The growth of digital technology triggers a new wave to the development of new media alternative including digital textbook. A variety of digital textbook formats and the content is easily transportable cross media can lead to complexity of user expectations. Considering usability elements is one of the critical successful factors to ensure the digital textbook meets the user expectation. Despite, overwhelming research and standards pertaining usability, there is still a lack of efforts to systematically review the concept of usability elements in the digital textbook development context. The research seeks at addressing this gap by evaluating the current literature on the notion of usability components regarded in digital textbook development. A systematic analysis of the Scopus and Web of Science databases acknowledged 17 related studies from 213 journal articles, guided by the evaluation method of the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis). Further review of these articles resulted 17 usability factors have been identified. These usability factors further produced a total of 49 usability properties. The review provides a better understanding of usability factors and criteria that need to be considered in the development of digital textbook and shows that usability elements is crucial for improving the digital textbook quality. In addition, this research provides a basis for the future research in usability elements of digital textbook.

This article analyzes the effects of crowdfunding on the processes of generating value in Spanish publishing companies in order to understand the extent to which their use can be integrated and modify the existing publishing business models. Through a qualitative approach (case study), the type of publishing company that uses this formula will be determined, the nature of the publishing projects where it is applied and the type of crowdfunding that is most frequently used, to conclude that crowdfunding is used in Spain: (a) by small publishing companies, (b) in those publishing projects that exceed the capacity of a publishing organization to obtain the necessary resources through traditional channels, and (c) in its modality of non-monetary rewards.

The BISG’s Subject Codes committee follows a structured, consensus-driven process to update and maintain more than 4800 subject headings. The latest version added 210 subject codes, changed 90 literals, reactivated a previously inactive code, and deactivated 8 codes. Changes affected 23 of the 54 main subject areas.

This paper explores the factors that influence the border-crossing potential of picturebooks by examining the experiences of a Taiwanese publisher who has successfully introduced Taiwanese picture books to the world. This study may uncover some maneuvers that may help balance the asymmetry of the book trade. In particular, the strategies to market picturebooks internationally and to nurture local talent may contribute to an understanding of the underlying elements that influence the opportunity for picturebooks to be sold across borders.

Enjoying widespread government support and encouragement for the digital projects of publishers and media industry. The Chinese publishing business continues to show steady development in the past year. At the same time, significant changes are taking place in the structure of the publishing industry. The content production, marketing, operating, and consumption are not linear upstream–downstream related any more. Instead, they have fused together, and thus formed a new industrial ecosphere. In this paper, we investigate the new technology research and practice in the digital publishing industry. There is obvious indication that new technology plays an important role in the structural change of the publishing industry.

This study reports how internationalization of academic knowledge is reflected in the language choice of Korean academic journals across disciplines and examines perceptions and practices of eighty two faculty from various disciplines at three Korean universities concerning publishing in English journals. The results indicate that natural science has the highest percentage of English-medium journals whereas those in humanities and social science predominantly use Korean as a medium of publication. Similar disciplinary patterns are observed in the responses to survey questions about frequency of publication as well as desire and preference for publishing papers in English. The biggest motivation for Korean scholars to publish in English was the desire to reach global scholarly communities. Implications of these findings are discussed.

E-books have increasingly penetrated the academic world. However, despite efforts from Vietnamese universities and colleges to establish and broaden their e-books collection, students seem reluctant to use these digital books. This study aims to examine the barriers to using e-books in libraries among Vietnamese students. Data were obtained from 355 undergraduate students who were interested in e-books. The findings demonstrate that some key barriers impeding students from using e-books include the lack of computers and e-books in libraries, limited information and knowledge about e-books and their preference of using print books. Interestingly, female students tend to perceive the barriers to be stronger than their male counterparts. This study’s findings have important implications for universities, libraries and publishers who seek to promote e-books to students.

In this paper, we present the Eastern European (EE) region as part of the Global South with all its disadvantages, and we will argue that “Sovietization” of the region is, in many respects, similar to the colonization of different world regions. We also show that the disadvantages of the region still exist after the transition, and EE has an especially low contribution to communication and media studies (CMS). With a brief bibliometric analysis in CMS, the paper demonstrates that a strong bias holds against EE authors and editorial board members in leading periodicals in CMS, and at least 95% of EE research remains unnoticed by international scholars. We further argue that this phenomenon is obviously harmful to the field of CMS. This paper not only points out the general difficulties Eastern European communication scholars might face when trying to make their research internationally visible, but it also snatches at the chance to introduce a novel, a respected but internationally yet unnoticed Easter European (Hungarian) communication theory, namely, the Participation Theory of Communication.