving information and communication structures and systems for open access to literature. "Opening Education" is the initiative of the European Commission for the introduction of the digital revolution in education, which cannot be fully enforceable without electronic textbooks. Although the aim of this thesis is to contribute to the establishment of the principles for the creation, publishing and evaluation of a higher education electronic textbook, there was a need to take into account all the educational levels, from elementary to higher education. Because it is not possible to show all the electronic textbook aspects by making generalizations, the creation of the electronic textbook model and the position of the electronic textbook at the Croatian higher education institutions has been reviewed within the field of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The lower levels of education in Croatia have more significantly contributed to the introduction of electronic textbooks, while this thesis contributes to the standardization of publishing regulations and introduction of the electronic textbook into the higher education system. In elementary and secondary education, the definition of printed and electronic textbooks is found in a unified national textbook standard and other legal documents. In higher education the majority of higher education institutions have their own version of the rules on publishing activities, which also define the types of publications including the textbook. It is inconceivable that the object that is used for the same purpose in the same system of higher education is defined differently. The absence of the electronic textbook definition is also problematic. This thesis gives a comprehensive definition of the electronic textbook and recommends that higher education institutions include this definition in their regulatory documents so that proposed manuscripts could me more accurately categorized. In the goal of determining the need for a larger number of Croatian higher education EFL textbooks and to propose the way this should be done, seven hypotheses have been made and confirmed. All the possibilities of implementing electronic textbook publishing into the higher education publishing system have been reviewed along with the collection of data about the higher education publishing through surveys and analysis of publically available documents. Data on the characteristics of the electronic textbook were also collected through surveys among all the stakeholders in the process of creating, publishing and using the electronic textbook. The electronic textbook characteristics collected from the surveys together with the characteristics found in literature have been used to create an electronic textbook model. The characteristics were also used for testing the functionalities of free e-book software which could be used for creating electronic textbooks. An evaluation form for the electronic textbook within the higher education publishing process has also been made using these characteristics. The research results and the literature review have made it possible to present the concept of publishing the electronic textbook within the higher education system. The thesis considers and presents publishing the electronic textbook with commercial publishers and higher education institution as publisher, with a special overview of self-publishing and all the copyright issues. A conceptual model for the electronic textbook creation and an activity diagram of publishing the electronic textbook within the higher education system have also been presented. All the presented models and diagrams can be of use to the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports as guidelines in establishing education for teachers at all levels, in the creation of their own electronic textbooks. The biggest contribution is to the institutionalization of the electronic textbook within the Croatian higher education system.

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