Electronic textbooks for ukrainian education: Statistics, models of development, quality problems

Abstract

The article provides the result of scientific research on developing electronic textbooks (e-textbooks) for Ukrainian schoolсhildren. The aim of this empirical research was to compare e-textbooks development in 2018 and 2019, found out the major players in the Ukrainian e-textbook market for general secondary education institutions, the level of e-textbooks’ provision in primary, middle and high schools, subjects that are most popular among Ukrainian e-textbooks publishers. It was found out that the number of e-textbooks publishers has grown from 5 in 2018 to 9 in 2019, the largest number of e-textbooks for schoolchildren were developed for the 1st grade students (19 e-textbooks), the least number for the 11th grade students (2 e-textbooks). It was developed the most e-textbooks in the subjects "I explore the world" and "Mathematics" for the 1st grade (7 and 5 respectively). The study identified and described two e-textbooks development models of Ukrainian publishers (outsourcing and standalone) and the platforms they used. An outsourcing model was used by 6 publishers, a standalone one used by 2 ones; 19 e-textbooks were produced using the first model; 27 e-textbooks were developed using the last one. Two of the publishers developed e-textbooks using both models. The most popular platforms for e-textbooks developing were the platform of the Multimedia Publishing House Rozumnyky (14 e-textbooks) and the mozaBook Editor program of the Hungarian company Mozaik Education (15 e-textbooks). It was outlined some quality problems of developed e-textbooks and suggested the directions for further improvement of e-textbooks.