eSkript is a website. As mentioned before, if you’re reading this online, this is it. This page, and many others. This particular website is hosted on a WordPress server. WordPress is used all over the place for many things and mostly for blogs. To this server we have added some plugins that give us additional ‘services’ or functionalities.

The eSkript platform allows

• easy entering of text, pictures, videos, and anything html
• interactivity modules
• easy-peasy production of a PDF, an EPUB, a MOBI (and more formats if you want) of your content
• use of smooth public/peer annotation and private annotation for the students, by the students
• private lecturers’ boxes for your own comments on your content
• pleasant viewing thanks to a smart design

Lecturers’ view

As with bare HTML and an standard WYSISYG editor, it is easier to handle content than with MS Word. When you update the website, that is it. There is no distribution of files: no sending emails with attachments to students, no uploading of a new version onto moodle. You can do everything you’ve done so far and pep up your content with videos and interactivity. You can ask your students to ask their question online so all their peers will profit and everybody will get the same info and help. Soon there will be scenarios available (June 2017) on how to implement eSkript in your lecture to make the most out of it. You do not have to worry about devices, every student will find the appropriate format.

Students’ view

Non-digital students will consult the site for videos or interactive stuff but mostly they will download your content (PDF or…). If you change the content in the middle of the semester, they will get angry. They will not collaborate and answer any peers questions, unfortunately.

Digital students will be able to work on the material online. For them, there is no filing of your content, it’s out there, as available as a Wikipedia page. They will highlight, take private notes, and comment publicly. They will be happy to get answers on the spot where it matters and get the most up to date (and corrected) content next to visualization and interactivity if available. Some will miss the functionality of drawing and scribbling while learning. I know, I would. We hope to achieve this at some point. Few will wish to have an overview and different views of the content and even some progress bars that help them see where they are on their path. These things may well be implemented on eSkript in the future. These possibilities will never be available for PDF.

Technical side

eSkript is on the web and has a server behind it that makes the things you want to do for interactive lecture material possible.

Pressbooks is the main plugin of eSkript. It gives you the structure of a book or any structured content with different levels (table of contents). It’s navigation is linear but as you’re on the web, I could add a link you could follow or send you to the beginning. The next plugin is called Pressbooks Textbook. This one mainly gives us the possibility to share the exports (PDF, MOBI, EPUB,..) that Pressbooks produces on the main page of an eSkript. We have added a plugin of our own – ETHSkripts, thanx Lukas Kaiser – that defines the layout of the ETH eSkripts making them so beautiful to look at. (You can find the code on Github.) Lukas also added functionalities to Pressbooks (references, table of figures/lists, the first implementation of public annotation).

Plugins that add interactivity are H5P (interactive modules) and hypothes.is (public and private annotation). To make formulas look really cool on the web, we’re working (and testing) the KaTeX plugin. We use GoogleAnalytics to see what’s going on. The plugin Today’s Date lets us add the date to every export so we know about which version is currently available. Finally the Shibboleth plugin is installed and we have extendet the privacy settings to choose from ETHZ, UZH, both or all of SWITCHaai.

Collaboration is already given with the annotation functionality. But collaboration can happen creating the content. Roles (Administrator, Author, Editor, Subscriber) can easily be given on WordPress. Students can open their own eSkript and work together on a summary of a lecture, as one of many examples to come.

Further developments will hopefully include an LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) interface for moodle, better citations and much more.

Summary

Conclusion

Even though students can still not scribble on the lecture material, we’ve achieved quite a lot. Are you ready for it? Have a look at the User’s Guide to see some interactivity in action!