The emergence of social networking through the communal annotations of an e-book system

Work-in-progress is reported, taking a case study approach to investigate the delivery of an e-book which is constructed based upon the customisation of an existing Pearson Education text. Of particular interest is that the customisation will include a capability for dynamic highlighting and annotating of the e-book text to reflect activities stipulated in the course guide, and to facilitate interchange between students and the lecturer and between students and their student colleagues - a form of social networking. The data collection and evaluation of the impact of the e-book will provide insights into a number of aspects including: learning resource uptake; effectiveness of the resource suite components; and the means of staff instruction to students as facilitated using e-book resources.